What Does Naqba Day Commemorate?

There can not be a celebration of Israeli Independence Day without an Arab Palestinian commemoration of Naqba Day, the day of catastrophe. Taking the most cursory look these two days will always have to be observed on the same day but have completely separate views of the events from the day Israel declared their existence and what actually occurred. Israelis celebrating Independence Day are joyously remembering the declaration by David ben Gurion signifying the resurrection of an ancient land birthing its new incarnation for the modern day that would celebrate, honor, and reconstruct the ancient customs and traditions of the Jewish nations from two thousand to three and a half thousand years in history while incorporating those items from antiquity into a modern state where technology, scientific developments at the cutting edge of modern research also exist, ancient farming mixed with modern discoveries in order to produce the highest quality crops possible, and a blend between all that was with the hopes for what can be. The celebration of the declaration of this new and brave mix of challenges with promises of renewed hopes while fulfilling the prophesies of antiquity making a blend which melds items which should clash over anachronisms yet are smelted together forming something new and wonderful. Israeli Independence Day is the celebration of the realization of a people of their collective dream which has waited almost two-thousand-years to come to fruition.

 

The commemoration by the Arabs of Naqba Day are mourning not only the coming into existence of the Jewish State but also the inability of the invading Arab armies allied with the Palestinian Arabs to squash the nascent Jewish state and commit a genocidal massacre of the Jews while destroying their hopes. The Armies from Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon combined with the organized militias under the Mufti of Jerusalem with additional units coming from as near as Saudi Arabia all the way to as far as Yemen and Algeria in an all-out military push to utterly destroy every vestige of the new state of Israel. The war to extinguish the nascent state of Israel continued through cease-fires for over a year before the fighting was finally permanently halted with the front-lines as of the exact hour the cease-fire order passed became the 1949 Armistice Lines also known as the Green Line. The Naqba commemorates the simple truth which had sent shockwaves throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds; the little Jewish state of Israel had managed to resist the onslaught by these combined Arab forces against all the odds and stood defiantly holding more land at the close of the conflict than they held at the onset. The catastrophe was that despite massive odds and facing overwhelming military superiority of those forces gathered against them, the newly declared Israelis managed to initially hold out and eventually to push back and by the end of the conflict was routing the combined Arab forces. This impossible loss and the fact that Israel survived and the Israeli Jews remained and were not vanquished in a glorious slaughter reminiscent of Mohammed’s slaughter of the Jews of the Banu Qurayzah Tribe in the year 627 was the reason for the catastrophe, the Naqba, in the eyes of the Arabs, particularly the native Arab populations who had been promised all the wealth, possessions, lands, properties and all else that belonged to the Jews once they had been completely vanquished.

 

Another misconception concerning the reasons behind the whole concept of the Naqba was the Jews had pushed the Arabs from their towns, farms, homes and properties forcing them into refugee camps where they and their descendants continue to languish today. Some have gone as far as to claim that the Jews when declaring the state of Israel call upon their fellow Jews to rise and expel the Arabs and all other non-Jews from their midst and this was the impetus which caused the combined Arab armies to arrive to rescue the native Arabs from the planned Jewish slaughter. There was no organized extermination of Arabs conducted by the Jewish forces defending the nascent state of Israel. There is some truth to the claims that Jewish forces pushed Arabs from their lands, homes and possessions but most were usually committed due to security purposes. When Israeli units passed by Arab towns they originally attempted to bypass them and not interact. Should the residents attack the Jewish units then these towns were cleared in order to prevent an enemy force to gather behind the front lines of the Jewish forces. After having some towns attempt to allow these Jewish units to pass and then use a tactic of following them and engaging them from behind once the troops became engaged with the Arab front lines. This resulted in great danger and difficulties and resulted in the Jewish troops finding it necessary to at the least remove the fighting age males from any Arab town in order to keep a secure rear area free of antagonists. Even with this added situation, these removals proved to be fairly minor in scope with the vast majority of refugee Arabs resulting from the Arab population’s response to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem making a request for all Muslim Arabs to pick-up their families and move them to safety behind the attacking Arab forces. This was requested so that the advancing Arab forces could concentrate on simply shooting everybody they would meet simply assuming that all the Arabs had fled as told. In return for clearing the area so the Arab armies could have free-fire zones the Arabs were promised a generous share in the spoils of the conquest to come. The defeat of the Arab armies meant that these Arabs were cut-off from their homes and properties when the fighting ended. Despite an invitation to return to their property had they chosen to do so being extended by the Jewish ruling body, the Arabs were prevented from returning to their towns, farms, homes and belongings and were instead forced by their own brother in arms from the Arab armies into refugee camps where they became political pawns in a campaign of lies and distortions in order to work to destroy Israel.

