Stating that the ordinary gazan did not know of hamas' plans is not credible: when you allow tunnel entrances in your kids' bedroom, in its kindergarten, in hospitals and schools: you know. When your kids are exploited in digging the tunnels: you know. When you send your kids to hamas summer school where they learn to stab jews and how to handle a rifle: you know.
Gaza is not build of 2 separate social groups, being terrorists and civilians. These are completely intertwined. Like the germans were with the nazi's they democratically voted in. And like Germany, the accountability is on the society as a whole. Only this may create a pathway to something different. Until you acknowlegde the wrongs, nothing will change.
Hamas was an authoritarian regime that took over Gaza by force, ruled by force, and violently subjugated Palestinians who disagreed with them. The highest they ever got in an election was 44.45%. After which they violently seized power, and never held a vote again. Trying to hold all Palestinians responsible for Hamas is a folly. Yes, there were some tunnels built in children's bedrooms. I think there is evidence for 1 or 2. That's the fault of the individual owners of the houses, not everyone in Gaza. Blame people for their individual actions, not as a whole society.
I understand that the Koran commands that Muslims are not to allow formerly Muslim lands to be occupied by non-Muslims. I can understand then that the Israeli victory in the 1948 war would have been a Muslim catastrophe that Arab Muslims to this day and forever reject, requiring jihadist war to correct. Of course, causing cataclysmic Muslim failure and shame. But, after 75++ years, the efforts of the “infidels,” trying in good faith to work with Palestinian Arabs and surrounding Muslim Arab countries to find a way forward, has yielded absolutely nothing. Why have these attempts failed? We know. For the jihadists, peace is categorically not the object. You mention possible ways forward. What way do you think might have even the slightest chance of achieving a way forward? Are we still under the delusion that Arab Muslims will agree for the sake of peace to tolerate Jews to occupy or even share a piece of formerly Arab Muslim land? There’s not a chance. What realistic way forward do you propose?
The Nakba is really not about the refugees. It is the lament that the Arab world didn't get to commit genocide against the fledgling state of Israel. And it is a yearly lament. It is the lie that the Jews forced the Arabs to leave, and while I am sure there are some bad actors on the side of Israel, it was the Arab states and the Mufti who coerced the Arabs to leave in the hope of returning and taking over all the land. It is not the obligation of Israel to allow those who wanted them obliterated off the face of the earth to be allowed to return, anymore than India has to allow those who left for Pakistan to return to India.
Interestingly enough 20% of Israelis are the great-grandchildren of those that stayed. They have full citizenship and the same rights of any Jewish citizen. If the Arab Palestinians decided to stay this would have been their children's fate. Things aren't perfect, but it is alot better to be an ISraeli Arab than to be a Palestinian anywhere else in the Middle East.
And then you need to ask why since Gaza was in effect the Palestinians State , and the PA is an autonomous area in the West Bank, why are there still refugee camps? Why when 80% of Jordan is Palestinian are there refugee camps? And why in Lebanon is there an apartheid against Palestinians. (Hmm maybe it has something to do with Black September and the PLO/Fatah and what they did to those countries)
You also need to ask how did Arafat end up worth 8 billion dollars when he died, and why is Abbas a billionaire and why are the Hamas leaders billionaires when there are refugee camps, and poverty among so many of their people?
But then you also have to ask why are the Hadid siblings considered a refugee? Why are you considered a refugee John? Why is there a separate refugee agency for Palestinians and why do they have a different defintion of refugee from everyone else in the world?
Now lets also talk about the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from the Arab countries that they had lived in since the time of Babylon? What are you going to do to make sure they are remembered and compensated for their losses? Funny isnt it that Jews took care of their refugee brothers and sisters, while the Arab world and their erstwhile white saviors have only used the Palestinians to try to commit genocide against Israel.
In 1939, Germany unleashed a war against half of Europe—and later half the world—"because" it chose to feel "disadvantaged" "on account of" the "Treaty of Versailles," rather than acknowledging its own culpability and losses in the First World War.
Consequently, millions of German-speaking refugees from Poland, the Czech lands, the Baltics, Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, and other nations were expelled; they subsequently settled in Germany and were successfully integrated.
Germany has long since established peaceful relations with all these countries.
