ISRAEL is the 11th happiest country in the world. That’s according to a report issued by the United Nations on Wednesday, published ahead of World Happiness Day on March 20.

The report bases happiness on income, trust, life expectancy, social support, freedom of choice, generosity, and perceived corruption.

Putting these yardsticks of happiness measurement on the side for a moment, Israel must indeed be very happy, if not exultant, for one reason in particular. It must get a big kick from occupying territory of another people for 70 years. To perpetuate control over Palestinian lives and land. Israel continues its subjugation of a largely unarmed, downtrodden people under military occupation. All the while, its underlying premise is that Israel needs protection from Palestinians, not the other way round, as if it is the Palestinians who are laying siege to the occupying power. Stone-throwing children threaten the security of one of the most highly armed states in the whole world — and a nuclear state to boot.

The US has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, will soon transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and has seriously reduced its aid to the Palestinians. In return, Washington expects Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with the Israelis and act the part of peace partner. What is really being asked — actually demanded — of the Palestinians is to sit down amicably with the very men who, even as they sit, are doing everything in their power so that the talks do not succeed.

It is clear that no matter what happens now, the Palestinians will be blamed. They will be upbraided for wrecking the peace process. It is the Palestinians that must acknowledge Israel’s right to exist without ever acknowledging that that right was reached by conquest and wholesale Palestinian dispossession.

Israel is forgiven for its 70-year occupation, oppression and dispossession of the entire Palestinian people, its countless brutalization and dehumanization of the Palestinians individually and collectively.

Why must Israel always be an exception and why must Palestinians always be required to accept things that no people have ever been asked to accept before them?

You cannot have occupation and dispossession as well as peace with the Palestinian people. Israel can only have peace when the Palestinian right is first acknowledged to have been violated.

How can the Palestinians make peace with a people who continue to deny any responsibility for Palestinian dispossession, when two-thirds of them do not consider Israel’s control of the West Bank an “occupation?” They are either “sure” or “think” it isn’t occupation but in a survey cannot say unequivocally it’s an occupation. Or when nearly 60 percent of Israelis don’t view settlements in the West Bank as an impediment to peace with the Palestinians when Palestinian territories have been cantonized beyond recognition.

Israel wants all this dropped, as if by not mentioning the word “occupation” the whole subject would disappear. Israel may mutter a few words about understanding or even recognizing Palestinian suffering and get off without a single mention of responsibility.

The 10 happiest countries which placed higher than Israel are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia (the US ranked 18th).

Nordic countries regularly appear in the top five due to factors including good education, transportation and health care. But even if their populations didn’t have these benefits, they have a country.

The four least happy countries are Tanzania, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and the lowest country Burundi, at 156th place.

War-hit countries and a number in sub-Saharan Africa regularly appear in the bottom five. But even with all their troubles, their peoples have a country.

At No 11 out of 195 countries, Israel is very high on the list of happy nations. One reason they are over the moon is because they possess land which is not theirs.