There are a few problems with this for me.

1. There wasn’t as much peace as he claims before 1948. It wasn’t a total war, but there was definitely tension that resulted in violence during that period. There were several scrimmages through the decades preceding 1948.

2. Israeli statehood didn’t constitute occupation. They were afforded a small fraction of the land, by the people who actually owned the land (the British), most of which were undeveloped portions.

3. Arabs launched a war, not of resistance to occupation, but with the goal of extermination. That was their stated goal, not to live peacefully with Jews, but to kill them all.

4. It is an open secret that Muslim extremists, such as this man, will attempt to deceive the West by using our values for their gain. They will say anything, true or not, to gain their end. The ends justify the means, and lying to an enemy (the West) is no sin. So his sitter shifts in language to “it’s no Jews is occupiers” is an example of how this happens. Nothing we would recognize as an occupier happened until 1967. And the Arabs had long been trying to kill the Jews and use terrorism.