CAMERA Backgrounder - Palestinian Arab and Jewish Refugees

Ruth Orkin's famous photo of Iraqi
Jewish refugees arriving in Israel

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
First posted 12 May '09..

On May 15, many Palestinians and their supporters mark what they call "Nakba Day," a commemoration focusing on their view that the reconstitution of a Jewish state in Israel was a "catastrophe."

The commemoration is often accompanied by a flurry of opinion pieces and news stories conveying the Palestinian narrative of Israel’s independence, which frequently contain false charges.

In May 2008, for example, an Op-Ed in the New York Times claimed "a people had been expelled from their land in a comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation, given the name ‘Plan D’ by Israelis" (Elias Khoury, 5/18/08, "For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba"). In fact, notwithstanding a limited number of tactical expulsions, "a people" was certainly not expelled. And Plan D was not at all a "comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation" — you can read the text of that plan here.

A news story published in the Washington Post likewise passed along this false charge of mass expulsion. Reporter Sylvia Moreno relayed, from organizers of an anti-Israel rally, the accusation that every Palestinian that fled the war was actually "expelled." She wrote: "To make way for Israel, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and more than 400 of their villages were destroyed, organizers of the event said" (5/18/08, "Palestinian Quilt Presents a Different Viewpoint; Creation of Israel Came At Great Cost, Some Say"). The reporter didn’t bother pointing out that this accusation has been debunked by prominent historians.

The piece below provides needed facts and context about the frequently distorted refugee issue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During and after the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Jews fled, and in some cases were forced from, their homes in Mandate Palestine and beyond. The effects of this flight are still today a major issue, as politicians, diplomats and other concerned parties try to resolve the Palestinian "refugee problem" — the status of the original Arab refugees and millions of their descendants, many of whom still live in refugee camps. The vast majority of Jewish refugees went to Israel, where they were absorbed with great difficulty. Despite having found a country committed to taking them in, they still seek redress and acknowledgment of their largely ignored plight.

(Continue reading)

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Ha'aretz Repeats 'Nakba Law' Error Again

TS..
CAMERA/Snapshots..
16 October '12..

The "Nakba law," which enables Israel's Finance Minister to withhold government funding from state-funded bodies engaged in activities which reject the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, has been a challenge for Ha'aretz journalists. In May, after the English edition incorrectly reported that the law "fines bodies who openly reject Israel as a Jewish state," editors commendably issued the following correction May 11:

Unfortunately, editors have not absorbed the information. Today's editorial again errs, stating:

The 18th Knesset polluted Israel's law books with the so-called "Nakba law," which undermines Israeli Arabs' right to observe Independence Day as a day of mourning. . .

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Of course, Israeli Arabs are perfectly free to erect mourning tents in their yards on Israel's Independence Day. They also may orgazine large scale remembrance marches involving, for example, 400,000 people in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Independence Day. In actuality, the law does not prohibit anything. Again, it merely enables the Finance Minister to withhold government money budgeted to state-supported entities if they engage in activities rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.

If the Hebrew-speaking Ha'aretz editors cannot be relied upon to actually read the legislation, we shouldn't be surprised by mainstream English-language reporters also getting it wrong. And we shouldn't expect the problem to go away anytime soon, given that the "Nakba law" has taken on symbolic significance. Only, contrary to what the Ha'aretz editors would have us believe, the law is not a symbol of "anti-democratic legislation that brought the tyranny of the majority to new heights." Rather, it is a symbol of disinformation spread by incompetent or dishonest reporters.

Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2012/10/haaretz_repeats_nakba_law_erro.html

For the Hebrew version of this post, see Presspectiva. Yishai Goldflam contributed to this post.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Arens - Nakba, a self-inflicted catastrophe

So why is it that the Arabs do not accept that it was the war that they began, the catastrophe that they intended to inflict on the Jewish community in Palestine, which is the cause of their suffering?

Moshe Arens..
Opinion/Haaretz..
22 May '12..

Many catastrophes occur in this cruel world. Some are caused by nature, and over them humans have no control. Some are man-made - catastrophes caused by wars of aggression and wars of oppression by one people against another. Such was World War II, an attempt by Germany to conquer the world, oppress the non-Germanic peoples and exterminate the Jews. It took more than five years to roll back the conquering German armies, at great sacrifice to the Allied armies that defeated Germany. On May 8, V-E Day, the world celebrates the victory in Europe, the day on which Germany surrendered unconditionally in 1945. It was a victory of light over darkness.

The German people suffered during that war. More than 5 million German soldiers were killed during the fighting, and more than 2 million German civilians died during the war. In addition, millions were left homeless and millions became refugees as eastern Germany was turned over to Poland and the Sudeten region was returned to Czechoslovakia after the war. German cities were destroyed by aerial bombardments. Thirty-nine square kilometers of Dresden's city center were destroyed. Greatly damaged were the cities of Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin, in addition to many other German cities, in an aerial campaign to disrupt the German war effort and force Germany to surrender.

Yet the German people do not commemorate V-E Day as their day of catastrophe, as the German Nakba. No demonstrations are held in Germany on that day. The German people know that they brought the catastrophe upon themselves. They know there is no reason to shift the blame for their catastrophe onto others; they have only themselves to blame.

Another 3 Days of Low-Intensity Peace 13 May - 15 May, 2012

Arab Violence Against Israel #15

Yehudit Tayar..
13 May '12..

These reports are translated and publicized by Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron with the approval and confirmation of the IDF. Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron is a voluntary emergency medical organization with over 500 volunteer doctors, paramedics, medics who are on call 24/7 and work along with the IDF, 669 IAF Airborn Rescue, the security officers and personal throughout Yesha and the Jordan Valley, and with MDA.

In the last few days hundreds of violent attacks were directed against IDF patrols, Border Police and civilians by Arab terrorists with rocks, fire bombs, Molotov Cocktails, rocks put on the road to force the vehicles to stop. Security forces have responded to these murderous attacks using restraint.

May 15, 2012

This day is referred to as "Yom Hanakba" by the Arabs or the day of tragedy when the State of Israel was born 64 years ago. The enemies of Israel forget that the "Partition Plan" was rejected outright by the Moslems and the "Two State Solution" was rejected as the armies of all of the Arab nations around the Land of Israel, and inside continued to try to finish off what Hitler and the Nazis began. Sadly even inside of Israel and even members of the Israeli Knesset today continue to selectively refer to this as a day of tragedy and will not accept the truth that Israel had accepted the partition and the Arabs did not.

Efrat-Tekoa Road near T-Junction Arab terrorists threw a bottle of paint at an Israeli bus intending to cause an accident when the window was hit. The paint hit the metal side of the bus and damaged it but did not hit the windshield.

Mandel - Wearing their predicament as a badge of honor

Daniel Mandel..
The Washington Times..
14 May '12..

Today (Tuesday), Palestinians and their supporters, as they have done increasingly over the years, mark what they call the “naqba” (Arabic for catastrophe) day. But commemoration is only one aspect of the day. The clue to the real meaning of the naqba lies on the previous day, May 14, the day Israel declared independence upon the termination of British rule.

On the actual day in 1948 now commemorated as the naqba,neighboring Arab armies and internal Palestinian militias responded to Israel’s declaration of independence with full-scale hostilities. Tel Aviv was bombed from the air, and the head of Israel’s provisional government, David Ben-Gurion, delivered his first radio address to the nation from an air-raid shelter.

Israel successfully resisted invasion and dismemberment - the universally affirmed objective of the Arab belligerents - and Palestinians came off worst of all from the whole venture. At the war’s end, more than 600,000 Palestinians were living as refugees under neighboring Arab regimes.

In the immediate years that followed, the refugees generally resisted the term naqba. That implied a permanence never contemplated. After all, they largely had evacuated the scene of hostilities under the impression that they would be returning speedily on the heels of Israel’s imminent defeat. When that failed to materialize, they yet hoped for a speedy return upon the destruction of Israel in a renewed round of fighting. When that, too, failed to materialize, however, the term naqba and the commemorations around it held on May 15 became fixtures.

So the term naqba is misleading. It smacks of falsehood, inasmuch as it implies a tragedy inflicted by others. The tragedy, of course, was self-inflicted.

(+Video) Drowning Out the Protest

West Bank Mama..
15 May '12..

Yesterday there was a protest outside of Tel Aviv University, commemorating what the Arabs call Nakba (catastrophe) which we call Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Independence Day). The joint left wing and Arab protest was accompanied by a counter protest by pro-Zionist Jews, probably organized by Im Tirzu.

In addition to the fact that the crowd was evenly split between protesters and counter protesters, one thing stands out. The counter protest was incredibly loud. The following video gives you a an idea of what I am talking about. (At the end of the video the speaker calls for the crowd to stand for a minute of silence, which mocks the Israeli minute of silence for both Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers. The counter protest crowd then reacts with a particularly noisy response).

The strength and “vocality” of the pro-Zionist side is signficant. For years the left wing in Israel has adopted the Arab anti-Zionist narrative, and there was no counter protest. Im Tirzu is fighting this, and it is no longer considered weird to be a young college student who is pro-Zionist (in other words, patriotic). Last year Im Tirzu published a pamphlet in Hebrew called Nakba Charta (Nakba BS). I wrote about this on my blog last year and gave a summary in English of its main points.

Take a look – Israeli patriotism is alive and well.



Link: http://westbankmama.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/drowning-out-the-protest/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand
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Roth - Their history, our history

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
15 May '12..

It's May 15. On this day in 1948, the leadership of the Yishuv, the Jewish presence in Palestine, declared itself independent and announced the establishment of the State of Israel.

This year's anniversary celebrations in Israel have already been completed. Jews throughout the world, including here in Israel, mark the day according to the Hebrew lunar calendar: the 5th day of the month of Iyar which this year was April 26 and which was marked with great joy.

The Arab residents in the new state, as well as the Arab armies of all the surrounding countries (and some that were further away than that) had already begun waging a cruel and disproportionate war against the 600,000 Jews of Palestine during the months before the proclamation of Israel's independence.

A blog posting by Robert Werdine, "The Forgotten War" published a few days ago in the Times of Israel, will provide some surprises for people misled by the refashioned history of that period that has become the standard - but wrong - narrative. He reminds us of how bad things were for Palestine's Jews from November 29, 1947 when the United Nations voted to partition British Mandatory Palestine into a state for the Jews and yet another Arab state - to add to the two dozen already created during the twentieth century - for the Arabs.

Marquadt-Bigman - The Nakba at Harvard

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
13 May '12..

Already last week, Palestinian activists were gearing up to mark the Nakba by intensifying their efforts to prolong it: Sa’ed Atshan, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate who is a proponent of the so-called “one-state solution” that aims at Israel’s abolition in favor of a bi-national state, drew up a petition to organize “Palestinian-Americans, Palestinians living, working, and studying in the United States, and Americans in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle” in support of a demand for the resignation of Ziad Asali, the widely respected president of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). In Atshan’s view, Asali had betrayed the Palestinian cause by accepting an invitation to an event hosted by Israel’s US Ambassador Michael Oren to mark Israel’s Independence Day.

I have already devoted a post to this incident and quoted at length from Asali’s impressive response. But Atshan’s pathetic petition is also worth looking at in detail, because it provides such a good example of the kind of pompous and dishonest Nakba rhetoric that is designed to prolong the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the hope that this will lead to Israel’s delegitimization and its eventual absorption in a bi-national state.

Tel Aviv University's on-campus ceremony marking Nakba Day.

Yaakov Kirschen..
Dry Bones Blog..
14 May '12..





According to the Jerusalem Post:

Education minister: TAU Nakba event 'outrageous'

Sa'ar calls on Tel Aviv University president to reconsider his decision to allow on-campus ceremony marking Nakba Day.

"Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar asked Tel Aviv University President Professor Joseph Klaftner over the weekend to reconsider his decision to allow students to organize an “outrageous” on-campus ceremony to commemorate Nakba Day.

The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, is an annual commemoration when Arabs mourn the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Palestinian narrative recounts how hundreds of thousands of Arabs were either forced or felt compelled to leave behind their homes, with many fleeing to Israel’s neighboring countries where they remain until this day.

TAU announced this week that it would allow students to organize a Nakba Day commemoration under certain provisions, including hiring six school security guards to monitor the day’s events. The school administration also prohibited organizers from using a PA system and hanging flags and banners.

CAMERA - Ha'aretz Lost in Translation, X

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
04 December '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/12/haaretz_lost_in_translation_x.html

Today we have a new strain of the Ha'aretz Lost in Translation ailment. Instead of the traditional manifestation of the disease, in which the English edition mistranslates the original Hebrew, leaving international readers with a completely different (wrong) text than the Israelis read, today's English simply adds misinformation that doesn't at all appear in the Hebrew. Thus, the English version of an article by Gili Cohen about a new report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel refers to

the Naqba Law, which makes it possible to deprive organizations that oppose the core principles of the State of Israel of funding and "does great damage to the freedom of political expression, to artistic freedom and to the right to demonstrate," according to the report.

Except, as earlier explained here, the so-called Naqba Law does not apply to "organizations" in general, but only to government funded bodies, such as public schools or municipalities. And the only funding at risk is government money, not donations, foreign or otherwise.

Interestingly, the Hebrew version of the article does not mention the Naqba Law at all, leaving us to wonder once again: who are you Ha'aretz English translators, and why have you mangled the original Hebrew?

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Weiss: Breaking - Syrian state documents 'show Assad orchestrated Nakba Day raids on Golan Heights'

Michael Weiss
The Telegraph
13 June '11

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaelweiss/100092061/breaking-syrian-state-documents-show-assad-orchestrated-nakba-day-raids-on-golan-heights/

I have just been forward what appear to be Syrian state documents leaked by the governor of al-Qunaitera, in south-west Syria, which suggest that the regime fully orchestrated the “Nakba Day” raids of Palestinian refugees into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 15.

The document (below) which bears the Syrian Republic emblem, is dated May 14, 2011 and describes an “urgent meeting” of Major General Asef Shawkat, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces, and the chiefs of security and military intelligence branches in the province in Al-Qunaitera, which is located at the Syrian-Israeli border. The memorandum outlines how the regime ordered the dispatching of 20 buses, each one with a passenger capacity of 47, to cross the border into Majdal-Shamms in the Golan Heights in order to precipitate a confrontation between Palestinian refugees and Israeli soldiers and UN peacekeeping forces, thereby distracting international attention from the Syrian revolution.

I quote the entire document, attributed to the “Office of the Mayor” in Al-Qunaitera province:

After an urgent meeting convened by the security committee on Saturday in the presence of the Mayor of al-Qunaitera, Major General Asef Shawkat -Deputy Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces-, and chiefs of security and military (intelligence) branches in the province, the following was decided:


All security, military, and contingent units in the province, Ain-el-Tina and the old al-Qunaitera are hereby ordered to grant permission of passage to all twenty vehicles (47 passenger capacity) with the attached plate numbers that are scheduled to arrive at ten in the morning on Sunday May 15, 2011 without being questioned or stopped until it reaches or frontier defense locations.


Permission is hereby granted allowing approaching crowds to cross the cease fire line (with Israel) towards the occupied Majdal-Shamms, and to further allow them to engage physically with each other in front of United Nations agents and offices. Furthermore, there is no objection if a few shots are fired in the air.


Captain Samer Shahin from the military intelligence division is hereby appointed to the leadership of the group assigned to break-in and infiltrate deep into the occupied Syrian Golan Heights with a specified pathway to avoid land mines.


It is essential to ensure that no one carries military identification or a weapon as they enter with a strict emphasis on the peaceful and spontaneous nature of the protest.


The provincial security committee meeting is considered in constant deliberation in coordination with the Center.


May you be the source of prosperity for the nation and the party
(signature)


Dr. Khalil Mash-hadiya
Mayor of Al-Qunaitera

The Golan border dash, combined with similar raids along the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Gazan borders, killed 13 people in total and injured dozens more after Israeli troops opened fire on demonstrators who had pelted with them stones. Two hundred refugees broke through the border fence in the Golan Heights, though some, according to Israeli press accounts, were actually seeking asylum from Syrian violence, not protesting the “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding.

This document – which I have good reason to believe is absolutely genuine – appears to represent the first piece of regime-created evidence that Assad has cynically tried to manipulate Western and Arabic media during three-month Syrian uprising.

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Just another illegitimate regime

Petra Marquardt-Bigma
The Warped Mirror/JPost
07 June '11

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/just-another-illegitimate-regime

Here we go again – yet another heartbreaking tale of Israeli ruthlessness. The victim this time: a 22-year old American student who “was just protesting at the loss of his land” and was mercilessly shot and wounded.

For Robert Fisk, the highly regarded Middle East correspondent of The Independent, there can be no doubt that the young man and another 100 demonstrators – including two little girls – were hit by Israeli bullets.

But since the young American was wounded during this year’s “Nakba” assault on Israel’s border with Lebanon, he was actually most likely shot by the Lebanese army, which opened fire on the crowds that had been bused to the border area for a rally supported by Hezbollah.

The fact that the Lebanese army opened fire on the protesters was reported in the Israeli media already on May 15; however, when Fisk wrote his “tale from the frontline of Palestinian protest” almost two weeks later, he apparently deemed this fact irrelevant and chose not to mention it.

Fisk’s “tale” provides an excellent example of the kind of media coverage that shapes negative European views of Israel. Wasting no time to set the tone, Fisk introduces his readers already in the first few sentences of his article to a nice young man who is seriously wounded in a hospital because he dared to take part in a supposedly all peaceful demonstration against Israel. Since Fisk suggests that this was just another of those “Arab spring” demonstrations where idealistic young people demand basic rights and freedoms, the message is clear enough: Israel behaves just like the brutal Arab regimes that gun down unarmed protesters who demonstrate for rights that everyone in the West takes for granted.

