Monday, May 15, 2023
From Ian:
David Collier: Things you really need to know on ‘Nakba Day’
David Collier: Things you really need to know on ‘Nakba Day’
The current Nakba narrative is a masterpiece of deception and antisemitic propaganda.NGO Monitor: NGOs Mark 75 Years of “Nakba”
The conflict of 1947 – 1949 happened just like we say it did. It was an unnecessary conflict that the Arabs wanted and started because they could not accept Jewish self-rule in any part of British Palestine. Casualties were high on both sides and the fighting was brutal. The Jews declared independence, fought off the invading armies and won the war.
It was a war of extermination launched by Arabs to destroy the world’s only Jewish state. The Arab ‘catastrophe’ is that the Jews survived. This is really what their Nakba Day is all about.
Nobody should mourn the Arab failure to eradicate the Jews.
Everything that they say about the Nakba today – changed as they needed it to evolve. In reality the Nakba myth only expanded in the last few decades, as extremists wanted to make it more difficult to negotiate a settlement over the refugees.
This simple explanation – that the Nakba was the Arab failure to destroy Israel – is how the Nakba story was being reported in 1975:
That is the advantage with myths – you can just make it all up as you go along.
Each year around May 15, the network of anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGOs) marks the “Nakba,” an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” used to describe the establishment of the State of Israel. The NGOs repeat this term to declare Israel as inherently illegitimate and to push for a Palestinian “right of return” that would result in the elimination of the Jewish state. These efforts often rest on false historical claims and portrayal of Jews as “alien” or “foreign” to the Middle East. They erase Arab rejection of the UN partition plan and the launching of war against the fledgling state of Israel in the immediate aftermath. These activities are enabled by extensive funding from foreign governments, primarily from Europe.US, UK are responsible for the Nakba - Abbas tells United Nations
In their commemorations, the NGOs accuse Israel of “ethnic cleansing”, “colonialism,” and “apartheid” to characterize all Jewish aspects of Israel as inherently racist, thus denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. As stated in the consensus working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), this is an example of antisemitism.
This year, as seen in the selections below, many of the NGO events reference the 75th anniversary of 1948 in promoting divisive campaigns. Palestinian NGOs
Al-Haq
On May 19, Al-Haq founder Raja Shehadeh will participate in a “book talk” at the Museum of the Palestinian People’s “series of events…to commemorate the 75th year since the Nakba began.”
Since 2020, Al-Haq has received funding from Denmark, Sweden, European Union, Italy, France, and Norway.
BADIL
In April 2023, BADIL held a poster competition “under the slogan: “75 years of ongoing Nakba… 75 years of ongoing Resistance.” The competition called for submissions to “reflect the ongoing resistance of the Palestinian people against the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime.” The winning posters will be featured in an exhibition at the UN headquarters in Geneva and New York.
Donors have included Ireland, Spain, DanChurchAid (Denmark), Diakonia (Sweden), and Trocaire (Ireland).
There is no proof of Jewish ties to the area of Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday at the United Nations. He mentioned Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount and its adjacent Western Wall.
“They [Israel] dug under al-Aqsa… they dug everywhere, and they could not find anything,” Abbas said.
He spoke during a special session of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to mark the 75th anniversary of Nakba Day, Arabic for “Catastrophe Day,” the term Palestinians use to describe the 1948 war. The UN also planned to hold a second Nakba Day event on Monday evening.
Israel has in the past waged a stiff diplomatic battle against Palestinian attempts at the UN to disavow its connection to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, the third-holiest site in Islam.
It also protested the UN General Assembly resolution approved last November to hold Nakba Day events for the first time at the organization’s headquarters in New York.
In his speech, Abbas emphasized that “the ownership of al-Buraq Wall [the Western Wall] and al-Haram al-Sharif [Temple Mount] belongs exclusively and only to the Islamic Wakf alone.” He cited a 1930 League of Nations report that he said affirmed this conclusion.
Abbas also repeated the claim, which Israel has denied, that Palestinians were not given freedom of worship on the Aqsa Mosque compound.
During his speech, Abbas said the US and the UK were responsible for the permanent displacement of what he said was close to a million Palestinians during the 1948 war.
These two countries “bear political and ethical responsibility directly for the Nakba of the Palestinian people because they took part in rendering our people a victim when they decided to establish and plant another entity [the Jewish people] in our historic homeland,” he said.
The US and the UK did this for “their own colonial goals and objectives,” Abbas said, adding that “Israel would not have continued its hostility and aggression without the support it receives from these two countries.”