And yet the "Arab World" —which declared war on the State of Israel on the very day of its founding and LOST four wars —continues to whine about it to this very day.
To this day, they claim to be incapable of integrating their oh-so-beloved, oh-so-disadvantaged, oh-so-INNOCENT so-called "Palestinians"; and ISRAEL is supposed to bear the "blame"—and the burden—for the UTTER STUPIDITY of these BLOCKHEADS???
Into the Mediterranean with them! ENOUGH with the HYPOCRITICAL WHINING of these ARAB COLONIALISTS !!!
If H*mas says something wrong it mustn´t necessarily be wrong if others say the same about whoever.
All those German speaking inhabitants had been living in the other lands for centuries, but as Germany did wrong Germany had to take the burden rightfully.
The so-called "Palestinians" are only just Arabians who came as conquerors and colonialists centuries ago. They just don´t belong there but keep bragging the whole land should be theirs ?
This just has to end.
The Arabian Countries have to take on responsibility for the failure of their offspring.
No one else is responsible for that and the blatant lies of "Edward Said", Yassir Arafat all those criminals.
Hamas is involved in a paradox. Muslims conquered Judea, but even the Koran says explicitly that God gave the holy land to the Jews. It’s a bit problematic that the God of Islam nowhere commands the conquest of “the holy land” though it speaks vaguely about “the farthest place of prostration.” Note that Jerusalem had not yet been conquered by the Ummayad caliphate and no such Al-Aqsa mosque had been built until after the Koran had been supposedly revealed to Mohammed.
This is all to say that a lot is made of a tiny strip of land which holds only symbolic value. It holds the greatest symbolic value to those people who lived there before Islam was even an idea. Those people wrote a big book of stories about the place and about themselves and their problems, because they liked it so much. Too bad they couldn’t hold onto it. But those place names still exist after thousands of years.
It’s the contested symbolical value which makes it so hard to sort out, say, by building Palestine developments alongside Jewish developments, like you’d do in California.
"the war was between Israel and the surrounding Arab states" ok this is kind of true but there was also civil war in the months before the Arab armies invaded. Democracy or no, the positions of all parties are pretty clear. The Jews were in the mental state of "we'll take what we can get, we are lucky to be alive" and the Arabs did not want to share. Specific villages, sure, would have been willing to exist next to a Jewish state or maybe even be incorporated into it. But broadly, it's clear that a referendum would not have changed things
Good read John, I appreciate your perspective here.
How does the PA play into the Nakba? Is it simply that they use it so the world acknowledges Palestinian suffering or are they garnering sympathy to influence the world to make Israel a pariah (meaning they are abusing Palestinian suffering to push for dismantling the Jewish state, which goes right back to why the Arab world went to war in 48)?
Your perspective is good, I just want to add that in most cases (with exceptions such as yourself) when we Jews/Israelis hear someone talking anout the Nakba, they aren’t using it to get sympathy for those displaced in the 1948 war, but they are very clearly using it to delegitimize Israel in preparation for even greater conflict. As others above have mentioned: when you describe the displacement/expulsion/flight mixture you are indeed describing the history, but in many other cases people seem to use it as a maximalist libel designed not to help Palestinians but to apply pressure against Israel (i.e. “look at what those evil people did to us, it’s just like their Holocaust” etc)
I always appreciate your perspective. For me, the key aspect going forward is what you summarise in your last main paragraph. You call out the Abraham Accord nations and the wider Arab world as needing to somehow engage with Israel (which needs to do its part too) to put the past behind (my words) and work out a better solution for all. We all have our views on how likely or remote that may be.
What was telling for me is that you didn't call out Egypt and Jordan who are not in the Abraham Accords but who, in theory, are best placed to be a key player in such an accommodation. Not only do they border the Palestinian areas but they formerly controlled them, and have longstanding (albeit very cold) peace treaties with Israel. Do the Palestinians still hold fierce grudges against these two countries specifically for the limbo they have been left in for decades? And for exploiting their plight to lambast Israel without actually working wholeheartedly towards a solution that acknowledges Israel's existence and security needs and builds a better life for Palestinians? Can the Abraham Accord countries potentially bring Egypt and Jordan around?
