Posted on 01/08/2004 5:35:50 AM PST by SJackson
The Palestinian leadership, in their ongoing drive to get rid of Israel, have in the recent years developed the rule to commemorate the day Israel celebrates her day of independence as their "Nakba" - their "catastrophe". They blame solely Israel for it, unwilling to admit this "catastrophe" is self-inflicted.
None denies that there are sufferings and misery, and that there are still many Palestinians living in refugee camps. But blaming Israel for it is a big lie, a dirty propaganda ruse. While tracing the roots of the evil does not yet alleviate it, it is the first step for overcoming it, and for healing.
So let's have a look at the developments which led to the "Nakba".
Immediately after the Balfour Declaration in 1918 (in which England declared its willingness to help establish a "Jewish National Home in Palestine" without infringing on the rights of the local Arab population), Mufti Amin el-Husseini appealed to the public to prevent by all means the immigration of Jews, and to drive out those who had already settled there. In this vein, he instigated the anti-Jewish riots of 1920/21 - but the English installed him as "Mufti of Jerusalem". Right away he styled himself as "The Grand-Mufti of Palestine", and used his office to organize the big riots of 1929 (during which, among others, the Jewish community of Hebron got extinguished); and then those of 1936/38. The latter were directed mainly against the immigration of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, but also against Arab/Palestinians who preferred normal relations with the Jews over blind hatred, but whom he accused of "collaboration" with them. (During these riots his gangs killed over 700 Jews, and over 3000 (!) "collaborators").
The English then chased el-Husseini out, and invited Jewish and Arab leaders to the "Round Table Conference" of 1939 in London in an attempt to find a solution - but the Arab delegates refused to sit at the same table with Jews, much less to talk with them.
The "Grand Mufti", who had escaped to Iraq, instigated there the big pro-Nazi revolt of 1940. When it was crushed by the English, he managed to escape to Nazi Germany, where he befriended its leaders, raised for them two Moslem SS divisions (from the Moslem populations of Yugoslavia and Russia, then under German occupation) in the "common struggle against the Jews, the world's enemy number one," and, in a 1943 broadcast from Radio Berlin, called on the Moslem world to wage a Jihad ("Holy War") against the Jews. He declared: "Kill the Jews wherever you find them - this is pleasing to Allah."
After his eventual capture and release by the French in 1945, he went to Cairo and organized, with the active help of the Arab League, the battles against the Jews who lived already in the land of Israel and against those Holocaust survivors who hoped to find a haven in the ancient homeland. The ensuing civil war of 1946/48 led to England's withdrawal from "Palestine" on May 14, 1948. The next day, on May 15, Israel declared its independence, foremost as a defense organism against the Arab onslaught. The following day, however, troops of seven Arab countries (Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait) attacked the newly born state with the declared goal to wipe it out. They called upon the local Arab peoples to leave the country so that they would not be chased into the Mediterranean Sea together with the Jews - the main cause for the ensuing "refugee problem". All these attacking Arab armies could be driven back, with the exception of the Transjordanians, who conquered the territory they called then the "West Bank" (i.e., west of the Jordan River), including eastern Jerusalem. David Ben-Gurion's peace efforts, which included offers to settle the refugee problem, were rebuffed.
In the following years, raids into Israel with all kind of terror attacks increased. Rauf el-Kodbi el-Husseini, an ardent disciple of the above "Grand Mufti" and head of the "el-Fatah" gang, evolved as their main leader. Realizing that war against Israel under religious auspices would not be favoured widely in the Western world after the Holocaust, he gave his gang a national garb by renaming it PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), but adopted for himself the word Arafat as his pseudonym, even a nom de guerre. This term is the name of a hill next to Mecca that every Moslem pilgrim has to climb up to complete and crown his pilgrimage. With the help of this name, he could assume the role of the symbol figure in the Jihad efforts against Israel. Underlining this aspect, he called his late "Minister of War" Abu Jihad, meaning Father of the Holy War.
"Oslo" did not make the wolf into a lamb; rather, it came in handy for Arafat's rhetoric. The present hostilities are termed the "El-Aqsa Intifada" (the uprising for the El-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem), in order to whip up the religious feelings of the Muslim world.
The suffering of both the Jewish and the Arab/Palestinian peoples continues, and will continue, until the Moslem world realizes that Jihad against Israel is a grave deviation from the teachings of the Koran, and a crime against both peoples (see on this point my essay, “Peace is Possible Between Ishmael and Israel According to the Tanakh and the Koran”, with a supportive foreword by the Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi).
This is one of the 3 "righteous Muslims" in the world. Tashbih Sayyid is another. The name of the third one I can't remember. They are rarely heard from.
Arutz Sheva would have gotten this right had they added one word . . . "They blame solely Israel for it, unwilling to admit this "catastrophe" is partially self-inflicted. "
Are you suggesting that the Arabs were totally unimpressed by the accomplishments of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang? Are you saying that there was a clear understanding that the capture of Deir Yassin was simply a strategic move with no other frightening consequences - no fear/terror on the part of the Arabs. They had reason to believe that their new masters would be the epitome of humane victors?
I'm not alleging Israeli atrocities. I'm talking about Arab perceptions. Arab perceptions after Irgun/Stern Gang/Deir Yassin were primarily that it was, to say the least, a dicey proposition to stay and trust in the humanity of the Jews.
Their FEAR mixed with promises of outside Arab assistance caused the flight. Their FEAR was REAL. Outside "assistance" has manifested itself in many guises . . . even to today.
Zionism caused no social dislocations. Why then, did 400,000 arabs have to be told by other arabs, to leave the new State of Israel? Isn't that rather like the kid who kills his parents and then pleads mercy on account of being an orphan?
For that assertion to be true then it must be false that Zionism was purchasing lands owned by absentee Arab land owners. It must be false that the lands owned by the absentee Arab land lords were being worked and inhabited by Arabs. It must be that the Zionists became the new absentee land lords and allowed the occupants to continue growing oranges wheat etc . . . Everyting was "nice".
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