But because the young man at the center of Fisk’s story is a Palestinian with American citizenship, there is yet another message: the US decries the shooting of peaceful protesters by Arab regimes, but when Israel does supposedly the same, the US remains silent, even if the victim of the shooting has American citizenship. No wonder then that at the end of his article, Fisk accuses President Obama of “cringing to Netanyahu” and of behaving in a “rather craven way.” Add to this the throwaway remark that Netanyahu got “55 ovations in Congress – more than the average Baath party congress in Damascus,” and the message gets even clearer. Unfortunately it’s a message that will appeal to all those who are fond of the old idea that the Jews rule the world.

At the same time it’s important to note that Fisk’s story actually includes several elements that provide a glimpse of a very different “tale” than the one he offers.

Syria: “There Is No Place for Israel in Our Natural Future”

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
06 June '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/06/syria-there-is-no-place-for-israel-in-our-natural-future/

Hundreds of Palestinian residents of Syria tried to storm Israel’s border for the second time in three weeks yesterday to mark “Naksa Day,” the Arabic term for Israel’s 1967 victory over the Syrian, Jordanian, and Egyptian armies. The Syrian government’s interest in allowing them to reach the border, normally a closed military zone, is obvious. Bashar al-Assad hoped to distract attention from his ongoing massacre of pro-democracy protesters. But what were the Palestinians themselves trying to achieve?

To Western journalists and diplomats, the answer is equally obvious. The goal was to increase pressure on Israel to accede to a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines. But according to Dr. Sabri Saidam, a former Palestinian communications minister and self-described Internet guru, that isn’t what Palestinians themselves are saying.

Young Palestinians, he asserted in an interview with Haaretz last week, are more committed than ever before, but most of them “are not talking about the peace process or the Arab [peace] initiative or the 1967 borders.” So if they have no interest in the peace process or the 1967 borders, what exactly are they committed to?

Their commitment, Saidam enthusiastically declared, is epitomized by the young Syrian-Palestinian—one of hundreds who successfully breached Israel’s borders on May 15—who triumphantly made it all the way to Jaffa. In short, young Palestinians aren’t committed to a state in the 1967 lines; what they are seeking is a “return” to pre-1967 Israel—towns like Jaffa and Haifa and Safed. And as everyone knows, allowing 4.8 million Palestinians to “return” to pre-1967 Israel would spell the demise of the Jewish state.

That, of course, is also the official position of Israel’s Palestinian “peace partner,” as I detailed here. But even if you assume, as Western journalists and diplomats blithely do, that this is a mere bargaining chip which the Palestinian leadership plans to sacrifice for a state in the 1967 lines, how do they imagine any Palestinian leader will be able to do so when his public views “returning” to pre-1967 Israel not as a bargaining chip, but as the primary goal?

In a recent column on Naksa Day in the Syrian government newspaper Al-Baath, columnist Ahmad Hassan summarized the goal bluntly:

This is not the “Middle East conflict”; it is the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is not a border conflict . . . it is a struggle for survival. . . . Neither we nor the entire region has a natural future in the shadow of Israeli existence, and there is no place for Israel in our natural future or that of the region.

Indeed, this point is inherent in the very name “Naksa Day.” The word naksa means “setback.” And what goal was set back when the Arabs failed to defeat Israel in 1967, at a time when it controlled none of what are now termed the “occupied territories”? Clearly, the goal of eradicating pre-1967 Israel.

Not all Arabs still want to turn the clock back to the days before Israel existed. But a great many do. And that’s precisely why Palestinians have said “no” to every offer of statehood since 1947.

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Understanding Arabic

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
05 June '11

For those who are not familiar with the terms "Nakba" and "Naksa" - perhaps this explanation will help you. This is a bit of humor...black humor, perhaps, on a day of sadness and stupidity.

Sadness - because once again, Israelis were forced to open fire; once again, the world may condemn us for defending our land and once again; and stupidity because irresponsible, stupid, stupid parents took their children into a war zone. Reports are coming in that 9-year-olds and 12-year-olds are mixed in with those on the border.

Understanding Arabic
by Jonathan Feldstein (reprinted with permission)


Nakba (Nak’ba\ (n[a^]k ba), n. 1. The world voted (in 1947) to establish two states in the remaining 20 percent of Mandatory Palestine, after unilaterally creating Jordan in 80% of the territory that we claim as our homeland, the Jews accepted it and we amassed troops and fought to slaughter every single one, and to drive the rest into the sea. The Jews kicked our asses as far back as Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, we lost unilaterally, and now we whine and complain that they beat us, trying to undo the damage we did to ourselves, blaming Israel for all our problems, while still not recognizing Israel’s right to exist. 2. Our stupidity.

