The Biggest Lie About Israel That Too Many People Believe

I hate to break it to you, but Israel isn’t “stolen land.” Every nation was built on war. Here's the history and lessons they won't teach you.

photo: Cole Keister/Unsplash

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Few slogans sound as morally righteous (yet intellectually bankrupt) as the “pro-Palestinian” jingle they call “no peace on stolen land.”

This phrase, parroted by decolonization activists, “anti-Zionists,” out-of-touch academics, and their social media cheerleaders, is intended to delegitimize Israel’s existence. Like most trendy activist catchphrases, it relies on a superficial appeal to emotion rather than any substantive understanding of history, sovereignty, or the realities of nationhood.

To its believers, Israel is a colonial outpost, an illegitimate state built upon land “stolen” from indigenous Palestinians. According to this logic, the very existence of Israel is an act of ongoing injustice, and thus, no peace is possible until the “stolen” land is returned.

But this argument collapses under even the most basic scrutiny. Not only does it ignore history, but it also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how nations come to exist and persist in the real world.

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The notion that Israel is “stolen land” is a deliberate distortion of history. It disregards millennia of Jewish presence in the land of Israel, the Jewish People’s deep religious and cultural ties to it, and the legal and diplomatic processes that led to Israel’s modern rebirth.

Unlike actual colonialism — where a foreign power seizes distant lands by force — Jews have an uninterrupted historical claim to the land. Jewish civilization thrived there for centuries before being conquered by the Romans, Byzantines, and later Muslim empires. Even after expulsions and persecution, Jewish communities remained in cities like Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed (collectively known as the four holy cities in Judaism, a faith and civilization that far predates Christianity and Islam).

The modern return to Israel was not an act of conquest, but one of self-determination — and even one of decolonization. Jews legally purchased land, built cities, and established institutions under the framework of the British Mandate.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan provided for both a Jewish and an Arab state — an arrangement accepted by Jews but rejected by the Arab leadership, who instead launched a war to destroy the nascent Jewish state and expel its Jews and other “infidels” in a classic case of genocidal ethnic cleansing.

If land was “stolen,” it was not by Jews; it was by Arab armies that seized Jewish land in places like Judea and Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. More specifically, the Egyptian military occupied Gaza after this war, and Transjordan annexed Judea and Samaria (and rebranded it as “the West Bank”) as well as East Jerusalem, including the famed Old City of Jerusalem.

The idea that peace is impossible on so-called stolen land is also a uniquely weaponized argument against Israel. It is not applied to the United States, Canada, Australia, or even Arab states that have conquered and absorbed populations.

The hypocrisy is glaring. Why is Israel’s legitimacy questioned while no one suggests that peace in America is impossible because it exists on land taken from Native Americans? Why are Pakistan, Turkey, or Algeria not subjected to the same scrutiny?

Moreover, history is an unbroken chain of territorial conflicts. Borders are drawn and redrawn through war, negotiation, and political necessity. The Jewish People are among the few who have successfully reestablished their sovereignty in their ancestral land after centuries of exile.

If historical wrongs were rectified through displacement, nearly every country would need to be dismantled. The absurdity of this logic is evident: Do we return Constantinople to the Byzantines? Must Spain be given back to the Moors? Should America be erased entirely?

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Perhaps the most self-defeating part of the “no peace on stolen land” argument is its implication: If land was “stolen,” then peace can never exist. This is not just a poor reading of history; it’s an outright rejection of diplomacy and coexistence.

If we take this premise seriously, then no peace is possible anywhere, because all land has been contested at some point. This nihilistic view justifies endless violence, rather than progress, reconciliation, and the pursuit of a better future.

Ironically, it is the Palestinians — urged on by their nefarious supporters — who have rejected every opportunity for peace. Whether in 1937 (the Peel Commission), 1947 (the UN Partition Plan for Palestine), 1967 (the end of the Six-Day War), 2000 (the Camp David Summit), 2005 (Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza), and 2008 (an improved version of Oslo Accords) — every proposal for a two-state solution has been met with rejection and violence by mainstream Palestinian factions.

The refusal to accept Israel’s existence, rather than any supposed land theft, is the real obstacle to peace.

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Ultimately, the only thing that ensures a people’s continued presence in a land is the ability to defend it. Borders are not upheld by sentiment, but by power. Israel exists today not because of slogans or abstract legal arguments; it has defended its right to exist against those who would see it destroyed.

Folks chanting “no peace on stolen land” fail to recognize that history is not a morality play where good intentions dictate the outcome. It is a contest of survival, perseverance, and the ability to secure a future.

Israel has done what every successful nation throughout history has done: established sovereignty, defended it, and sought peace with those willing to accept reality. Let’s not forget an important fact: Israel has made peace with every country that has desired it, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and Indonesia.