 

So, the Naqba is less a result of action by the Jews and Israel unless you were to find fault in the Israelis defending themselves. What the Arab demonstrators commemorating the Naqba within Israel will never bother to tell the world is that their forbearers were among the Arabs who did not take up arms against their fellow Israelis just because they were Jews. Their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents remained on their farms or in their homes or possibly even fought alongside their Jewish neighbors helping to save the nascent state of Israel and remained within Israel with full rights and privileges as a citizen of Israel. Their main complaint concerning the Naqba was likely their regret that friends, family and acquaintances that fled at the request of the Mufti of Jerusalem were betrayed by their fellow Arabs and ended up being forced into refugee camps in the surrounding Arab lands. The vast majority of the Arabs incarcerated into the refugee camps found themselves in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Arab countries but there were no Arab refugees within the borders of Israel at the end of the fighting. No Arab refugee was denied citizenship in Israel, was denied decent housing in Israel, was refused a decent education by Israel, or was imprisoned behind barbed wire by Israel. These conditions were imposed by their brother Arabs who refused to allow them to return to their residences inside Israel despite the invitation which was initially extended by the Israelis. It was not until after time had passed and the Arab expatriation of their Jewish populations which within ten years of the founding of Israel had caused the immigration of over three-quarters of a million Jewish refugees entering and being absorbed by Israel. This is the reason that today there are no camps with Jewish refugees in Israel and the Israeli population consists of Sephardic Jews in near even numbers as there are European Ashkenazi Jews. Meanwhile the unfortunate Arab generations which have grown-up inside permanent refugee camps have served their purpose of extending the fiction of the Naqba caused by the Jews while suffering an Arab imposed catastrophe. Oddly enough, there are Arab refugee camps which exist today in Area A of the West Bank and within Gaza who are within areas under the complete political, security and physical control of Palestinian leadership, one group under the rule and restrictions by the Palestinian Authority while the other are under the rule and restrictions by Hamas. If either of these presumed defenders of the Palestinian Arab people would commit a simple act of decency by granting these refugees citizenship, they could relieve these tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Palestinian refugee’s sufferings. Since the refugee camps consist of cement block apartments, all that would be required is granting them citizenship for these Palestinian refugees in their respective Palestinian societies which are already ruled by Palestinian leaders and their refugee status and demeaned lives would be transformed immediately to free citizens within an area of Palestinian autonomy. Now their condition being perpetrated any longer qualifies as a true Naqba.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Ignored Reason There is no Palestinian State Already