Thanksgiving. Yes I know you said the wider Arab world, which would include them. But without those two countries in particular on board, I can't imagine anything material being resolved. Thanks again for all your pieces.
Come on John, we all saw it in real time. The exhilarated screams of sheer happiness of the masses. Thousands and thousands and thousands of gazans. Don't forget the last wave of killers and looters into Israel were ordinary civilians, even taking decapitated heads with them. Were they paid for them? Maybe there were sóme that were nót celebrating. Let's not inverse it. Their vicious agression towards hostages, life and dead. Not even ONE came forward to help the hostages. I am in for honest debate, but not for down playing the events of 7/10 and since. Accountability is what it takes to transform gaza. Yes, it may be some of them start realizing it never was a good idea. For now, after the destruction of what was. And yes, I honestly do wish for a better life for all of them. It really makes me sad seeing how they have been indoctrinated with poisenous hate from birth. This society needs a complete reset. It will not happen if this is not acknowledged to start with.
You love to use quotes that support your thesis, yet ignore completely the documented evidence that at least as much as Israel, or more....the Arabs themselves were the villains regarding dispersal of Mandate Palestinians.
*See below.
And as for Gazans not having control over Hamas controlled Gaza, not only did they vote them in, but every Palestinian poll taken in either Judea or Samaria shows that in any election Hamas would win handily.
*there are the words of the PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, who, in a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, stated:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.
"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
ON APRIL 23, 1948 Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine ArabHigher Committee (AHC), told the UN Security Council: "The Arabs did notwant to submit to a truce ... They preferred to abandon their homes,belongings and everything they possessed."
ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1948, the Beirut Daily Telegraph quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the AHC, as saying: "The fact that there are those refugees isthe direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposingpartition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously..."
ON JUNE 8, 1951, Habib Issa, secretary-general of the Arab League, wrote in the New York Lebanese daily al-Hoda that in 1948, Azzam Pasha, then League secretary, had "assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade ... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states."
IN THE MARCH 1976 issue of Falastin a-Thaura, then the official journal of the Beirut-based PLO, Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen"), PLO spokesman, wrote: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."
ON APRIL 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily al-Urdun quoted a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying: "For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy."
ANOTHER refugee told the Jordanian daily a-Difaa on September 6, 1954: "The Arab governments told us, 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in."
THE JORDANIAN daily Falastin wrote on February 19, 1949: "The Arab states... encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies."
ON OCTOBER 2, 1948, the London Economist reported, in an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs: "There is little doubt that the most potent of the factors [in the flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit ... And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
THE PRIME Minister of Syria in 1948, Khaled al-Azem, in his memoirs, published in 1973, listed what he thought were the reasons for the Arabfailure in 1948: " ... the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to theinhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries ... We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees bycalling on them and pleading with them to leave their land."
"FOLLOWING a visit to refugees in Gaza, a British diplomat reported the following: 'But while they express no bitterness against theJews...they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states: 'We know who our enemies are,' they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes." -
British Foreign Office Document #371/75342/XC/A/4991 [From "Revising or Devising Israel's History" by Prof. Shlomo Slonim in Jewish Action, Summer 5760/2000, Vol. 60 #4]
On April 3, 1949 the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station reported: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem”.
On October 12, 1963 the Egyptian daily “Akbar el Yom” reported that : “The 15th May, 1948 arrived…On that day the Mufti of Jerusalem (the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini) appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead”.
On April 9, 1953 the Jordanian daily “Al Urdan” reported: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs… By spreading rumours of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy”.
Even the contemporaneous reporting of “The Economist” makes clear that the alleged “Nakba’ was self inflicted. On October 3, 1948 “The Economist” reported: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades”.
On August 19, 1951 the Beirut weekly “Kul-Shay”opined: “Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor not conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their homes? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it”.
The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the Arab Higher Committee’s March 8, 1948 orders, instructed women, children, and the elderly living in Jerusalem to leave their homes: “Any opposition to this order … is an obstacle to the holy war … and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts.”
Furthermore, the Jordanian newspaper “Filastin” on February 19, 1949 stated: “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees”
The Syrian Prime Minister in 1948–49, Haled al Azm, also openly acknowledged the Arabs’ role in persuading the refugees to leave: “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave.”
Anti Israel fanatics in the main stream media, on college campuses and in political circles cannot change the reality of what contemporaneous Muslim and Arab media reported.
Sorry to disagree. There is a huge difference between responsibility and accountability. We all remember the celebrations on 7/10, something a "only gullible" society would never do. The latter forces a society that went so wrong to reform. And yes, that is what is needed: full accountability in order to deradicalize and build something better from the ruins. For gazans. Treating gazans as infantile victims is not only wrong, it will never bring change. Change can only happen through full accountability. The germans were able to do it, why not the gazans? I find that deeply offensive. For gazans.
Did some people celebrate? Yes. Some people did. Did everyone? I don't think there is evidence for that, or even for a majority. I think people who actually celebrated are responsible, somewhat.
Hamas has guns and tunnels. Ordinary Gazans do not. It’s not a fair or accurate situation. Personally, I would have chosen to leave Gaza rather than live under Hamas, but not everyone has that choice. I doubt even 1% of 2 million people knew where a hostage was. It was just top Hamas operatives who knew.
Yes, I bet the number of people who knew where a hostage was less than 20,000. Just to be explicit. Probably a lot less than 20,000. The hostages were kept in tunnels and Hamas safe houses.
Well said. I agree. Harsh pushbacks that deny one narrative and try to insist on another, reductionist, oversimplified, one - e.g. the idea that this is all about a war the Arabs started, and that they're whining about having lost - accomplish nothing. It is long past time that the Palestinian people stop being used as pawns, and start enjoying the support of the entire region in working out a resolution to this decades-old "limbo" they have been left in.
Stating that the ordinary gazan did not know of hamas' plans is not credible: when you allow tunnel entrances in your kids' bedroom, in its kindergarten, in hospitals and schools: you know. When your kids are exploited in digging the tunnels: you know. When you send your kids to hamas summer school where they learn to stab jews and how to handle a rifle: you know.
Gaza is not build of 2 separate social groups, being terrorists and civilians. These are completely intertwined. Like the germans were with the nazi's they democratically voted in. And like Germany, the accountability is on the society as a whole. Only this may create a pathway to something different. Until you acknowlegde the wrongs, nothing will change.
Hamas was an authoritarian regime that took over Gaza by force, ruled by force, and violently subjugated Palestinians who disagreed with them. The highest they ever got in an election was 44.45%. After which they violently seized power, and never held a vote again. Trying to hold all Palestinians responsible for Hamas is a folly. Yes, there were some tunnels built in children's bedrooms. I think there is evidence for 1 or 2. That's the fault of the individual owners of the houses, not everyone in Gaza. Blame people for their individual actions, not as a whole society.
I understand that the Koran commands that Muslims are not to allow formerly Muslim lands to be occupied by non-Muslims. I can understand then that the Israeli victory in the 1948 war would have been a Muslim catastrophe that Arab Muslims to this day and forever reject, requiring jihadist war to correct. Of course, causing cataclysmic Muslim failure and shame. But, after 75++ years, the efforts of the “infidels,” trying in good faith to work with Palestinian Arabs and surrounding Muslim Arab countries to find a way forward, has yielded absolutely nothing. Why have these attempts failed? We know. For the jihadists, peace is categorically not the object. You mention possible ways forward. What way do you think might have even the slightest chance of achieving a way forward? Are we still under the delusion that Arab Muslims will agree for the sake of peace to tolerate Jews to occupy or even share a piece of formerly Arab Muslim land? There’s not a chance. What realistic way forward do you propose?
The Nakba is really not about the refugees. It is the lament that the Arab world didn't get to commit genocide against the fledgling state of Israel. And it is a yearly lament. It is the lie that the Jews forced the Arabs to leave, and while I am sure there are some bad actors on the side of Israel, it was the Arab states and the Mufti who coerced the Arabs to leave in the hope of returning and taking over all the land. It is not the obligation of Israel to allow those who wanted them obliterated off the face of the earth to be allowed to return, anymore than India has to allow those who left for Pakistan to return to India.
Interestingly enough 20% of Israelis are the great-grandchildren of those that stayed. They have full citizenship and the same rights of any Jewish citizen. If the Arab Palestinians decided to stay this would have been their children's fate. Things aren't perfect, but it is alot better to be an ISraeli Arab than to be a Palestinian anywhere else in the Middle East.
