Asked to explain what she meant by her use of the word “occupation,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “Oh, I think what I meant is that the settlements that are increasing in some of these areas and places where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes.”

“I think what I meant”? You mean you are not quite sure what you meant? But you sorta kinda meant that those Israeli settlements (towns) are increasing in number, and that makes things harder for the “Palestinians” in having “access to their housing and homes.” Let’s get this straight. Those settlements — better to call them towns — are perfectly legal. See the Mandate for Palestine, Articles 2, 4, and, especially, Article 6. When the League of Nations ended, its successor organization, the United Nations, in Article 80 of the UN Charter — once known unofficially as the Jewish People’s clause — preserved intact all the rights granted to Jews under the Mandate for Palestine, even after the Mandate’s expiry on May 14-15, 1948.

Howard Greif has explained in exhaustive, but necessary, detail:

Under this provision of international law (the Charter is an international treaty), Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel were not to be altered in any way unless there had been an intervening trusteeship agreement between the states or parties concerned, which would have converted the Mandate into a trusteeship or trust territory. The only period of time such an agreement could have been concluded under Chapter 12 of the UN Charter was during the three-year period from October 24, 1945, the date the Charter entered into force after appropriate ratifications, until May 14-15, 1948, the date the Mandate expired and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Since no agreement of this type was made during this relevant three-year period, in which Jewish rights to all of Palestine may conceivably have been altered had Palestine been converted into a trust territory, those Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remained in full force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80 to uphold, or is prohibited from altering. As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the “Palestinian Authority.” Among the most important of these Jewish rights are those contained in Article 6 of the Mandate which recognized the right of Jews to immigrate freely to the Land of Israel and to establish settlements thereon, rights which are fully protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter. It should be common knowledge that under the Mandate, all of Palestine was reserved exclusively for the establishment of the Jewish National Home and future independent Jewish State, as was previously decided at the San Remo Peace Conference that took place in April 1920. Or put another way, no part of Palestine was allotted for an Arab National Home or state, since Arab self-determination was being generously granted elsewhere – in Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and North Africa – which has led to the establishment of the 21 Arab states of today, over a vast land mass from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean. There is thus no necessity for a new independent Arab State in the specific area of former Mandated Palestine reserved for Jewish self-determination, most particularly, in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Creating such a state out of Jewish land would be blatantly illegal under Article 80 of the UN Charter and beyond the legal authority of the UN itself. In this respect, neither the League of Nations nor its successor, the United Nations, ever had sovereign rights over the land we Jews call Eretz-Israel. As a non-sovereign, the UN has no power whatsoever to allot territory to the “Palestinian Authority” where the allotted territory already belongs to the Jewish People.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs to study up. She can, and should, make the time.

The Jewish towns (“settlements”) in the West Bank are being built on land that was part of Mandatory Palestine and that was mostly “state” and “waste” land. Some private land has also been bought from Arab landowners, at exorbitant prices. If the “Palestinians” have had to endure some roadblocks, it is not because Israelis are wantonly disruptive, but because of a long uninterrupted history of terrorist attacks on Israelis in the West Bank. Roadblocks and checkpoints are security measures, and naturally more are installed just after a terrorist attack, and then are taken down when the manhunt for terrorists is over.