(CAMERA) Dr. Alex Safian - In the years since Israel's rebirth in 1948, a narrative has taken root that portrays well-armed and financed Jewish immigrants overrunning peaceful Palestinian villages, brutally expelling Palestinians from their homes and their country, a narrative summed up in the Arabic word nakba, or catastrophe. In contrast, Israelis view their War of Independence as a battle of the few against the many, a battle forced on a beleaguered Jewish community by Palestinian militias and the invading armies of five Arab states. Israel was not born in sin - with a few justified exceptions, there were no expulsions, nor was there any policy of harming innocents, on the contrary. As early as 1937, Israel's founding father David Ben Gurion wrote: "We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places. All our aspiration is built on the assumption - proven throughout all our activity... that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs." On Dec. 13, 1947, Ben Gurion said in a speech: "In our state there will be non-Jews as well - and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without exception....The attitude of the Jewish state to its Arab citizens will be an important factor - though not the only one - in building good neighborly relations with the Arab states." Five Arab states, together with Palestinian Arabs, launched a brutal war against the Jews, in which more than 1% of the Jewish population was killed. An Egyptian armored column had penetrated up the coast to within 21 miles of Tel Aviv. Had the Palestinians accepted partition, a Palestinian state would have been created side-by-side with Israel in 1948, and there wouldn't have been a single Palestinian refugee. In the summer of 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted intense peace talks at Camp David between Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli leader Ehud Barak. Despite the vast concessions the plan required of Israel, Prime Minister Barak accepted President Clinton's proposal, while Arafat refused, returned home, and launched a new terror campaign against Israeli civilians (the Second Intifada). Israel again tried to make peace with the Palestinians in 2008. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presented a comprehensive peace plan, going beyond even the Clinton proposal. Olmert said in an interview in 2009, "Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day. He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again." The Palestinians have repeatedly run away from a negotiated peace and statehood, and have caused most of their own problems. It's a testament to the power of endlessly repeated propaganda that so many in the West act as if Israel caused the Palestinian refugee problem, as if Israel refuses to make peace, and as if Israel stands in the way of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian nakba narrative is a potent myth, a massive collection of blatant falsehoods intended to stand history on its head, and turn the victim into the perpetrator.
2025-05-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive