Christine, Cindy and Jane:

To use the word “occupied” was totally wrong as a government agency in your “proclamation”

You incited wrongdoing by Israel in your use of the word “occupied”.

You did not have to use the persecutory phrase “occupied”.

You used the term “politically, without regard for its general or legal meaning.

Your use of the “term occupation”, in political rhetoric like this, reduces complex situations of competing claims and rights to predefined categories of right and wrong.

By using that term in your “Proclamation” advances the argument that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians, while the use of the phrase limits and denies Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian terror, and thus relieving the Palestinian side of responsibility for its own actions and their consequences.

The use of “Occupied” is also employed by you as part of a general assault upon Israel’s legitimacy, in the context of a geopolitical narrative.

And to further show which side you are taking point to the fact that you did not issue nor include in, a proclamation calling for the immediate release of “Hostages” and the immediate surrender of those responsible for the slaughter of innocent Israelis.

Norris Palmer,

San Juan Island