[joshenberg]

People with loooong memories will say that Islamic Palestine arose after the forcible removal of Jewish culture from the area after the Jewish wars against Rome, at which point the Romans relabelled the area from Judea to Syria Palestina. Therefore the idea that Palestinians are 'indigenous' is in contention, since the diasporic Jewish people retained their language and customs in the interim, and then sought refuge in their land of origin throughout the early 20th century and beyond. Even the word 'semitic' describes a cultural (language) origin in the Middle East, so to describe Palestine as occupied (and therefore the Jews as being interlopers) is technically "antisemitic". I don't think these things excuse the human rights abuses caused by the current state, but its opponents often call for its dissolution based on their 'rightful' ownership of the land which is a gray area.

[giraffe_lady]

OK thanks for the answer I guess. That seems like a lot of technical scaffolding to disqualify the use of a common, useful, and mostly accurate shorthand description of the current political arrangement there. I will continue to call it an occupation and continue to get called antisemitic for that probably.

[z3c0]

Sadly, its use in politics has shifted the term from referring to a brand of hatred to simply meaning that you do not agree with Israel's claims of victimhood.