TEHRAN- Some believe that the researcher (Amir Keshtgar) should always look to the future and stop exploring the past, however, the idea is not accepted in some particular cases. 

"Israel has the right to defend (itself) but it has to be done accordingly with international law, humanitarian law," EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on October 10 after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Muscat, Oman.

The statement by Borrell is a clear example of ignorance of the past and his idea seems invalid for those who believe that Palestine has been occupied since 1948. 

Regarding the history of occupation along with the “occupying party - people under occupation” equation, the principle of “self-defense” can no longer be applied for the Zionist regime from a legal point of view.

According to international law, the illegitimate occupying party should end the occupation, protect the people under occupation, and stop mass killings and destroying the occupied people’s property.

The Western officials’ idea for “Israel’s legitimate defense” can be traced back to the past.

What has made the Western authorities misuse international law to justify Israel's war machine originates from the ambiguity- better to say a myth- that the Zionist regime has promoted over the years certain historical propositions and kept its supporters in compound ignorance. 

The answer to the myth is rooted not in distant history, but in 1948, in which it was claimed: “Palestine was an empty land”. 

The proposition was uniquely narrated as if Palestine was an uninhabited desert that experienced a different and favorable fate when its real inhabitants - the Zionists - returned to their promised land. So, the "A land without a nation, for a nation without a land" slogan was formed. 

The West’s academic and scientific environment, curricula and books have widely spread the myth in a way that the oppressor and the oppressed were replaced, “legitimate defense” was reversely analyzed, and the genocide of the Palestinian nation, under the pretext of the aforementioned proposition, were considered permissible.  

The fake proposition was challenged even by Israeli researchers, including Amnon Cohen, Yehoshua Ben Arieh, and David Grossman. 

Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian, refuted the narrative that Palestine was not an empty land. It was a part of the rich and fertile world of the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th century and was on the path of modernization and nationalism. Palestine was not a desert waiting for prosperity. Conceptually, Palestine was a country and was preparing to enter the 20th century as a modern society, with all the advantages and disadvantages of such transformation from a part of the Ottoman Empire to an independent country. But the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist regime aborted the process and turned it into a disaster for the majority of the indigenous people. 

However, it is a fake narrative that has gained more dynamism due to the use of massive political propaganda.      

Therefore, mandating some parts of history, in which the occupation of the Zionist regime is replaced by a myth, has caused the fake regime to justify its most heinous crimes against the Palestinian nation based on the principle of "self-defense".

The genocide of the natives of land and their displacement is not a new action in the course of history by the Zionists. They have created a vague and multi-layered myth with their allies, which cannot be understood by anyone due to its complexity. 

The policy that aims at usurpation and colonization, abuses everything, including history. 

The historiography, which has been manipulated, cannot be a reliable, fair, and trustful source. 

When politicians and lawyers base their analyses on such unjust narratives, shouldn’t the Israeli regime have a legitimate defense?!