I don't think anyone on here is defending the Israeli actions. They're by and large indefensible. But they're not occupying the Gaza Strip although they and Egypt are maintaining a blockade of sorts.
But one question no one ever answers - up to 1967, when Israel did occupy the West Bank & Gaza Strip, the former had been annexed by Jordan and the latter was under military occupation by Egypt. Why didn't they simply hand over the territory to the Palestinians then?
The reason why no one care to answer that said question is because it no longer has any bearing to the current and recent events that have transpired in this conflict. It is a retrospective whataboutery bordering on the pedantic because there were different leaders then, each with different ideologies, there were people with different expectations of their future, there were parties that no longer exist now (eg. UAL) and parties that didn't exist then (e.g. Hamas), different opinions from different political parties including different US presidents with differing stances. Fundamentally, the whole landscape was different then and surely it takes little effort to realise that this intricate situation is dynamic. For such a retrospective query like above, people can come up with hundred others at this current point in time. What if Israel didn't follow through with their six day war? What if Palestinians were not driven from their homes? What if Egypt treated Palestinians like their own citizens? Hundreds of questions. All these questions are pointless because these questions did not become social queries the proceeding years after 1967. You only ask of them because of the hindsight that is now. And debating about them now is an exercise of whataboutery to implicate those affected today based on decisions made by people 50 years ago who god knows what played in their minds, their vested interest, their professional against personal intent.
But let's entertain this question nevertheless. Why didn't they (Jordan and Egypt) simply hand over the territory to the Palestinians then? let's engage this discourse no matter how subjective or speculative it is. Firstly, this is a double barrelled enquiry so we split the circumstance to the West Bank and Gaza.
When Jordan annexed West Bank, the Jordan then treated Palestinians as equal citizens. They had the right to amenities, the right to farm, the right to travel, the right to be part of the government up to the high echelons, were paid salaries, pensions, endowments. There were few if any reasons why Palestinians would despise Jordan because they are treated as lords to their own lands. With such positive conditions, the rhetorical question to ask is why would Palestinians go in haste to request West Bank as a separate state? They may harbour the dream of one day having West Bank as part of a separate state and, who knows, Jordan may perhaps entertain this idea once Palestinians can stand on their two feet. But for Palestine and for Jordan, the Palestine is in the people more than the land and they were content under Jordan occupation. For Jordan, they found this approach better and more advantageous than 'simply returning' it to the Palestinians.
Gazans on the other hand, was in stark contrast to West Bank Palestinians. Egypt was not as open to embracing the Palestines as Jordan was, for their own reasons we can only speculate at best. The area was under military rule, and there were limitations on amenities, rights, travels. There were many reasons why Palestinians do not favour the treatment under the then Egyptian influence. Egypt found this arrangement as more trouble than its worth, yet, having Gaza under their occupation provided various regional advantages which may justify from the Egypt standpoint why keeping Gaza rather than 'simply returning' it to Palestinian is the best course of action for them despite drawing contempt.
The spanner in this two situations were the feda'in. They should not be misconstrued as the Palestinians that have been described in both situations above.The time then, 1950-1960s, highly documented that the arab league was unanimously opposed to the state of Israel. The feda'in, or parties sharing its ideology, operate from West Bank and Gaza. So an argument can be made that these lands were not returned to the Palestines prior to 1967 because they conveniently act as buffers for their host countries, either for trade, military, political, combinations of these...who knows, only those in the boardroom are verbose in these unwritten policies. Despite these buffers, retaliation from Israel spilled into Jordan and Egypt. During the course of the battles in West Bank and eventually Jordan - again with leadership changing hands and dynamic ideologies shifting and parties no longer having shared outcomes - the feda'ins were left on their own, to the point that the feda'in were attacked from the Jordan side. Again, for reasons unknown these decisions were made by the leaders then. A similar fate befall on the feda'ins in Egypt. In this melee, the people of Palestine are caught in the middle. Their sole objective now after being given hard love by Jordan to stand on their two feet in West Bank, and left to strive through hardships and limitations by Egypt in Gaza - is now to have a country of their own - Palestine.
So to answer the question, there was no haste to create a one Palestine state when these two areas were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. Jordan was complementary to West Bank Palestinians, less so for Gazans by Egypt but there was hope of the latter changing which indeed eventually reached once when fair treatment for Gazans were granted, only to again be stifled by a military coup. Once again a change in leadership and ideologies. Jordan at the time was a more stable state than Egypt which was not surprising why there were two contrastive treatments. But the fundamental answer to this question is that back then there was no haste for the two host countries to 'simply return' the territories to the Palestinians. This question only became asked in retrospect with a more intense debate on realising the State of Palestine - because 1) its people were displaced, and 2) those who remained have been oppressed. These two factors did not exist during Jordan and Egypt's occupation.
After the Israeli occupation of these territories, 'Palestine' becomes the land more than the people as the land symbolised not only their home but their dignity.
So why does Israel not 'simply return' these territories to the Palestinians? They can officially declare it tomorrow if they want to. But no, certain individuals have their own forms of leadership, their own ideologies, their own vested interest, their own presumptions of what will happen, their own stakeholders to satisfy, their own mistrusts of the other. Which makes this whole subjective discourse to the very first paragraph pedantic.
Instead, we must certainly come to one point admitting that shooting children is not the answer, and also in this internet media age, the sneakiest of spin doctors control the present and the future.