Israel even had real, meaningful peace with Iran at one point, until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when the new regime, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, transformed Iran into a theocratic state that adopted a virulently anti-Israel stance, severing diplomatic ties and funding terrorist proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas to wage a relentless campaign against the Jewish state.

Therefore, those who insist that peace is impossible unless Israel ceases to exist are not interested in justice. They are interested in erasure.

They also ignore the complex and rapidly shifting realities of the Middle East, a region caught between two fundamentally opposing forces. On one side, Arab and North African nations are undergoing significant modernization, embracing economic reforms, expanding regional cooperation, and, in some cases, adopting more moderate social policies. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco are embracing modernization and geopolitical pragmatism, recognizing the benefits of diplomacy, technological advancement, and global integration.

On the other side, extremist forces are working to drag the region backward, seeking to reestablish a theocratic, tribally driven order reminiscent of the earliest days of Islamic conquest. These jihadist factions — whether in Iran, Afghanistan, or militant strongholds in Gaza, Yemen, and Syria — champion a worldview where religious fundamentalism dictates governance, women are stripped of their rights, and brutality is normalized. Their vision is not just anti-Israel, but anti-humanity, opposed to any form of progress that threatens their rigid interpretation of Islam.

This fundamental ideological battle — not colonialism, not Western imperialism, and certainly not Zionism — is the true fault line shaping the Middle East today. Those who claim that Israel is the primary obstacle to regional peace are willfully blind to the stark reality: The real struggle is between those who seek progress and those who demand regression, between nations forging a path toward stability and extremists determined to plunge the region into perpetual conflict and tyranny.

In many ways, the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 has been a tremendous service to the Middle East, acting as a catalyst for progress in a region historically plagued by tribalism, autocracy, and stagnation. From its inception, Israel has championed diplomacy, technological innovation, and global integration, proving that a small nation with limited natural resources can thrive through ingenuity, democracy, and an unwavering commitment to development.

Israel’s technological contributions alone have revolutionized the region. From water desalination and agricultural advancements that combat desertification to life-saving medical innovations and cybersecurity breakthroughs, Israel has positioned itself as a hub of progress. These achievements not only benefit its own citizens; they also extend to neighboring nations, including those that have historically been hostile.

Even before the Abraham Accords¹, Israeli technology played a crucial role in aiding countries like Jordan and Egypt, helping them manage their water crises and modernize their agricultural sectors.

Diplomatically, Israel has been a stabilizing force for those willing to engage. While many Arab and Muslim-majority nations once viewed it as a pariah, the undeniable economic and security benefits of cooperation with Israel have gradually shifted perspectives.

The Abraham Accords marked a turning point, demonstrating that peace and mutual prosperity are attainable when pragmatism overrides ideological extremism. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco have recognized that aligning with Israel means access to world-class technology, economic growth, and a strategic partner against shared threats like Iranian aggression and jihadist extremism.

Conversely, the forces that reject Israel’s existence are the same ones that resist modernity itself. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other extremist factions are not merely opposed to Zionism; they are opposed to the entire framework of progress, pluralism, and international cooperation. Their vision for the Middle East is not one of innovation and peaceful coexistence, but of regression to a time when conquest, subjugation, and rigid theocracy ruled unchecked.

Israel stands as a beacon of what is possible when a nation embraces education, democracy, and economic liberalization rather than succumbing to the cycles of violence and repression that have held much of the region back. Its very presence challenges the stagnant and oppressive ideologies that have stifled advancement in many Middle Eastern societies.

This is precisely why jihadists and radical regimes see Israel as such a threat — not because of land disputes or historical grievances, but because Israel’s success exposes the failures of their own oppressive systems.

Far from being the obstacle to peace that its detractors claim, Israel has proven time and again that it is willing to work with any nation that seeks a better future. The question is not whether Israel is prepared to coexist — it always has been. The real question is whether those clinging to tribalism, religious extremism, and anti-modern rhetoric are willing to abandon their self-destructive path and join the Middle East’s future rather than shackling it to its past.

Hence, the phrase “no peace on stolen land” is not just a bad argument; it is a slogan designed to delegitimize Israel and rationalize perpetual conflict. It ignores history, applies a hypocritical double standard, and ultimately undermines the very ideas of coexistence and stability in the Middle East and North Africa.

The more accurate phrase should be “no peace without truth and recognition” — because peace is not built on false narratives or historical distortions that keep people trapped in cycles of grievance and rejectionism. Peace is built on acknowledging reality, mutual respect, and the willingness to move forward.

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1. Bilateral agreements on Arab-Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain in 2020; Sudan and Morocco were later added.