The Palestinian Nakba: A time to remember global indigenous struggles

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/palestinian-indigenous-struggles

The importance of remembering the Palestinian Nakba is not only about historical narrative; but most importantly it is about realizing and understanding the indigeneity of the Palestinian struggle.

On May 15th, 1948, the Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed from the land of historic Palestine that later became the current State of Israel — a State that has and continues to be built at the expense of the Palestinians 67 years later. This process is known to the Palestinians as the Nakba or Catastrophe.

The first occurrence and wave of the Nakba involved the ethnic cleansing process that dispossessed and displaced 750,000 Palestinians into refugee camps in neighboring countries. This includes those that were systematically massacred, as well as those that were internally displaced in refugee camps within what are known today as the 1967 borders of the enclave and reservation territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Furthermore, it also includes those Palestinians that remained in the territories within the 1948 borders, now compromising 20% of Israel’s population living as third class citizens of the State of Israel facing constant threats to their community and collective identity.

The second wave of the Nakba occurred after the 1967 Israeli military and administrative occupation of the reservation territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This continues today through a complex and permanent architecture of violence and matrix of control with the use of settlement expansion, apartheid-type policies, land annexation, usurpation and uprooting as well as overall colonization aimed at pushing and squeezing out the Palestinians from the land through these ethnic cleansing tactics.

[oberliner]

1. Complete and utter BS

Literally nothing but garbage and lies from top to bottom in an attempt to continue to dupe gullible people into believing a narrative that is as attractive to some as the similarly bogus narrative about the founding of Israel is to others.

What actually happened on May 15 1948 is that Egypt, a country that goes unmentioned in this entire story, bombed Tel Aviv.

Also unmentioned is the fact that Egypt and Jordan occupied Gaza and The West Bank respectively from 1948 and 1967 and did not allow for the creation of an independent Palestinian state there during that occupation.

During that time, dozens of synagogues (some of which were centuries old) were destroyed, razed to the ground by those Jordanian occupiers. All Jews were forced out of neighborhoods in Jerusalem that they had inhabited for years.

Bizarre in a piece about global indigenous struggles that the fact that the Jewish people had lived in Jerusalem for countless generations is someone nonexistent. This is a Jewish population that was routinely driven out of their land over the years, expelled repeatedly and treated like second class citizens by various occupying powers upon their return.

In 1947, the people who lived in historic Palestine, were, for the first time in their history, afforded the opportunity to live as a free people in an independent state.

Had the Partition Plan been accepted the nation of Palestine would have been created - no one would have been forced into exile. At the same time an independent Jewish state could have come into existence living side by side with the newly independent Arab state.

Throughout the first part of the 1940's Jews were slaughtered by the millions across Europe - the lucky ones escaped to one of the very small number of countries that would take them.

The founding of a Jewish state alongside of an Arab site in a land that held great significance to both peoples could have been a bright light for both peoples after the darkness of World War II and The Holocaust.

But the rest of the Arab world would not accept the presence of a Jewish state in their midst and on May 15 1948 the attack by Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and others began.

Was the Partition Plan fair? Certainly not. But many unfair events happened in the 1940s and sometimes a compromise is better than the alternative. Had this unfair plan been accepted, there would have been no Nakba. There would be no descendants of Palestinians living in refugee camps.

Instead we would be celebrating the birthday of an independent Palestinian state on the same day as the birthday of Israel.

People like Ahmed Moussa and others who write for Mondoweiss want to erase the Jewish history in and connection to the land of Israel in exactly the same way that some on the right want to pretend that there were no Palestinians. Both should be treated with the same sort of contempt and criticism.

[azurnoir]

3. I'm confused here are you denying that over 700,000 PalestinianArabs were forced to flee if not

outright expelled or attempting to justify that?

[oberliner]

8. Neither

I am saying that the Partition Plan ought to have been accepted and, though imperfect, would have led to the creation of two independent states for both peoples.

Had that happened, instead of marking the anniversary of suffering and exile, folks would be marking the anniversary of the birth of an independent Arab Palestine.