Naksa (Nak’sa\ (n[a^]k sa), n. 1. We tried to wipe Israel off the map again (in 1967) by massing troops on its border, closing shipping lanes to Israeli vessels, and other acts of war, we got our asses handed to us in the shortest war on record, and now we whine and complain that the Israelis beat us, trying to undo the damage we did to ourselves, blaming Israel for all our problems, while still not recognizing Israel’s right to exist. 2. Our stupidity.

Nakba/Naksa day – 1. Every year we commemorate our stupidity by blaming Israel for all our problems, continuing to be belligerent, continuing not to recognize Israel, and being the one party that refuses to make peace and take responsibility for our actions. 2. Intransigence personified and the sole obstacle to peace.

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Home-Made Nakba

JewishIndy
23 May '11

By Mordechai Kedar
Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation)
Bar-Ilan University
Middle Eastern Insights No. 9
May 23, 2011

http://www.jewishindy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=15311

The word nakba in Arabic means an enormous, gigantic tragedy, a catastrophe. This is the word used in the Arab-Islamic discourse to denote the start of the “Palestine” calamity, in which Islam’s Holy Land of Palestine fell captive in a modern-day Crusade to Zionism, the emissary of European imperialism. When Israel's 1948 War of Independence ended, six hundred thousand Arabs, formerly of Palestine/Eretz Israel, remained in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (under Jordanian occupation), the Gaza Strip (under Egyptian occupation), Egypt and Libya.

The catastrophe was indeed great and its dimensions stemmed not only from the physical disaster that befell the Arabs, but – and perhaps primarily – from the psychological tragedy that has accompanied the physical for sixty-three years: Israel survived the War of Independence and the later wars it was forced into. It succeeded, developed, expanded and flourished while the Palestinians were left with only a shattered dream. Israel became a success while they failed, and jealousy is driving them mad. Jealousy begets hatred; the greater the jealousy, the more intense the hatred. The State of Israel is the mirror in which the Arabs perceive their failure; while the Jewish people celebrates its sixty-three years of renewed independence, after 1940 years of exile, they mark sixty-three years of continuous shortcomings.

To an extent, the years of struggle against Zionism served to unite the Arabs in Palestine /Eretz Israel under the leadership of Haj Amin el-Husseini, who was wanted by the British for his activities. He recruited tens of thousands of Balkan Muslims for the SS in order to prevent European Jews from entering Eretz Israel mainly by guarding the railway bridges on which Hungarian Jews were transported to their deaths in 1944 by the Nazis. Many, including some of us, Israelis, are unaware of this point: the leader of Palestine’s Arabs was part of the machinery of destruction used to murder European Jewry. Nevertheless, Husseini and his Nazi patrons failed and Israel was established three years after their defeat.

On November 29, 1947, when the results of the United Nations General Assembly vote on the Partition Plan (designed to settle the Jews of Eretz Israel in three cantons – the Negev desert and two narrow strips along the coastal plain and the Galilee panhandle) were publicized, the Jews danced joyously in the streets, celebrating the great historic achievement. The Arabs strongly opposed the decision and were furious that the “theft of Palestine” had received an international seal of approval. The differences between the Arab and the Jewish approaches were evident already then: a positive, constructive and optimistic approach on the part of the Jews, and a negative, destructive attitude adopted by the Arabs – destructive towards the Jews, but no less destructive towards themselves.

A revanchist cause called Nakba

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
19 May '11

http://www.sarahhonig.com/?p=847



(re·vanche (r-vänch, -väsh)n.1. The act of retaliating; revenge.2. A usually political policy, as of a nation or an ethnic group, intended to regain lost territory or standing. Y.)

Another Nakba Day has come and gone with its not-unexpected bloody consequences. The Nakba must be the single most successful revanchist propaganda ploy ever – one which dementedly ultra-tolerant Israel has allowed to gain momentum and become a fixed feature of our surreal existence.

Never has a revanchist cause been marketed as effectively. It wasn’t so even in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 when France lost Alsace-Lorraine and seethed with patriotic retributionist ardor to reverse its wartime losses. This furious groundswell was then dubbed revanchism (from revanche, French for revenge).

Revanchism is inextricably tied to irredentism – the often unsavory nationalist agitation whereby one country claims stretches of another’s territory as property belonging to it.

