Nakba Tales

I have long considered Saeb Erekat as a professional snake. Despite of his constant, obvious lies, stern radical position on many issues (namely the refugee issue), he is still portrayed as a moderate. I do not understand why anyone in the world who honestly wishes for a lastable agreement expects the Israelis to accept such a character as a fair negotiator. Aside from his lies and blood libels, he often implicitly endorsed tactics of terror and still insists on the destruction of Israel by forcing it to import 7 million 'Palestinian Refugees'.

In the recent article (linked above) he repeats the claim that prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, its future leadership had already created a grand design for the ethnic cleansing and extermination of the local Arab population (back then, soon to be Israelis were referred to as Palestinian Jews). For that reason, the Arabs had to flee. Of course a lie repeated a 1,000 is much better than the truth isn't it? And for Saeb Erekat a lie is more convenient than the truth.

A retort from News1(Hebrew only) sheds a light on why many Palestinian Arabs chose to flee, and why many didn't. In the article, Isaac Sebosh reminds us that after the war, 25% of the young country consisted of Arabs. Why then, were they allowed to stay alive? Lack of planning and military prowess? 

The author brings the example of Kababir (now a neighborhood in Haifa). Despite of the village's strategic location, able to cut off Haifa from the centre of the country, the local residents did not anticipate extermination. The residents belonged to the Ahmedian sect of Islam, which rejects global Jihad and encourages coexistence of peoples. Thus the local residents did not anticipate to rape, pillage and exterminate their Jewish neighbors. That's why they did not fear the Jews, they simply expected that they would be treated as they would treat the Jews were the balance of power to reverse.

How does that reflect on the masses that did flee? Well, their national leader was the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Hosseini, who during the war actively aided Hitler and lobbied the Nazi government to instigate the final solution. You see, the Nazis didn't always see murder on an industrial scale as a must. Moving the Jews out of Europe, perhaps to Palestine would have been sufficient. Of course this did not sit well with the Mufti who much rather preferred us all dead. Of course during the period before the state secured its independence, Arab violence against Jews was much too commonplace. From the events of 21 and 29 through the great revolt of 36 all the way to the war of 48, many Jews were massacred. The situation was extremely bad in places like Hebron and Gush Etzion in what's known today as the West Bank. Accounts of sickening brutality, including genital mutilation of their victims is much too common if one looks for it. Unfortunately this painful memory in Jewish history is not widely discussed.

Then why does the media keep giving Saeb Erekat the respect of an honest scholar considering his nonexistent credibility and utter inability to connect more than three words without lying? That's still beyond me...

Today, many like to balance off two catastrophes, the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba. In the first, the Jews were victims and as a result the second occured, with the Palestinians merely innocent bystanders. The two catastrophes that really must be discussed are the Jewish Holocaust that took place in Europe and north Africa during WW2, and the Jewish Holocaust that didn't happen in 1948, because the Jews were able to defend themselves and secure an independent state.

-QP