[azurnoir]

43. why yes of course because Israel accepted it right? However hindsight is 20/20

and while Israel did accept the partiton plan it was common knowledge the Arabs would not, meaning Israel could talk the talk knowing it would never have to walk the walk, so to speak. As subsequent history has shown us the amount of land allocated to a Jewish State was not adequate for what was felt to be needed, Israel gained land in the following 'ceasefire' plan but this still was not enough as has been shown by Israel's present actions in the occupied West Bank-now one could complain that Israel gave up Sinai but of what real value was it Israel gave up a desert property nothing more

[Sobax]

4. Some Jewish people lived in Jerusalem for generations

The majority, though, immigrated in the early 20th century. There's no reason why the Palestinians should have accepted any state or the terms set by these occupiers.

[oberliner]

7. That is true

As I said, the Partition Plan was not fair. But a lot of things that went on throughout the 1940's were not fair.

Accepting the unfair plan would have resulted in the creation of an independent Arab Palestinian state next to a Jewish one. The Palestinians people would have been free of colonial overlords for the first time in their history and the Jewish people who were recently nearly exterminated across Europe would have a small independent country in what many of them consider to be their historic homeland.

It was definitely not a perfect plan, but sometimes people have to make the best out of imperfect circumstances.

[aranthus]

41. It's not that simple.

First, the Partition Plan wasn't presented as a "take it or leave it." Nor was it something that was going to be forced on the Arabs. It was an attempt at compromise, and not the first one. In truth, it was either the Hail Mary last effort of the international community to achieve a peaceful resolution, or a cover up of the abandonment of the Jews to the ensuing war. A war that everyone expected the Jews and the Palestinians to both lose. It was expected that the surrounding Arab states would invade, win the war, slaughter and/or expel the Jews, and take Palestine for themselves. Yes, the Partition Plan was unfair, but it resulted from the Arab refusal to accept any compromise at all, or even to talk to the Jews about it.

[Little Tich]

5. Nakba denial is just as bad as Holocaust denial.

Maybe you should go stand in the corner with Ernst Zundel and David Irving.

[oberliner]

6. Of course it isn't

The events are not even remotely similar to one another in any respect.

It's really disgusting to me that someone could even make such a comment.

The Mondoweiss post in the OP is filled with lies and is total BS.

The article is itself something that is in the same family as Holocaust denial in that it pretends that there was no Jewish indigenous presence in Israel, that there was no Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem neighborhoods whose Jewish residents were expelled and ancient synagogues destroyed.

And of course, it literally ignores the actual Holocaust that occurred in Europe which accelerated the immigration of Jews to Palestine, many of whom were fleeing for their lives or were attempting to start a new life after being forcibly kicked out of their home countries.

It is an indisputable fact that had the Partition Plan been accepted, there would have been an independent Palestinian Arab state created for the first time in history, Palestinian Arabs would be free of colonial overlords. This was rejected by the Arab states in the region. It is also a fact that on May 15 1948, Egypt bombed Tel Aviv. Whether or not you think that it was right of Egypt to do this is your prerogative.

If you want to believe the BS Mondoweiss narrative about 1948 then you are engaging in your own form of denial.

To suggest that disputing the contents of a Mondoweiss article is akin to David Irving-style Holocaust denial is just despicable. It is like taking those who accuse anyone who disputes the Israeli foundations myths of being an anti-semite and multiplies it by a magnitude of 100. Literally creating a situation where one has to accept everything in this Mondoweiss article or risk being compared to David Irving.

Whenever I think someone is actually willing to have discussions in good faith, I am often sadly disappointed to find out otherwise.

[Little Tich]

13. Would you agree with this definition of the Nakba?

The Nakba refers to the displacement of around 700.000 people in the former Palestine Mandate caused by the forced removal of Palestinians by Jewish militias and later IDF, as well as the Palestinians who fled fearing for their safety, from the latter half of 1947 until 1955, when the last civilian labour camps were closed and the prisoners expelled from Israel.

I think this would be the Nakba in a nutshell. Do you have anything to add to this?

BTW, I don't believe that the assertion in the OP that the Nakba is continuing with a “third wave”, the settlement enterprise is a different thing.

[oberliner]

24. The first part

"The Nakba refers to the displacement of around 700.000 people in the former Palestine Mandate ..."

