An old-timer’s view of Nakba Day

As I was finishing the essay below (“The Nakba Demand: turn Israel into ‘Palestine’ now!”), a reader emailed me something he had read. The essay he sent repeats much of what I have said. But it also contains some additional insights into the ‘Nakba’ mentality. I think it’s worth your time.

The essay comes from the website, Jerusalem online (Rachel Avraham, “Former Israel Consul General: The Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity”, May 14, 2015). I have rewritten/edited portions to fit my format:

 

“Today, ‘Palestinians’ get set to commemorate their Nakba Day. As they do, former Israel Consul General to the Mid-Western US, and Deputy Mayor of Netanya, Yitschak Ben Gad, reports that Palestinians in Ramallah have paraded ‘the keys’ to their former homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and other places in Israel.  Those homes don’t exist anymore.  

As Palestinian journalist Mohammed Abu Sharbia declared, ‘Our tragedy is that we always lost the possible because we demanded the impossible. In 1948, we could have established our state. Instead, we fought to prevent Israel to be a state. What happened is that we lost ours and they got their own state.’

Ben Gad believes that this statement summarizes the tragedy that the Arab world refers to as the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, when the Arabs lost their war to destroy the new state of Israel. 

Ben Gad pondered whether the Palestinians really want a state: “If they wanted a state, they could have established it according to the UN Resolution of November 29, 1947 which mentioned two states in Palestine, one Jewish and the other Arab. The Palestinians rejected that resolution. Now, as a result of a war the Arabs started and lost, Palestinians cry over the refugees. But their crying reminds me of a child who killed his parents and cries he’s an orphan. He did it. The Arab refugee problem is the result of Arab aggression against Israel in 1948.”

“Between 1948 and 1967, the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control; Judea and Samaria was under Jordanian control. Not a single Palestinian spoke then about the establishment of a Palestinian state when Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza were under Arab hands.

The PLO was established in 1964, three years before the Six Day War. The PLO did not speak about a Palestinian state. Their national covenant said only that the situation is a military one and they sought for Israel to disappear from the Middle East. That was the solution. They did not speak about a Palestinian state side by side with Israel in their covenant. Instead, they said the Jews are not a nation and therefore, don’t deserve to be a state.

Ben Gad stressed that even in 2000, when former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leadership 98% of the territories that Israel had captured in 1967, the Palestinians refused. “Same with Olmert,” he emphasized. “They said no. The Palestinians don’t want a state.”

Ben Gad noted that the Palestinians have had two leaders, Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen, both of whom did not seek peace with Israel: “Yasser Arafat had the charisma and the power perhaps to make peace with Israel, but he did not want to. Immediately after the Oslo Agreement was signed in 1993 in the White House, he was quoted in South Africa saying that the Oslo Agreement was like the Treaty of Hudaibiya, an agreement Mohammed signed with his enemies with the intention that when he had the power and strength, he would violate it and defeat his enemies. That meant his intention was not to accept the Oslo Agreement. He didn’t want peace with Israel. Abu Mazen has neither the charisma nor the power nor the mandate to make peace with Israel. He doesn’t want to.”

Ben Gad declared that the Palestinians have made blind rejection their official policy: “They made fantasy their way of life. They placed hostility and animosity in their educational system. According to the Oslo Agreement, no side is allowed to make one-sided actions. By the Palestinians appealing to the International Court, they are violating the main paragraphs of the Oslo Agreements. More than that, by spreading their hatred and hostility towards Israel, they violate the Oslo Agreements which speaks about peace and tolerance. They name their streets after people that murdered in suicide bombings and call them shahids (martyrs). Their actions say they don’t want peace.”

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My comment: no comment necessary.