Ask any European leader or politician and the odds are you will hear that the reason there is no Palestinian State is due to Israeli refusals to make peace and the Israeli settlements. They will speak of how the Palestinians are thirsting for peace and crave their own State and have made generous offers if only Israel would compromise. They will never mention the refusals over the decades by the Arab League, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas to every offer beginning with the initial offer from the United Nations to found the Palestinian State on the more select and prime farming lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea leaving only a thin strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, another along the northwest at the bottom of the Golan Heights and over half of the land being the southern lands of the Negev Dessert. The Zionists accepted this hardly equal or fair division while the Arab League refused to allow this partition as it still allowed the Jews to rule themselves and demanded that all the land be relegated to Arab rule and they would allow the Jews to remain as long as they behaved like good Dhimmis. The United Nations and the world simply left the offer to stand in hopes that the Arab League would accept the plan, but come the middle of May, 1948, Israel declared their nationhood and seven Arab nations’ armies declared a war of annihilation against the Nascent Jewish State of Israel. Miraculously, the small newly found State of Israel managed to survive and even gain lands by pushing the combined Arab armies back taking the western half of Jerusalem within hours of the declared ceasefire taking hold. At this point there was no Israeli presence in the lands of Gaza, Judea, or Samaria with Egypt retaining control of Gaza and Jordan retaining control over Judea and Samaria which they refused to call by their historic names substituting the less descriptive and un-Jewish name of West Bank. Jordan even attempted to annex the lands they called the West Bank and made the Arabs living within Jordanian citizens. This seemed natural as the Arabs living in the area mostly had relatives either in Jordan or in either Syria or Iraq as most had arrived over the past two generations as the economy offered better employment. Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank was not recognized not even by the other Arab nations or the Arab League and was recognized solely by Great Britain and Pakistan in the entire world. Jordan also forced the Jewish residents within their areas of control to leave their property behind and expelled them into Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion offered for the Arabs living within Israel to remain and join in building a future. Despite this invitation many Arabs fled into neighboring Jordan, Egypt or Syria where they eventually ended up placed in camps, denied citizenship largely due to their not joining in the war against Israel; causing them to be seen as less loyal.

During the next decade over three-quarters of a million Jews were stripped of their wealth, lands, businesses and were deported from the majority of the countries of the Arab League with the majority finding a new home and a place to restart their lives in Israel while some went to Europe, the United States and other destinations. The Jews who were ejected from their homes often with only the clothes on their backs or a suitcase or two were welcomed in Israel and were granted citizenship and full rights and today they and their descendants make up approximately half of the Israeli population. This makes the claim by many Palestinian and Arab spokespersons that Israelis should be returned to the lands from whence they came in Europe and the United States ignores that half of the Israelis lived originally in the Arab world. One must wonder if these countries would open their arms and accept the descendants of the Jews they ejected. Somehow I just cannot see that ever happening.

Since 1948 Israel has been attacked by her Arab neighbors a number of times. Resulting from the first conflict where France, Great Britain and Israel declared war of Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and refused to allow European shipping to pass through the canal, Israel took possession of the entire Sinai Peninsula during this conflict but returned every inch of the lands to Egypt as part of the peace treaty that also saw the reopening of the Suez Canal to international shipping. United Nations peacekeepers were also stationed in the Sinai Peninsula to prevent another conflict from erupting. In late May, 1967, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the peacekeepers removed from the Sinai Peninsula, massed troops on the Israeli southern border, closed the Straights of Tiran and massed Syrian troops on the Israeli northern border threatening to annihilate the Jewish State. The closing of the Straights of Tiran was an internationally recognized casus belli of war. Israel responded to this declaration and defeated both armies driving almost to the outskirts of Damascus and taking the entire Sinai Peninsula once again. Close to the beginning of the war upon hearing of great Arab victories that Egyptian and Syrian radio and television broadcast they were executing against the Israelis, Jordan declared war in the hopes on taking their part in the glorious victory. The Israelis pleaded for Jordan not to enter the conflict warning them that the broadcasts were untrue and were simply propaganda. Jordan did not trust the Israelis believing they were simply frightened of another Arab army entering the war which would definitely contribute to the end of the Jewish state. The results of the Six Day War are well known and by the end of the conflict, in response to the United Nations and World pressures, Israel halted their advances also now having driven the Jordanians back east of the Jordan River liberating occupied Judea and Samaria (one must recall that Jordan illegally occupied the so-called West Bank which was originally believed to be part of Israel). During Yom Kippur of October, 1973 Egypt and Syria once again attacked Israel hoping to reclaim the lands lost in 1967 and destroy the Jewish State. After initial gains the war ended with Israel retaining all of the Sinai Peninsula and having crossed the Suez Canal and approaching Cairo as well as approaching Damascus in Syria. When hostilities ended, Israel agreed to return to the borders which had existed since the 1967 conflict returning lands to both Egypt and Syria lands gained during the closing days of the conflict. Eventually Israel and Egypt made peace (for those who claim Israel must return some of the lands they gained in the 1967 war remember the following) with Israel returning all of the Sinai Peninsula once again, an expanse of land greatly larger than all of Israel. Egypt refused any claim to Gaza which was relented to Israeli sovereignty. Further on in time Jordan and Israel also reached a peace accord in which Jordan surrendered the previously Jordanian occupied lands to Israel liberating the lands and allowing many Jewish families to reclaim their lands and homes they had left when Jordan forcibly removed them in 1948.

Somewhere the world acquiesced to the invention of peoples whom had never existed in all of history and was admitted by even Yasser Arafat they were necessarily invented in order to have a political wedge with which to remove the Jews from Arab sovereign lands, namely Israel. This twist of history beyond recognition of any historic accounts dated previous to 1920 has gained great recognition and a life all its own in Europe as well as throughout the Arab and Muslim lands. Historically, before 1948 the use of the title Palestinian had several different forms, Palestinian Arab was used to define Arabs living within the British Mandate, Palestinian Jews or simple using Palestinian alone was used to refer to the Jews living within the British Mandate. In 1922 the nation of Transjordan, later renamed simply Jordan, was founded with the issue of the Churchill White Paper where Transjordan was granted for rule by the Hashemite family repaying them for their assistance against the Ottomans in World War I and they were to rule over a Palestinian State. This was the British reaction in response to Arab insistence for a country of their own within the British Mandate. The Arab demands implied they should have their country formed over all of the British Mandate but the British still had their obligation stemming from the Balfour Declaration, the Peel Commission, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and numerous other treaties and agreements to found a Jewish homeland. The White Paper which established the Palestinian Arab State of Transjordan also guaranteed that the lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would remain never to be divided and remain as whole and in its entirety as the Jewish Homeland. This accord was also ratified by motions and legislations in the League of Nations, the United States and several European nations. That is the history; the future is far less resolute and will likely be a thorn as intended by Yasser Arafat and those who initiated the demand for another Arab nation in place of the only Jewish nation on Earth. This desire to replace Israel with one or two new Palestinian Arab states, whichever becomes necessary by events to come, is understood as the inevitable aim of the Arab world but is never spoken of as to admit to knowing this would reveal all the duplicities, animosities, hatreds, and lies which are the realities of the negotiations the world calls the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, originally the Arab-Israeli Peace Process but renamed in order to mask the ultimate aim of the destruction of Israel.

Beyond the Cusp

Argument Against Claims Israel Occupying Palestinian Lands

In a recent article discussing how Prime Minister Netanyahu should respond to any pressures from President Obama if he should demand or simply pressure Israeli leadership to provide a schedule for the withdrawal of Israelis from Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, my advice was that Prime Minister Netanyahu should “refuse to give the withdrawal even the dignity of discussion.” A comment posted in reaction to the article Rumor Obama Will Demand Timetable for Israeli Withdrawal West Bank Looking Credible insisted that I withdraw the word ‘dignity’ from my article. But they were not finished with my dressing down as they went on stating, and I quote the whole of the comments exactly as written, “I think you should remove the word dignity. Regardless of your views, which seem to be(this is not an absolute statement) pro-Israeli at any costs, there is still the case of an occupation that never ends. Occupation is not a picnic, it’s a horror trip, no matter how much we try to doll it up. And refusing discussion of any kind is the worst advice anyone can receive. Israel is a super-power, not some half-starved wannabee state with Katuscha fireworks, stop pretending that it isn’t. Unfortunately, anyone who doesn’t support the occupation regime(policy) is immediately set upon, whether friend or foe: the world does not support it – it’s wrong and unbecoming of the Jewish/Israeli people. Talking/Dialogue is always the right way forward, and anyone who says otherwise, is a warmonger.” Well, let us look at the reality according to treaties, agreements and other pertinent items and see if I truly must be considered a warmonger.

The crux of the commenter’s argument is bound to the opinion that Israel is in occupation of lands which belong to some other nation and that Israel is the militarily superior power in the region possessing immense military and in comparison we see, and I quote, ‘some half-starved wannabee state with Katuscha fireworks.’ Apart from the misrepresentation of the presumed limited firepower possessed by the Palestinian terror forces who, in addition to the presumably harmless Katyusha fireworks, which are actually dangerous and potentially deadly rockets and not merely harmless fireworks, also have rockets capable of carrying payloads of up to a one ton warhead with a range capable of reaching the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from their launching grounds in Gaza. Should one actually be fully honest they would also need to include the rocket stores held by Hezballah in Lebanon which will someday very likely be loosed on Israel which include scud rockets provided by Syria and Iran which are capable of being armed with chemical or biological warheads supplied by Syria’s President Bashir Assad. The representation of the forces allied against Israel as being represented solely by the Palestinians, or even including Hezballah, is a misrepresentation as the reality is that Israel’s enemies include numerous other Arab and Muslim countries some of which are still in a state of war with Israel. What is commonly ignored is that of the countries who declared war on the nascent state of Israel in 1948 only Jordan and Egypt have made a technical peace with Israel. That means that Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and the entirety of the Arab League nations remain in a state of war with Israel. In addition to these countries which continue to hold themselves as in a state of war with Israel since her founding in 1948, we must add the name of Iran as they have declared themselves in a state of war with both Israel and the United States but have simply chosen to not turn from their declared cold war into an active hot war. Stating that the entire conflict between the Arab and Muslim world and Israel consists of just the Palestinians is ignoring the larger threats which are very real and will be acted upon should the situation ever appear to favor these forces being able to defeat Israel. Should these other nations decide to renew active warfare with Israel we can assume with a fair amount of confidence that Egypt and very likely Jordan will renege on their peace treaties with Israel and join the assault. So, the truth is that Israel’s adversaries when viewed in their true entirety are armed with far greater sized military forces than Israel could ever dream of fielding.

But what can be said about this so-called occupation? I believe my commenter is referring to the misconception that Israel is in occupation of the Palestinian people and refusing to permit their constituting their country of Palestine. For Israel to be in occupation of a nation called Palestine it would have been necessary for Israel to have been at war or in a state of hostilities with a country called Palestine and have defeated them and taken over their recognized lands. But Israel has never been at war with a country named Palestine; not now and not even in antiquity. Israel did have a period where there was a state of war between the Israelis (also known then as the Hebrews) with the Philistines from the nation of Philistine. This conflict has been settled history for over three-thousand-years and the Philistine people melted into the pages of history and no longer are a recognized people. The Palestinians, despite modern mythology, are Arab peoples originating from Syria, Egypt, Iraq and small numbers from other Arab nations. The mislabeled West Bank was given this false name by Jordan after they conquered Judea, Samaria and the eastern half of the city of Jerusalem during the 1948 war of annihilation declared by several Arab nations who intended to completely erase the newly formed Jewish State from existence. Israel, through a miracle from Hashem, managed to survive this onslaught but lost some lands which included Judea, Samaria and the eastern half of the city of Jerusalem lost to Jordan, the Golan Heights lost to Syria, and the Gaza Strip lost to Egypt. Egypt never claimed Gaza so there was no international decision as to whom Gaza actually belonged. Syria claimed the Golan Heights and was recognized as rightfully possessing the land. Jordan claimed what they called the West Bank to obscure the Jewish roots of the actual names of the lands they held. The rest of the Arab world did not recognize the Jordanian claim and neither did the majority of nations. The only countries which recognized the Jordanian claim were Great Britain and Pakistan. So, Jordan was seen as an occupying force when they held what they called the West Bank.

That begs a question; whose lands did Jordan occupy when they claimed the lands of Judea and Samaria along with the eastern half of Jerusalem? Jordan was occupying Israeli lands as the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea were the recognized borders for Israel when the Arab League refused the partition plan refusing to establish an Arab state side by side with Israel in 1948. So, as Jordan was occupying Israeli lands after the 1948 war, when Israel reestablished control over Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem they were liberating these lands and reestablishing their rightful ownership. By International Law the Arabs who were residing in the areas of Judea and Samaria along with eastern Jerusalem who moved there after the end of the 1948 War along with any residents who took the Jordanian offer of citizenship would be returned to their country of origin and would be resettled in Jordan. Those who resided on these lands before the 1948 War would be eligible to petition for Israeli citizenship and if accepted be Israeli citizens and if refused could remain on the lands as legal foreign residents where they would own their land and would be permitted limited rights including being allowed to seek employment and if doing so to pay taxes, they would not be granted full citizenship and would not be granted the vote. Israel is not occupying any lands as they liberated what were previously their lands from Jordanian occupation. Even the presumed granting the Jordanian rights to the land to the Palestinians are meaningless as Jordan never rightfully owned these lands.

The final argument over the rightful ownership of the lands of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem we need to look back at the history of treaties and other legal documents and edicts. The original division of the lands was declared in the Balfour Declaration which set aside lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Iraq for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people. The League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and codified it as an International Agreement including setting up the Mandate system from which many of the countries in the Middle East were formed. These included but not limited to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman. The Jewish homeland was initially including everything from the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Iraq. The British decided to renege on this agreement and approached the Zionist leadership and made them an offer which they were not in any position to refuse as the English were a world power and the Zionists were a committee and some settlers without any military might. The agreement was written out in the Churchill White Papers taking the area of the British Mandate Lands from the Jordan River to the Iraq border and founded Transjordan which is known today simply as Jordan. That removed seventy-eight-percent of the lands originally intended for the Jewish State. The British and the member States of the League of Nations promised that the remaining twenty-two-percent of the Mandate Lands, including all from the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea, were to be held sacrosanct and indivisible for the Jewish homelands. The founding of the United Nations included in its Charter in Article 80 the full recognition of the Mandates and all that was formed from these lands which had been tasked to France and Britain to dispense and establish nations. The only treaty which pertained to the lands of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem subsequent to the United Nations Charter was the Jordanian Israeli Peace Treaty in which Jordan recognized the return of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem to Israeli control. As an afterthought and in recognition of Yasser Arafat and his efforts against Israel, the King of Jordan claimed that he had actually deeded the lands of the West Bank to the Palestinian people to establish their own State in the treaty with Israel. No such denotation is written in that peace treaty where it states that the lands which Jordan referred to as the West Bank, also known as Judea, Samaria and eastern parts of Jerusalem, were ceded back to Israeli control.

One is not a warmonger to claim that the contested lands rightfully belonging to Israel. The Arab League could have established an Arab country on half of the lands in 1948 but instead opted to use an attempted war of genocidal aggression to erase the Jewish State and murder its peoples. The combined Arab armies were, blessed be Hashem, unsuccessful and only managed to steal some of the lands. Among the stolen lands are the contested lands that my commenter believes belong to a mythical people who populated a nation called Palestine which was subsequently conquered through Israeli reactions to aggression, as if it existed and had lost a war of aggression against Israel. Even if this were a reality, Israel would still be entitled to retain the lands under International Law which allows any State which gains lands responding to the aggressions of another State is entitled to retain those lands. So, even if the lands belonged to Jordan or anybody else, since the war in which they fell to Israeli control was brought upon Israel and she fought a defensive war against efforts of aggression, then Israel still retains the lands and there is no occupation. No matter how one approaches the ownership of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, International Laws and agreements and treaties all grant Israel sovereignty over the lands if she so chooses to exercise her rights under International Laws and Agreements.

Beyond the Cusp