That part is, of course, undeniably true. The part that begins with "caused by..." is subject to further consideration.

Allow me to cite Benny Morris. I believe you expressed respect for his historiography in an earlier thread.

This is from a letter he wrote to the Irish Times in 2008:

In defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly Resolution of November 29th, 1947 (No. 181), they launched hostilities against the Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes.

It is true, as Erskine Childers pointed out long ago, that there were no Arab radio broadcasts urging the Arabs to flee en masse; indeed, there were broadcasts by several Arab radio stations urging them to stay put. But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948. And Haifa's Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, did, on April 22nd, plead with them to stay, to no avail.

Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops.

The displacement of the 700,000 Arabs who became "refugees" - and I put the term in inverted commas, as two-thirds of them were displaced from one part of Palestine to another and not from their country (which is the usual definition of a refugee) - was not a "racist crime" (David Landy, January 24th) but the result of a national conflict and a war, with religious overtones, from the Muslim perspective, launched by the Arabs themselves.

<end of excerpt>

Full text can be found here: http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2008/02/benny-morris-on-fact-fiction-propaganda.html

Note: I know nothing of the above blog - it was just the first place I found the entire letter printed in full.

[Little Tich]

29. Benny Morris seems to contradict his own, earlier findings.

The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined

Source: Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1997

(13th paragraph, snip)
In the opening pages of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Benny Morris offers the outlines of an overall answer: using a map that shows the 369 Arab towns and villages in Israel (within its 1949 borders), he lists, area by area, the reasons for the departure of the local population (9). In 45 cases he admits that he does not know. The inhabitants of the other 228 localities left under attack by Jewish troops, and in 41 cases they were expelled by military force. In 90 other localities, the Palestinians were in a state of panic following the fall of a neighbouring town or village, or for fear of an enemy attack, or because of rumours circulated by the Jewish army - particularly after the 9 April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, where the news of the killings swept the country like wildfire.

By contrast, he found only six cases of departures at the instigation of local Arab authorities. “There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to flee their homes (though in certain areas the inhabitants of specific villages were ordered by Arab commanders or the AHC to leave, mainly for strategic reasons).” ("The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem", p. 129). On the contrary, anyone who fled was actually threatened with “severe punishment”. As for the broadcasts by Arab radio stations allegedly calling on people to flee, a detailed listening to recordings of their programmes of that period shows that the claims were invented for pure propaganda.
(end snip)

Read more: http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

Perhaps the Israeli archives should be reopened, so that we can see which Benny Morris is right.

[oberliner]

34. "It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book"

He revised the 1987 book in the early 2000's after gaining access to more of those archives.

Here are a few relevant interview excerpts about his revised version:

The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives.

It turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. It proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself.

[Little Tich]

35. For the record, by Benny Morris

Source: The Guardian, Jan 12, 2004

In 1948, thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what is now Israel, and became refugees. Both sides have blamed each other ever since. But new documents show neither is entirely innocent, argues Benny Morris

First, there were the faces, the old Palestinian women huddled around a smoking, outdoor stone oven among the ruins of the Rashidiye refugee camp near Tyre in June 1982, days after the Israeli army had scythed through southern Lebanon. Their menfolk had fled northward to the PLO bastion in Beirut, or had been killed or captured and were undergoing interrogation in Israeli detention camps. The women told me that they originated in the village of Al Bassa, in northern Galilee. They had fled Palestine in 1948.

Then, in December 1982, came the first fading, pre-Xerox photocopies, neatly stacked in files in an archive outside Tel Aviv. They recorded the doings during late 1947-1948 of the Palmah, the strike force of the Haganah, the main Jewish underground militia in Palestine. They were still classified but I had been given access. Some of the documents, such as Lieutenant-Colonel Yitzhak Rabin's order to the Yiftah Brigade of July 12 1948 to expel the inhabitants of the just-conquered Arab town of Lydda, shed light on the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.

