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The Meaning of the Palestinian Focus on "Nakba Day"


(Israel Hayom) Adi Schwartz - The decision of the UN General Assembly to mark the Palestinian Nakba Day ("catastrophe") is actually a decision to mourn the establishment of the State of Israel. It reflects why Israel never succeeded in signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Nakba Day was not intended to mark the alleged humanitarian disaster that befell the Palestinian people in the 1948 war, but rather the fact of Jews gaining independence. The thought that 600,000 Jews managed to defeat 60 million Muslim Arabs at the time was and still is unimaginable to the Arabs. This is the greatest humiliation, the source of the frustration, rage, and violence directed toward the State of Israel. This is the true meaning of "nakba," the disaster of the Jews' success to declare a state despite all the efforts by the Arabs to prevent them from doing so. The fact that Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day on May 15 - the date of the declaration of Israel's independence - is a clear indication of this. The settlements were not on the agenda at the time of the War of Independence. The Arabs saw the establishment of Israel as a "nakba." Even when they were offered an independent Palestinian state with a capital in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians turned it down. The explanation for this is that the war for Israel's existence is still ongoing for them. It's not Israel's alleged occupation that is the problem for the Palestinians, but its very existence.
2022-12-08 00:00:00
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