Free Republic

The UN General Assembly this week passed a resolution to characterize the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a “catastrophe,” in what has been heralded as a major victory for pro-Palestinian activists. The word “Nakba,” which means catastrophe or disaster in Arabic, was also a term coined by the Palestinians to commemorate the Jewish state’s founding. The UN resolution acknowledges the Palestinian version of the events that led to Israel’s creation, and calls for the “commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba,” with a “high-level event” at the global body on May 15th, 2023. May...

Having just taught a course on the Cultural Geography of the Middle East at a community college in Florida for “seniors” (over 55 years of age), I again encountered a unanimous belief among my students in what I would call the Most Widely Believed Myth of the political and military conflict between Israel and the Arabs. This universal belief, never challenged by the media, is that the United States was wholly or largely responsible for fully supporting Israel on the ground from the very beginning of its independence in May, 1948. The world has been inundated with a tsunami of...

Palestinians marched in the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday to commemorate their displacement in the 1948 Mideast war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel. Sirens wailed at noon in Ramallah and elsewhere across the West Bank for 66 seconds to symbolize the number of years since the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe” in Arabic—the term Palestinians use to describe their defeat and displacement in the war. Israel overcame the armies of surrounding Arab states as well as local Arabs who attacked after the Jewish state was declared on May 15, 1948. […] “It is time for the leaders...