The faces and the documents together sparked my interest and I began to research and write my book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. The book that emerged undermined both the official Zionist and the traditional Arab narratives. The documents showed that the 700,000 or so Arabs who had fled or been driven from their homes in the area that became the state of Israel in 1948-49 had not done so, by and large, on orders from or at the behest of Palestinian or outside Arab leaders, as Israelis were educated to believe; but, at the same time, they had not been expelled by the Israelis in compliance with a preset master plan or in line with a systematic policy, as the Arabs, in their demonisation of Israel, have been taught.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/14/israel

I'm not posting this as an argument for or against anything, I just think his own argumentation could shed some light on things.

[oberliner]

37. Interesting

I think that it is good for both sides to realize that elements of their narratives are questionable, as Morris points out in your post.

All I was doing was questioning some of the way that the author in the OP presented the narrative and you implied that what I was doing was akin to David Irving style Holocaust denial which was quite ridiculous and insulting, but I am happy to move on.

[Little Tich]

38. The subject is very interesting, and I think we'll return to it in the future. n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

15. Denial is Denial, oberliner. That was the point.

Last edited Sat May 16, 2015, 01:04 PM - Edit history (1)

The Trail of Tears

The Slave Trade (anywhere, anytime)

Jim Crow

Armenian Genocide

Irish Genocide

The Holocaust for:
•Jews
•Romani
•Dissidents
•Political Prisoners
•Slavs
•Disabled
•Other

*WWII Chinese casualties were about 14 million. Did you know that?

Denial of any of the above just shows contempt, bigotry and outright hostility for that groups suffering.

To the oppressed it doesn't matter if the oppressor's name is Andrew Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Hitler, Tojo, Bush or Netanyahu.

Murder and oppression is still murder and oppression: regradless if they kill 1 or 100 million.

[oberliner]

20. No it's not

There is a difference between David Irving-style Holocaust denial and criticizing this Mondoweiss article.

To try to draw a comparison between those two things is ridiculous to put it charitably.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

25. Have a nice day...

[oberliner]

26. I don't know what you mean by that

I'd be curious to engage with your further about the article in the OP.

Would you agree, at least, that the author denies any connection between the Jews and the Land of Israel?

[King_David]

9. It comes from Mondoweiss

Which I am surprised to see being used here as its a vanity site and even considered a hate site by some.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134102897

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134102914

[oberliner]

10. Mondoweiss is one of the most popular sites in the DU I/P forum

It has a fair number of fans here, so I think it's important to challenge the more egregious BS being posted there.

Although there are probably only a few dozen of us at most who are actually reading any of this so perhaps there is a better use of my time.

[King_David]

11. Probably more like a single dozen than a few

[oberliner]

12. Ouch

Well I'm going to pretend that there are more people reading my carefully crafted posts than that!

[King_David]

18. Don't get me wrong

They are brilliantly crafted responses , you should start a blog to increase the readership.

[oberliner]

27. Thanks but no thanks

I am too thin skinned to be a blogger. I already have a hard time dealing with some of the snark and discourteousness I get from my fellow DU-ers.

[msongs]

2. one would think we are back in the old testament days nt

[Jefferson23]

14. snip* Democracy Now 2008 Interview: Morris, Finkelstein, Makdisi:

AMY GOODMAN: Saree Makdisi, this issue of the acceptance of the partition, can you take it from there?

SAREE MAKDISI: Yeah. I mean, there are several things about it. For one thing, as Dr. Morris points out, it’s true that the mainstream Zionist movement accepted the partition plan. But on the other hand, as his own historical record shows, Ben-Gurion and others were very frank that the acceptance was meant to be tactical rather than sort of, you know, whole-hearted. So the idea was to accept and then go from there, not just to accept and then really settle down into the two states as envisaged by the UN partition plan.

Meanwhile, the Arab rejection of the plan had to do with the fact that basically they were—- the Palestinians and Arabs were being told that they should become a minority in their own land. That’s what this is fundamentally all about, as well. So, the question is, which viewers have to contemplate is, what would they do if somebody came and told them that they should either become a minority in their own homeland — that is, second-class citizens — or be removed from their homeland? And I think almost anybody would say this is an unreasonable proposition. So, again, it comes back to the question of, what would you do in this situation?

But more than that, I think what’s important to ask Dr. Morris, as long as we have him with us, is: when you talk about — Dr. Morris, when you talk about the events of 1948 in that famous interview with Haaretz in 2004, you say quite clearly that ethnic cleansing is justified and that the main problem, as far as you see it — then, anyway — was that Ben-Gurion didn’t go far enough in completing the ethnic cleansing, that he should have removed as much as possible of the non-Jewish population all the way to the Jordan River. So my question to you is, is this still a position that you hold? Do you still think it was justified? Do you still think that Ben-Gurion should have finished the job? And do you think still that in some ways that is the origin of the conflict as it persists to this day?

in full: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/16/as_israelis_celebrate_independence_and_palestinians

[oberliner]

17. Good points

The Arab rejection of the plan would've worked out really well if the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and others had been successful in driving all of the Jews who had recently escaped the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II or the earlier pogroms into the sea.

Alternatively, the unfair plan could have been accepted and both peoples would have their own independent state.

Imagine this outcome:

Both sides accept the plan and two independent states are created. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine would be free in a state they govern themselves for the first time in their history and the Jewish people (recently nearly exterminated across Europe) would have a small independent state in a land to which they have been connected for centuries.

Isn't that better than what actually happened or having the Arab armies succeed in driving out the Jews?

[Jefferson23]

16. Nakba

Irene Gendzier: Plain talk on the Netanyahu visit

10 March 2015

The March visit of the Israeli PM to Washington has aroused rapid opposition among Israel’s supporters in Congress as well as Democratic Party activists. At issue is the matter of protocol, not to say, principle. But there is something else afoot, namely, the realization that Netanyahu’s action risks alienating a political base that is increasingly skeptical of Israeli claims, including those about Iran’s nuclear arms that were exposed as false by Israel’s Intelligence agency. Then there was the PM’s analogy between his leadership of Israel in 2015 and that of David Ben-Gurion in 1948, that was rapidly written off by Israeli critics. At bottom, however, is the threat of blowing open the taboo on plain talk about Washington’s relations with Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Irene Gendzier: Gaza, 1948 and US policy

25 August 2014

US officials understood the Israeli reliance on force to expand and control territory, which they criticized while recognizing Israel’s military superiority as compared to that of surrounding Arab states. It was on the basis of such force that Israel altered the balance of power in the Middle East in 1948. And it was on the basis of such developments that Washington calculated that Israel could be useful in the protection of US regional interests.
Aisha Mershani: Palestine photo project – 10 years later

25 June 2013

Ten years ago, Aisha Mershani began a project to document the lives of everyday Palestinians non-violently resisting Israeli occupation. Since 2003, she have photographed and gathered testimonies from Palestinian communities that have resisted the building of the Wall. After six years away, she is returning to the West Bank in the summer of 2013 to complete this project. Thus far, Aisha has self-funded her work; she is now asking for your support with the completion of the last stage of this ten-year project.


100 year old Israeli general: We razed Arab villages, so what?

14 June 2013

In an interview on IDF Radio, Pundak confirmed that forces under his command razed Arab villages in 1948. “My conscience is at ease with that, because if we hadn’t done so, then there would be no state by now. There would be a million more Arabs,” he said.
Jonathan Cook: The return to Iqrit

9 June 2013

In 1948, some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from more than 400 villages as the new state of Israel was declared on a large part of their homeland – an event known to Palestinians as the nakba, or “catastrophe”. The refugees – mostly descendants of those driven from their homes – now number around five million, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Mass graves of Palestinians killed in 1948 Nakba discovered in Jaffa

3 June 2013

Six mass grave sites dating back to the 1936 Palestinian uprising and the 1948 Nakba were discovered around the Jaffa cemetery, the al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage reported Wednesday, revealing hundreds of bodies of Palestinians killed by Zionist forces.

Al-Nakba

15 May 2013

“The Nakba did not begin in 1948. Its origins lie over two centuries ago….” So begins this four-part Al-Jazeera series on the ‘Nakba’ (the ‘catastrophe’), about the history of the Palestinian exodus that led to the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel.
On Nakba anniversary, refugees make almost half of population

14 May 2013

The number of Palestinians who remained in their towns and village in 1948 after the Nakba was estimated at 154,000. Their number is now estimated as 1.4 million on the 65rd anniversary of the Nakba. In 1948, 1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 Palestinian towns and villages in historic Palestine. The Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages during the Nakba.
Lia Tarachansky: Seven Deadly Myths

3 May 2013

When the government tries to silence a history, a light is shed on the nation’s biggest taboo. This is the story of those who fought to erase Palestine and created an Israeli landscape of denial.
Irene Gendzier: How much did we know?

