I guess some groups like to make up their own history if they feel it would work to their advantage.
The Palestinian National Narrative is the Biggest Obstacle to Peace
Sol Stern August 23rd 2010
City Journal
A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiationsâthe specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is âdisasterâ; but in its current, expansive usage, it connotes a historical catastrophe inflicted on an innocent and blameless people (in this case, the Palestinians) by an overpowering outside force (international Zionism). The Nakba is the heart of the Palestiniansâ backward-looking national narrative, which depicts the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as the original sin that dispossessed the landâs native people. Every year, on the anniversary of Israelâs independence, more and more Palestinians (including Arab citizens of Israel) commemorate the Nakba with pageants that express longing for a lost paradise. Every year, the legend grows of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in 1948, crimes now routinely equated with the Holocaust. Echoing the Nakba narrative is an international coalition of leftists that celebrates the Palestinians as the quintessential Other, the last victims of Western racism and colonialism.
There is only one just compensation for the long history of suffering, say the Palestinians and their allies: turning the clock back to 1948. This would entail ending the âZionist hegemonyâ and replacing it with a single, secular, democratic state shared by Arabs and Jews. All Palestinian refugeesânot just those still alive of the hundreds of thousands who fled in 1948, but their millions of descendants as wellâwould be allowed to return to Jaffa, Haifa, the Galilee, and all the villages that Palestinian Arabs once occupied.
Continue reading at:
The Cutting Edge News
The Palestinian National Narrative is the Biggest Obstacle to Peace
Sol Stern August 23rd 2010
City Journal
A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiationsâthe specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is âdisasterâ; but in its current, expansive usage, it connotes a historical catastrophe inflicted on an innocent and blameless people (in this case, the Palestinians) by an overpowering outside force (international Zionism). The Nakba is the heart of the Palestiniansâ backward-looking national narrative, which depicts the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as the original sin that dispossessed the landâs native people. Every year, on the anniversary of Israelâs independence, more and more Palestinians (including Arab citizens of Israel) commemorate the Nakba with pageants that express longing for a lost paradise. Every year, the legend grows of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in 1948, crimes now routinely equated with the Holocaust. Echoing the Nakba narrative is an international coalition of leftists that celebrates the Palestinians as the quintessential Other, the last victims of Western racism and colonialism.
There is only one just compensation for the long history of suffering, say the Palestinians and their allies: turning the clock back to 1948. This would entail ending the âZionist hegemonyâ and replacing it with a single, secular, democratic state shared by Arabs and Jews. All Palestinian refugeesânot just those still alive of the hundreds of thousands who fled in 1948, but their millions of descendants as wellâwould be allowed to return to Jaffa, Haifa, the Galilee, and all the villages that Palestinian Arabs once occupied.
Continue reading at:
The Cutting Edge News
