http://fmep.org/blog/2016/03/say-word-occupation/

Say The Word: Occupation

Blog Post

March 24, 2016 Mitchell Plitnick “You can not like the word, but what is happening is an occupation — to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, May 2003
On Monday, most of the presidential candidates addressed the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The speeches hit all the usual marks, with the candidates striving to show that they would promote Israel’s interests better than the others. Palestinians were mentioned almost exclusively in the role of the demonized villain, and the notion of a resolution of the conflict was barely given even the emptiest kind of lip service, if it was mentioned at all.
All of these speakers avoided using one particular word: occupation. None of them offered any hint that they acknowledged that Israel was occupying territory not legally its own, ruling over millions of Palestinians without basic rights. Only Bernie Sanders, delivering a speech from the campaign trail in Utah, mentioned the word.http://fmep.org/blog/2016/03/say-word-occupation/