30 November 2012

[L]et’s face it. It isn’t that we don’t know what happened in 1947-1948. It’s that we’ve chosen not to see or hear anything that jars our thinking on the subject. Certain words and ideas have remained taboo, certain questions have been sidelined as suspect and certain histories – ours and theirs – have been excised, the better to educate us to numbness and indifference. The result is that we prefer to think of Israeli-Arab wars as instances of the much lamented ‘clashes of civilization’ that pit our civilized allies against the violence-prone ‘other,’ As long as our side wins, there is no need to look into the face of the ‘enemy,’ or to ask ourselves why and why again? Admittedly, doing so risks discovering that ‘they’ are like us, which is as disconcerting as learning that what the ‘experts’ have taught us about our history and theirs is often plain wrong, leaving us to discover that deception can be dangerous.
Noam Sheizaf: Between anger and denial – Israeli collective memory and the Nakba

17 October 2012

A new documentary by frequent IOA contributor Israeli-Canadian journalist Lia Tarachansky aims to decipher some of the anxiety that accompanies the Israeli debate over the events of 1948.
Seven Deadly Myths

8 October 2012

Upcoming documentary profiles Israeli journalist Lia Tarachansky’s return to the settlement where she grew up, to uncover a buried history and a landscape of denial. The film tells the stories of four veterans of the 1948 war that erased from the Israeli landscape hundreds of Palestinian villages and connects their stories to the modern-day Palestinian dispossession through the occupation and settlements.
Gideon Levy: Arab villages, bulldozed from our memory

31 August 2012

Our beloved Tel Aviv, whose reputation for enlightenment and openness is world renowned, is built in part on ruined Palestinian villages – and refuses to acknowledge it.
Reaffirming the legality of the Occupation: Hanan Hever responds to David Grossman

13 August 2012

One can conclude from Grossman’s article, probably contrary to his intent, that in theory things could have been different. In theory the occupation could have been sustained with the upholding of the law – that is, in an enlightened and democratic manner, without dumping an entire people by the side of the road. Furthermore, one can also conclude that if and when we annul the corrupting occupation we will be able to continue the enlightened existence of the small and just State of Israel of the pre-1967 era. [Not so.]
Munir Atalla: What if the Arab Spring won’t reach Palestinian refugee camps?

16 July 2012

If anything can be said about the inhabitants of the many refugee camps in Jordan it is that they have shown remarkable resilience in the face of unspeakable injustice. The people at Gaza camp are warm and welcoming, albeit curious. Numbers haunt the life of every refugee; on one hand, there are passport numbers, national identification numbers, and social security numbers that are denied to them. On the other hand, you have the statistics that their lives have been reduced to: 24,000 refugees, 2,000 makeshift shelters, 50% unemployment, 0.75 square kilometers.
Israeli MK, AIPAC behind Senate bid to cut total number of Palestinian refugees

12 June 2012

Every year the US allocates $250 million to UNRWA, which provides food as well as health, education and employment services to millions of Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. For years Congressional representatives have been trying to reduce U.S. contributions to the agency, on the grounds that UNRWA was born in sin and that its policies are anti-Israeli.
Annette Herskovits: Nazism, Zionism, and the Arab World

3 June 2012

In fact, it is rarely useful to compare the Holocaust and the ordeal of the Palestinians; it does not help us understand the reality of either. Sixty-four years have elapsed since the Nakba, 64 years during which Palestinians have been subjected to further wars, expulsions, and dispossession. They have been denied political, economic, and human rights… This is not genocide, but what name is there for it?
Walid Khalidi: On Nakba Day 2012

15 May 2012

Tuesday, 15 May 2012, is the 64th Anniversary of Palestinian Nakba Day. This date commemorates the end, on 15 May 1948, of the so-called “Mandate” over Palestine “granted” to Britain by the League of Nations (the UN’s predecessor) following the end of World War I. The Mandate system was devised by the victorious powers, chiefly Britain and France, to give a veneer of legality to their post-war military occupation and rule over the former Middle Eastern Arab provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire.
Thaer Halahleh’s letter to his daughter: “My Beloved Lamar…Forgive me”

15 May 2012

“When you grow up you will understand how injustice was brought upon your father and upon thousands of Palestinians whom the occupation has put in prisons and jail cells, shattering their lives and future for no reason other then their pursuit of freedom, dignity and independence. You will know that your father did not tolerate injustice and submission, and that he would never accept insult and compromise, and that he is going through a hunger strike to protest against the Jewish state that wants to turn us into humiliated slaves without any rights or patriotic dignity.”

“My beloved Lamar keep your head up always and be proud of your father, and thank everyone who supported me, who supported the prisoners in their struggle, and don’t be afraid for God is with us always, and God never lets down people who have faith and patience. We are righteous, and right will always prevail against injustice and wrong doers.”
Tel Aviv University okays Nakba Day ceremony, despite Student Union opposition

9 May 2012

Safi Kadaan: “We’re talking about a new idea, a new campus framework in which there will be a ceremony not just for Arab students, but for everyone.”

- See more at: http://www.israeli-occupation.org/tag/nakba/#sthash.VGcKV9Ec.dpuf

[oberliner]

19. The May 15 2012 quotation is very instructive

Last edited Sat May 16, 2015, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Anytime one says that they will "never accept compromise" they put themselves at a disadvantage in my opinion.

Is the current reality really better than what things would look like today if people were willing to accept compromise?

[Little Tich]

22. Maybe if the British would have allowed Arab militias to be formed,

maybe they would have been able to defend themselves, and the Jewish militias wouldn't have had such an easy time fighting mostly unarmed civilians.

Maybe then, the Yishuv would have been forced to accept the partition as a permanent solution and not just a stepping stone toward a bigger Arab-free Jewish state, and there would have been no war in 1948.

[oberliner]

28. Tel Aviv was bombed by Egypt on May 15 1948

Throughout the war, Jewish militias were fighting well-armed soldiers from neighboring Arab states. Egypt and Syria had tanks and modern artillery and air forces. The Haganah had no heavy machine guns, artillery, armored vehicles, anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons, nor military aircraft or tanks. The four Arab armies that invaded on 15 May were far stronger than the Haganah formations they initially encountered.

In the eve of the war, the available number of Arab troops likely to be committed to war was between 23,000-20,000 (10,000 Egyptians, 4,500 Jordanians, 3,000 Iraqis, 6-3,000 Syrians, 2,000 ALA volunteers, 1,000 Lebanese, and several hundred Saudis), in addition to the irregular Palestinians already present. Prior to the war, Arab forces had been trained by British and French instructors. This was particularly true of Jordan's Arab Legion under command of Lt Gen Sir John Glubb.

Jordan's Arab Legion was considered the most effective Arab force. Armed, trained and commanded by British officers, this 8,000–12,000 strong force was organised in four infantry/mechanised regiments supported by some 40 artillery pieces and 75 armored cars

Iraq's army in 1948, had an of 21,000 men in 12 brigades and the Iraqi Air Force had 100 planes, mostly British. Initially the Iraqis committed around 3,000 men] to the war effort, including four infantry brigades, one armoured battalion and support personnel. These forces were to operate under Jordanian guidance

Egypt's army in 1948, was able to put a maximum of around 40,000 men into the field, 80% of its military-age male population being unfit for military service and its embryonic logistics system being limited in its ability to support ground forces deployed beyond its borders. Initially, an expeditionary force of 10,000 men was sent to Palestine under the command of Maj. Gen. Ahmed Ali al-Mwawi. This force consisted of five infantry battalions, one armoured battalion equipped with British Light Tank Mk VI and Matilda tanks, one battalion of sixteen 25-pounder guns, a battalion of eight 6-pounder guns and one medium-machine-gun battalion with supporting troop

The Egyptian Air Force had over 30 Spitfires, 4 Hawker Hurricanes and 20 C47s modified into crude bombers.

Much of the above is excerpted from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab–Israeli_War#Initial_line-up_of_forces

[Little Tich]

30. The Nakba started in late 1947, well before the war described in the Wikipedia article.

It's always easy to speculate aboout what ifs, but I imagine that if the Arab communities in the Palestine Mandate would have been able to defend themselves, things would have looked different.

[oberliner]

36. Nakba Day is celebrated on May 15

Why do you think that day was chosen for the commemoration?

I agree that it is easy to speculate about what ifs.

[hack89]

31. There were numerous Arab militias and armed groups

Who exactly do you think was besieging Jersuslem during the civil war and inflicted heavy casualties on Haganah?

[Little Tich]

21. I would really like to watch Lia Tarachansky's documentary “On the side of the road”,

which in your post is mentioned as “Seven Deadly Sins”. It seems to be interesting, and besides, she's mentioned on that naming and shaming site that a certain poster brought up.

[Israeli]

23. You should ....

Until you do ....watch these two shorts .
Would appreciate your thoughts :

Ayalon Canada Park is full of cyclists and hikers who enjoy the scenery and the weather, but few know the story of the three Palestinian villages that were demolished in 1967 on which the park sits.

http://tv.social.org.il/en/traveling-on-ruins

The Nakba is a subject known for its controversy. While some believe that the very notion of acknowledging the Nakba could jeopardise the existence of Israel, others believe that acknowledging the Nakba is the key to coexistence and peace. The Nakba events of 2012 seemed to have reflected the many emotions of both groups.

http://tv.social.org.il/en/between-threat-and-coexistence

[Little Tich]

33. I'm not too concerned with people having more or less nationalist views.

For me, it's extremely important that people have an adequate amount of knowledge of their country's history and where they come from. If their knowledge is adequate, then their political views are probably more or less valid, even if I wouldn't agree with them. If people aren't grounded in that knowledge, they have to rely on others for their opinions, and they have no way of knowing if anyone is feeding them lies.

I really don't like it when they erase the very existence of that village, first by blowing it up, and later denying that it ever existed. A political ideology that's dependent on the falsification of history isn't a good one, and the supporters are at best misguided fools.

Perhaps the park should be renamed Immwas Park or something similar, to reflect its history.

The other movie only reinforces what I mentioned earlier, that falsification of history leads to people starting to believe in the lies their leaders tell them. And of course, that Ben-Ari is an idiot.

[Israeli]

39. Have you heard before of the group ...

Zochrot ?

Web site @ : http://zochrot.org/en

Really worth an in depth reading of Little Tich.

[Little Tich]

40. I've heard about them, but it was a while ago.

I'll take a look.

[Little Tich]

42. I support the right of return for all Palestinians,

so in that regard I completely agree with Zochrot. I do get a feeling that Zochrot is a left-wing organization, so it might be possible that I don't agree completely with other aspects of Zochrot's values, as I'm only a bit to the left. But that's not important when it comes to the right of return.

I support the right of return simply because I believe every individual has a fundamental right to live in his ancestral homeland if he wishes to do so. This right applies to Palestinians, Circassians, Sephardi Jews and everyone else.

[Israeli]

44. Zochrot is a left-wing organization......

.....as is Israel Social TV .............: http://tv.social.org.il/en

I have no idea which country you are from Little Tich.....but if you were Israeli you would be classed as very Left wing .

[Little Tich]

45. I was born and grew up in a Scandinavian country, currently I live in Australia.

Where I come from, these ideas are pretty mainstream, even though we have the whole spectrum from right to left, of course.

[oberliner]

46. What drew you to a US politics discussion group?

And to the Israeli-Palestinian forum in particular?

[Little Tich]

47. DU is the best.

There is no other forum out there that comes even close, and I also sympathize with the values of the US Democratic party, especially if you compare with the other side.

As for the I/P conflict, I’m impressed by the feats of Israeli politicians; their acrobatic skills are unmatched. My interest has grown into concern, however, and I want to know more about what’s going on. Posting on this forum teaches me a lot.

[Jefferson23]

32. Excellent links for you in post# 23. n/t