World War II resulted from precisely such a lethal combination of revanchism and irredentism. Hitler strove to avenge Germany’s World War I defeat and (so he claimed initially) take control of territories populated by German-speakers. He insisted that Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland was Germania Irredenta (unredeemed Germany) – his “last demand in Europe.”

That border region’s German inhabitants, Hitler persuaded a world all-too-eager to be duped, deserve self-determination. Germans cannot live as a minority anywhere. (Just as Arabs can’t.)

Hitler’s next move was to portray Sudeten Germans as oppressed. He staged a circus of provocation charging the “perfidious Czechs” with terrorizing Sudeten women and children and murdering innocent villagers. Sounds familiar? Just substitute Israelis for Czechs and Palestinians for Sudetens.

Six months after appeasing democracies let Germany have the Sudetenland, Hitler took all of Czechoslovakia. His “last demand” wasn’t final after all. “I saw our enemies in Munich,” he later recalled his 1938 powwow with Neville Chamberlain. “They are little worms.”

Israel’s original sin is refusing to surrender without a shot like Czechoslovakia. Its subsequent most cardinal sin was having dared spoil Arab plans for its annihilation. Because Israel impudently remained alive (and kicking), its survival is denigrated as a Nakba – catastrophe.

The very term “nakba” bristles with revanchism, and nobody knows better than the volatile, incited Arab masses how to collectively fly off the handle in an orchestrated display of premeditated pseudo-righteous indignation.

The ‘Nakba’ Day Protests and the Impossibility of Peace

Eldad Tzioni
www.newsrealblog.com
16 May '11

The events of “Naqba Day” are just one, very small proof that real peace is impossible.

Not “difficult.” Not “painful.” Truly, 100% impossible.

What were the thousands of protesters from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza demanding? Their demands are simple: the “right to return.” They want Israel to allow millions of Arabs of Palestinian descent to flood the country and turn it into another Arab state.

This demand has been absolute and unyielding for 63 years. Never has any Arab leader publicly renounced this demand. Never have the Palestinian Arabs accepted any compromise on the matter. Today, right now, the PLO demands this so-called” right” in unambiguous terms.

There is no need here to mention that there is no such right enshrined in international law, or how easy it is to prove that Arab leaders have used this “demand” as a smokescreen to their real desire to destroy Israel, or the hypocrisy of Palestinian Arab leaders, today, who do not want even those who used to live on land they now control to “return.” All those points are true and can be proven at another time.

The point here is that this demand is completely at odds with Israel’s continued existence. One cannot have it both ways: either the Arabs come and destroy Israel, or Israel is allowed to exist and they never “return.” There is no possible compromise.

(Read full "The ‘Nakba’ Day Protests and the Impossibility of Peace")

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Seven Years Later, and Nothing Has Changed

West Bank Mama
17 May '11

http://westbankmama.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/seven-years-later-and-nothing-has-changed/

While this past Sunday’s events took most of the headlines, the day was marked in a different way by my neighbor. Sunday was the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, and was the day seven years ago that Arab terrorists killed Tali Hatuel, a woman eight months pregnant, and her four young daughters. They shot her and her children in cold blood as they were traveling in their station wagon. Tali was my neighbor’s sister. Five years ago I wrote about their yahrzheit here.

Seven years ago there were some in Israel that thought peace would be on its way. Arik Sharon was going to move all of the Jews out of Gush Katif, and the Arabs were going to get what they (supposedly) wanted – the “end of the occupation”. The Jews were kicked out of Gaza, and……..the Arabs burned the synagogues to the ground, looted and destroyed the greenhouses, and continued firing rockets, this time into Sderot and the kibbutzim near the border with Gaza. 10,000 Jews were displaced from their homes, and instead of bringing peace it just served as a reward for the terrorists.

Now the Arabs are again calling for a state of their own, in the pre-1967 Israeli borders. Supposedly, if they get that, then they will negotiate a peace agreement with the Israelis. There is only one catch though. On Sunday they rioted in many places in Israel, a terrorist killed one and injured 17 in Tel-Aviv, and other Arabs from the surrounding countries tried to storm our borders and in one case succeeded. This was all on the day they call the Nakba – which commemorates the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, before there were any Jews living in Judea and Samaria. If they still commemorate this date by trying to kill Jews in Tel-Aviv, then why would anyone think it will be different if we give them territory in Judea and Samaria?

