By Mark Goldfeder

A dozen radical lawmakers known for their anti-Israel bias, led by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decrying Israel’s plans to begin implementing President Trump’s Vision for Peace and calling for the United States to withhold military aid if Israel applies its law to some of the territories in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) over which Israel has lawful sovereign rights.

The letter demonstrates once again that Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow leaders of the left wing of the Democratic Party are trying to turn what has long been a staple of bipartisan agreement, support for Israel, into just another area of conflict. Constituents need to understand exactly whom they might be voting for in November: politicians who actively promote false narratives with potentially critical implications.

Ocasio-Cortez's letter is disingenuous and dangerous. Legal terms have precise definitions. For example, the West Bank is not illegally occupied. Israel’s planned extension of civil law to Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley is not an annexation.

Occupation occurs only when a country takes control of a territory owned by another legitimate sovereign. Annexation is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state. There is not yet, nor has there ever been, a state of Palestine from which to take. If there were, calls for a two-state solution would be redundant.

Israel is the only country in existence with any legal claim to title and sovereignty over the territory in question. The Jewish people’s rights to the land were guaranteed by the 1920 San Remo Resolution and the 1922 Mandate, then reconfirmed by the 1945 United Nations Charter. Israel lawfully inherited title to and de jure sovereignty of the full mandatory area when Israel emerged from the mandatory system.

After Jordan (along with five Arab countries) invaded Israel in 1948, Jordan seized and illegally occupied Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley for 19 years, renaming this area "the West Bank." Although Israel lost de facto possession of this territory for that period, Israel never lost her sovereign rights, guaranteed under binding international law. Israel regained control over this territory in a defensive war in 1967.

Ocasio-Cortez's letter seems oblivious to the fact that, despite the legality of its territorial control, Israel has already given back the vast majority of the land it retook. It did so in a series of attempts to make peace. Israel gained a total of 26,178 square miles of territory in 1967. To date, it has ceded sovereignty over 23,871 square miles of that or 87% of that territory. At various times in recent history (including deals proposed in 2000, 2008, and 2014), Israel has offered up to 99.3% of the remaining disputed territory in exchange for peace. Each time, the Palestinians refused.

Ocasio-Cortez's letter simply ignores legitimate Israeli rights and security needs, or that there could be any Jewish equivalent of the endorsed Palestinian “national rights.” Likewise, the letter makes no mention of the Palestinian Authority’s intransigence and support for terrorism, including payments to terrorists to murder Jews.

Indeed, there is no mention of Palestinian wrongdoing at all. The words peace, coexistence, and negotiations appear nowhere in the document. It does, however, include the absurd claim that the Palestinians “understandably refused to participate in a process that is not grounded in a recognition of their national rights under international law.” That sentiment sounds reasonable only if you ignore both the Palestinian Authority’s history of turning down generous proposals, and their blanket refusal to engage in the very peace talks that led to this moment — talks that once again included the opportunity for a Palestinian state.

That opportunity is still very much on the table, should Palestinian leaders choose to come and sit.

Ocasio-Cortez’s letter is also dangerous because U.S. military aid to Israel, while generous, is an investment, not charity. Supporting Israel in combating Middle Eastern terrorist groups and expansionist potentates is crucial for America’s own national security. Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East and our only reliable source of intelligence and cyberdefense.

Our shared security interests include but are not limited to preventing nuclear proliferation, combating terrorism, containing Iranian, Turkish, and Russian expansionism, and promoting the rule of democracy. Israeli-developed technology protects our citizens and troops at home and abroad. In addition, U.S. military aid to Israel is actually spent in the U.S., providing jobs and economic growth that benefits our own defense industry. Jeopardizing these benefits while pressuring a longtime ally to surrender both its rights and its attempt to forge a lasting peace, in a hostile region with an unwilling partner, under a plan sanctioned by our president no less, is simply not defensible.

Israel has the legal right to implement the Vision for Peace and to exercise Israeli law over land that Israel owns. American politicians have the moral responsibility to not hurl false accusations at our allies and to protect our own security interests by protecting the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Already two years ago, when Ocasio-Cortez was first campaigning, she criticized Israel and referred to Israel’s presence in the West Bank as an occupation. When pushed by PBS’s Margaret Hoover to explain why she said that, she was unable to answer, and tried to laugh it off by explaining that she is not an expert on the issue. Now that she is in Congress, she needs to stop pretending to be one.

Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations.