The usual claque of Israel-haters plans a rally Sunday, May 14 in Washington, DC to commemorate what it insists was “al-nakba,” Arabic for “the catastrophe” of Israel’s creation in 1948. Sponsors give the game away. They include:
*American Muslims for Palestine. AMP, according to congressional testimony in 2016 by Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, invited participants at its annual conference two years earlier to “come and navigate the fine lie between legal activism and material support for terrorism.” Schanzer said that was “quite apt,” since several individuals who worked at AMP once staffed organizations “implicated by the federal government for financing Hamas [the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization].” So too for several AMP donors.
*The Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR, often uncritically quoted by news media as a civil rights group, is a Muslim Brotherhood spin-off. The Brotherhood, born in Egypt in 1928 with an anti-Western, anti-Jewish and anti-secular ideology, has been the mothership of many Sunni terrorist groups. As for CAIR itself, it was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 federal Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development retrial, in which the foundation was convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. Five men received prison terms, including Ghassan Elashi, a founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, who got 65 years.
*The Jewish Voice for Peace. JVP, though loud at times, has nothing to do with Judaism or peace. In fact, it gives cover to classic antisemitic stereotypes, as the ADL noted in 2013: “Jewish Voice for Peace is a radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel. JVP rejects the view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragic dispute over land which has been perpetuated by a cycle of violence, fear, and distrust on both sides, in favor of the belief that Israeli policies and actions are motivated by deeply rooted Jewish racial chauvinism and religious supremacism.”
Then there are the historical whoppers the rally sponsors flog. A press release by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, another event promoter, asserts “the nakba … refers to the forced displacement [of] between 750,00 to a million Palestinians” from what became Israel in 1948. The United Nations’ mediator on the scene in September 1948 estimated 360,000 Arab refugees; historian Efraim Karsh, in a village-by-village tally, later put the number at between 590,000 and 609,000. But approximately 820,000 Jews were expelled or fled Arab countries in 1948 and after, nearly 600,000 settling in the renewed Jewish state.
As for “forced displacement,” the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine accepted the 1947 U.N. partition plan, the Arab side rejected it and began a guerrilla war. This was followed by the invasion of Israel by five Arab countries—officials promising an “extermination” of the Jews—the next year. Many Arab refugees fled in response to calls to get out of the way temporarily while the Jews were being defeated; a relatively small minority were relocated, often within Palestine, by Israeli troops.
Catastrophically for those who rejected compromise, the Jews won. It turns out “nakba” should be translated as “consequences.”
ADC’s press release also imagines that the Zionists’ forced “removal and displacement of thousands of Palestinians … continues to this day.” The committee bemoans “the siege of Gaza” and Israel’s “continued occupation of the West Bank.”
In reality, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005; the Israeli-Egyptian partial blockade of Gaza is meant to restrict terrorism by Iranian-sponsored Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And nearly all West Bank Arabs are under the civil administration of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority. Israel’s counter-terrorism operations there are just that. An end to terrorism, constantly incited by the PA, would mean an end to Israeli incursions.
Finally, ADC parrots the “illegal Israeli settlements” claim about Jewish villages in Judea and Samaria (renamed the West Bank by Jordan during its illegitimate 1948-1967 occupation). Wrong again. The 1920 San Remo Treaty created an entity called Palestine, in which the Jewish national home was to be reestablished. The 1922 League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate called for “close Jewish settlement” on land west of the Jordan River. The 1945 U.N. Charter continues Jewish rights upheld by the Mandate.
Those at Sunday’s rally won’t be advocating relief for Gazans and West Bankers oppressed by Hamas and the PA. They won’t call for democracy in any of the 21 Arab countries. They’ll be obsessed with destroying the one Jewish state.