Whatever happens in September in the UN will not change the reality here in Israel. The Arabs hate us and want to kill us and completely destroy the State of Israel. It is part of Islam, and Hamas states this openly. They are planning to attack us again, and we will fight back and win, again. The only question is when, and how many Arab countries will pile on.

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Mark The Islamic Expert's Words: It's Not About Politics and Borders - It's About Theology and Annihilation

Daphne Anson
16 May '11

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/05/mark-islamic-experts-words-its-not.html

At yesterday's angry demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London (see my previous post for a nine-minute video), where Hezbollah flags were waved by many in the mob, a certain genocidal chant rang out.

To quote Tom Friedmann, who has a most evocative description of the demonstration that deserves to be read in full:

"Over at the [simultaneous] Israeli demonstration Jewish teenagers waved Israeli flags, sang traditional Jewish songs and joined in chants declaring their will to peace. If they could have been described as provocative at all it was when they chanted ‘We love life, you love death’ yet undeniably quite accurately reflecting the statements of countless Islamist clerics on the subject. Nor could the Palestinian side really attempt to claim that they were not championing the Islamist cause; several Hezbollah flags could clearly be seen among their crowed. And while the Israeli demonstrators made their calls for peace and that Gaza be freed from Hamas the Palestinian group decided to go for a rendition of ‘Khyber al-Yahud’ which calls on Jews to remember how they were slaughtered by Mohammad and his men at Khyber in 7th century Arabia. [My emphasis] Indeed much of the chanting was in Arabic as most of the crowed appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin, many in traditional Islamic dress. The odd Quaker/Anarchist that had ill-advisedly come along nervously struggled to join in with the Arabic, but for the most part Middle England had stayed away this time. There was of course Lauren Booth who seemed to have come in fancy dress; sporting an amusingly dysfunctional combination of designer sunglasses, a pink jacket and a keffiyeh for a hijab, but then she can hardly be said to count." See: http://tomfriedmann.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/two-very-different-demonstrations-at-the-israeli-embassy/ and also http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/naqba-day-extremists-spew-hate-outside-israeli-embassy/

No doubt the genocidal chant pierced the air at similar "Nakba Day" rallies in other cities round the world.

Golan Brigade commander: Infiltration of Syrians did not surprise us [Problematic narrative]

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
17 May '11





[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: One hopes that this and other remarks by various officials are more a reflection of an approach to treat the Israeli public like children while they themselves realize that they screwed up and are acting to rectify the situation. 


The size of the Golan did not change yesterday ( "you have to remember that this [the Golan Heights] is a very large area") - so that's hardly an explanation that can justify failure. 


Also the line that "At a certain point, the Syrian crowd started throwing stones" is deceptive as it leaves the impression that the forces were deployed and then this transpired when in truth the invasion was apparently underway before Israeli forces were even in a position to respond. 


And, of course, this remarkable narrative: "after this (shooting at legs) they withdrew".


 They didn't "withdraw". Those inside the Druze village interviewing with an Israel Radio reporter remained there for hours. 


This, in fact, was perhaps the most distressing element of the story: those listening to the live broadcast of Israel Radio Reshet Bet heard the correspondent talking live with invaders from Syria at the very same moment that Israeli defense spokespeople were giving the impression that the invaders had been repulsed. All this while for over an hour IDF Radio ignored the event altogether.]

Golan Brigade commander: Infiltration of Syrians did not surprise us
16 May 2011 , 17:36 IDF Website
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/today/2011/05/1605.htm

"We prepared for such situations, in which people climbed the border fences, but you have to remember that this [the Golan Heights] is a very large area," commander of the Golan Brigade, Colonel Eshkol Shukrun, said on Sunday evening (May 15) following violent clashes on the Israel-Syria border when Syrian demonstrators breached the border fence. "Their infiltration was not a complete surprise."

Col. Shukrun himself was slightly injured in the clashes but continued to command the forces on the ground.

"At a certain point, the Syrian crowd started throwing stones, some of them large stones that endangered the soldiers," Col. Shukrun said. "When I understood that the event had gotten out of control, I realized that it was time to begin to shoot at the legs of protesters, mainly those who appeared to be the main inciters of the event. After this, they withdrew."

Col. Shukrun explained: "Because it was a crowd that included women and children, the orders to soldiers were to cause as little harm as possible. We tried to exercise restraint and cause little damage. "

Col. Shukrun said that the IDF cooperated with United Nations forces during the event.

"International forces assisted in handling the event, and were in touch with us particularly in the final stages. They took charge of the incident at the 'Shouting Hill' in terms of moving the demonstrators back to the east. The cooperation was good," Col. Shukrun said.

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