And then you need to ask why since Gaza was in effect the Palestinians State , and the PA is an autonomous area in the West Bank, why are there still refugee camps? Why when 80% of Jordan is Palestinian are there refugee camps? And why in Lebanon is there an apartheid against Palestinians. (Hmm maybe it has something to do with Black September and the PLO/Fatah and what they did to those countries)
You also need to ask how did Arafat end up worth 8 billion dollars when he died, and why is Abbas a billionaire and why are the Hamas leaders billionaires when there are refugee camps, and poverty among so many of their people?
But then you also have to ask why are the Hadid siblings considered a refugee? Why are you considered a refugee John? Why is there a separate refugee agency for Palestinians and why do they have a different defintion of refugee from everyone else in the world?
Now lets also talk about the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from the Arab countries that they had lived in since the time of Babylon? What are you going to do to make sure they are remembered and compensated for their losses? Funny isnt it that Jews took care of their refugee brothers and sisters, while the Arab world and their erstwhile white saviors have only used the Palestinians to try to commit genocide against Israel.
just an FYI- https://apple.news/A4TZgeTczTAimOIDmAYW9gA
In 1939, Germany unleashed a war against half of Europe—and later half the world—"because" it chose to feel "disadvantaged" "on account of" the "Treaty of Versailles," rather than acknowledging its own culpability and losses in the First World War.
Consequently, millions of German-speaking refugees from Poland, the Czech lands, the Baltics, Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, and other nations were expelled; they subsequently settled in Germany and were successfully integrated.
Germany has long since established peaceful relations with all these countries.
And yet the "Arab World" —which declared war on the State of Israel on the very day of its founding and LOST four wars —continues to whine about it to this very day.
To this day, they claim to be incapable of integrating their oh-so-beloved, oh-so-disadvantaged, oh-so-INNOCENT so-called "Palestinians"; and ISRAEL is supposed to bear the "blame"—and the burden—for the UTTER STUPIDITY of these BLOCKHEADS???
Into the Mediterranean with them! ENOUGH with the HYPOCRITICAL WHINING of these ARAB COLONIALISTS !!!
This is roughly what Hamas says about Israeli Jews—into the Mediterranean with these colonialists, etc.
It didn't work well for Hamas, and it won't work well for you.
If H*mas says something wrong it mustn´t necessarily be wrong if others say the same about whoever.
All those German speaking inhabitants had been living in the other lands for centuries, but as Germany did wrong Germany had to take the burden rightfully.
The so-called "Palestinians" are only just Arabians who came as conquerors and colonialists centuries ago. They just don´t belong there but keep bragging the whole land should be theirs ?
This just has to end.
The Arabian Countries have to take on responsibility for the failure of their offspring.
No one else is responsible for that and the blatant lies of "Edward Said", Yassir Arafat all those criminals.
Hamas is involved in a paradox. Muslims conquered Judea, but even the Koran says explicitly that God gave the holy land to the Jews. It’s a bit problematic that the God of Islam nowhere commands the conquest of “the holy land” though it speaks vaguely about “the farthest place of prostration.” Note that Jerusalem had not yet been conquered by the Ummayad caliphate and no such Al-Aqsa mosque had been built until after the Koran had been supposedly revealed to Mohammed.
This is all to say that a lot is made of a tiny strip of land which holds only symbolic value. It holds the greatest symbolic value to those people who lived there before Islam was even an idea. Those people wrote a big book of stories about the place and about themselves and their problems, because they liked it so much. Too bad they couldn’t hold onto it. But those place names still exist after thousands of years.
It’s the contested symbolical value which makes it so hard to sort out, say, by building Palestine developments alongside Jewish developments, like you’d do in California.
"the war was between Israel and the surrounding Arab states" ok this is kind of true but there was also civil war in the months before the Arab armies invaded. Democracy or no, the positions of all parties are pretty clear. The Jews were in the mental state of "we'll take what we can get, we are lucky to be alive" and the Arabs did not want to share. Specific villages, sure, would have been willing to exist next to a Jewish state or maybe even be incorporated into it. But broadly, it's clear that a referendum would not have changed things
Good read John, I appreciate your perspective here.
How does the PA play into the Nakba? Is it simply that they use it so the world acknowledges Palestinian suffering or are they garnering sympathy to influence the world to make Israel a pariah (meaning they are abusing Palestinian suffering to push for dismantling the Jewish state, which goes right back to why the Arab world went to war in 48)?
There is a large contingent that insists the Nakba is ongoing. Thus, according to them this article should be called “What is the Nakba?”
The Nakba narrative, as it has been constructed and weaponized since the 1990s, functions as a libel: https://nayalekht.substack.com/p/the-nakba-as-libel
Your perspective is good, I just want to add that in most cases (with exceptions such as yourself) when we Jews/Israelis hear someone talking anout the Nakba, they aren’t using it to get sympathy for those displaced in the 1948 war, but they are very clearly using it to delegitimize Israel in preparation for even greater conflict. As others above have mentioned: when you describe the displacement/expulsion/flight mixture you are indeed describing the history, but in many other cases people seem to use it as a maximalist libel designed not to help Palestinians but to apply pressure against Israel (i.e. “look at what those evil people did to us, it’s just like their Holocaust” etc)
I always appreciate your perspective. For me, the key aspect going forward is what you summarise in your last main paragraph. You call out the Abraham Accord nations and the wider Arab world as needing to somehow engage with Israel (which needs to do its part too) to put the past behind (my words) and work out a better solution for all. We all have our views on how likely or remote that may be.
What was telling for me is that you didn't call out Egypt and Jordan who are not in the Abraham Accords but who, in theory, are best placed to be a key player in such an accommodation. Not only do they border the Palestinian areas but they formerly controlled them, and have longstanding (albeit very cold) peace treaties with Israel. Do the Palestinians still hold fierce grudges against these two countries specifically for the limbo they have been left in for decades? And for exploiting their plight to lambast Israel without actually working wholeheartedly towards a solution that acknowledges Israel's existence and security needs and builds a better life for Palestinians? Can the Abraham Accord countries potentially bring Egypt and Jordan around?
I mean, I think Jordan and Egypt can absolutely help. I did mention "other Arab countries", too. Which includes Jordan and Egypt.
Thanksgiving. Yes I know you said the wider Arab world, which would include them. But without those two countries in particular on board, I can't imagine anything material being resolved. Thanks again for all your pieces.
They are important because they are direct neighbours.
Come on John, we all saw it in real time. The exhilarated screams of sheer happiness of the masses. Thousands and thousands and thousands of gazans. Don't forget the last wave of killers and looters into Israel were ordinary civilians, even taking decapitated heads with them. Were they paid for them? Maybe there were sóme that were nót celebrating. Let's not inverse it. Their vicious agression towards hostages, life and dead. Not even ONE came forward to help the hostages. I am in for honest debate, but not for down playing the events of 7/10 and since. Accountability is what it takes to transform gaza. Yes, it may be some of them start realizing it never was a good idea. For now, after the destruction of what was. And yes, I honestly do wish for a better life for all of them. It really makes me sad seeing how they have been indoctrinated with poisenous hate from birth. This society needs a complete reset. It will not happen if this is not acknowledged to start with.
You love to use quotes that support your thesis, yet ignore completely the documented evidence that at least as much as Israel, or more....the Arabs themselves were the villains regarding dispersal of Mandate Palestinians.
*See below.
And as for Gazans not having control over Hamas controlled Gaza, not only did they vote them in, but every Palestinian poll taken in either Judea or Samaria shows that in any election Hamas would win handily.
*there are the words of the PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, who, in a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, stated:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.
"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
ON APRIL 23, 1948 Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine ArabHigher Committee (AHC), told the UN Security Council: "The Arabs did notwant to submit to a truce ... They preferred to abandon their homes,belongings and everything they possessed."
ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1948, the Beirut Daily Telegraph quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the AHC, as saying: "The fact that there are those refugees isthe direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposingpartition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously..."
ON JUNE 8, 1951, Habib Issa, secretary-general of the Arab League, wrote in the New York Lebanese daily al-Hoda that in 1948, Azzam Pasha, then League secretary, had "assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade ... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states."
IN THE MARCH 1976 issue of Falastin a-Thaura, then the official journal of the Beirut-based PLO, Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen"), PLO spokesman, wrote: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."
ON APRIL 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily al-Urdun quoted a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying: "For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy."
ANOTHER refugee told the Jordanian daily a-Difaa on September 6, 1954: "The Arab governments told us, 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in."
THE JORDANIAN daily Falastin wrote on February 19, 1949: "The Arab states... encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies."
ON OCTOBER 2, 1948, the London Economist reported, in an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs: "There is little doubt that the most potent of the factors [in the flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit ... And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
THE PRIME Minister of Syria in 1948, Khaled al-Azem, in his memoirs, published in 1973, listed what he thought were the reasons for the Arabfailure in 1948: " ... the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to theinhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries ... We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees bycalling on them and pleading with them to leave their land."
"FOLLOWING a visit to refugees in Gaza, a British diplomat reported the following: 'But while they express no bitterness against theJews...they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states: 'We know who our enemies are,' they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes." -
British Foreign Office Document #371/75342/XC/A/4991 [From "Revising or Devising Israel's History" by Prof. Shlomo Slonim in Jewish Action, Summer 5760/2000, Vol. 60 #4]
On April 3, 1949 the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station reported: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem”.
On October 12, 1963 the Egyptian daily “Akbar el Yom” reported that : “The 15th May, 1948 arrived…On that day the Mufti of Jerusalem (the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini) appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead”.
On April 9, 1953 the Jordanian daily “Al Urdan” reported: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs… By spreading rumours of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy”.
Even the contemporaneous reporting of “The Economist” makes clear that the alleged “Nakba’ was self inflicted. On October 3, 1948 “The Economist” reported: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades”.
On August 19, 1951 the Beirut weekly “Kul-Shay”opined: “Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor not conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their homes? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it”.
The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the Arab Higher Committee’s March 8, 1948 orders, instructed women, children, and the elderly living in Jerusalem to leave their homes: “Any opposition to this order … is an obstacle to the holy war … and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts.”
Furthermore, the Jordanian newspaper “Filastin” on February 19, 1949 stated: “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees”
The Syrian Prime Minister in 1948–49, Haled al Azm, also openly acknowledged the Arabs’ role in persuading the refugees to leave: “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave.”
Anti Israel fanatics in the main stream media, on college campuses and in political circles cannot change the reality of what contemporaneous Muslim and Arab media reported.
Sorry to disagree. There is a huge difference between responsibility and accountability. We all remember the celebrations on 7/10, something a "only gullible" society would never do. The latter forces a society that went so wrong to reform. And yes, that is what is needed: full accountability in order to deradicalize and build something better from the ruins. For gazans. Treating gazans as infantile victims is not only wrong, it will never bring change. Change can only happen through full accountability. The germans were able to do it, why not the gazans? I find that deeply offensive. For gazans.
Did some people celebrate? Yes. Some people did. Did everyone? I don't think there is evidence for that, or even for a majority. I think people who actually celebrated are responsible, somewhat.
It’s not credible that a population of 2 million couldn’t identify the location of the hostages and tell the world.
Just like the Germans, the Gazans were complicit.
I really do hate to say that because it really does lead to a pretty bleak future, but I think that’s where we are.
Hamas has guns and tunnels. Ordinary Gazans do not. It’s not a fair or accurate situation. Personally, I would have chosen to leave Gaza rather than live under Hamas, but not everyone has that choice. I doubt even 1% of 2 million people knew where a hostage was. It was just top Hamas operatives who knew.
1% of 2 million = 20 thousand
That seems like a lot for no disclosure over many months.
No, and it doesn’t benefit me to say it, but there’s something profoundly and seriously wrong.
Yes, I bet the number of people who knew where a hostage was less than 20,000. Just to be explicit. Probably a lot less than 20,000. The hostages were kept in tunnels and Hamas safe houses.
Well said. I agree. Harsh pushbacks that deny one narrative and try to insist on another, reductionist, oversimplified, one - e.g. the idea that this is all about a war the Arabs started, and that they're whining about having lost - accomplish nothing. It is long past time that the Palestinian people stop being used as pawns, and start enjoying the support of the entire region in working out a resolution to this decades-old "limbo" they have been left in.