Nakba Day myths

Things you really need to know on ‘Nakba Day’

Today is Nakba Day. It is a day in which social media is flooded with a tsunami of posts about the Arab losses in the 1948/1949 war. If you read one article today related to Nakba Day – I suggest you read this one.

In many left-wing circles, the Palestinian Nakba has reached the level of a religious belief. To question it is seen as blasphemy. Some even go as far as suggesting that doubting the historicity of the elaborate stories that they tell is as bad as Holocaust denial:

Nakba Day - Nakba denial

This is Holocaust inversion.

  • By suggesting that the ‘Nakba’ and the Holocaust were equally factual and horrific, it implies that the Jews did to the Arabs – what the Nazis had done to the Jews.
  • Equating the Holocaust to a small civil war disgracefully downplays an industrial genocide.
  • It contains the seeds of Holocaust denial because it makes the assertion that the Holocaust is only as true as the myth of the Nakba.

The pillars of Nakba Day

Let me be clear – there are two ‘Nakbas’ and there will be no myths peddled here. A very real conflict took place between 1947 and 1949. There is the actual Arab ‘catastrophe’ (that certainly happened) when the Arabs failed in their attempt to wipe out the Jewish state. And then there is the ‘innocent Palestinian Nakba’ that never happened – which is the one they remember on Nakba Day.

These are six key elements to the myth of the Nakba:

  1. Jews were welcomed by the Palestinian Arabs before they turned on them in 1948.
  2. Palestinians were innocent victims of violent Jewish militia.
  3. The Jews pre-planned to cleanse the land of Arabs and then carried it out.
  4. What took place was a one-sided slaughter.
  5. The Jews had to expel Arabs because they were outnumbered.
  6. In May, the Arab states needed to invade

These are the foundation blocks of the anti-Israel narrative. Upon these their entire case is built. Here are some social media examples:

Nakba Day myths

And we can therefore prove that Nakba Day is based on nothing more than fiction – because each and every one is a lie.

1 – that Jews were welcomed by the Palestinian Arabs

For their myth to be true, the Palestinian Arabs must be presented as innocent and passive victims prior to 1948. Yet we know this is not true. Even before Zionism, the Jews had a torrid time in the region, but it became progressively worse under British rule. There were frequent attacks by armed Arabs against civilian Jewish communities. Some of these massacres are well known, such as the events of Hebron, Tzfat and Jerusalem in 1929, or Tiberias in 1938:

The British felt forced to stop Jewish immigration because the Arabs were so violently opposed to it. The partition itself only came about because Arab violence towards Jews could not be contained.

We can say without reservation that the founding pillar of the Nakba Day narrative is a lie.

2 – After the partition vote Palestinians were innocent victims of violent Jewish militia

Within hours of the partition vote, Arabs had bombed Jewish buses. They called a general strike to put everyone on the street and violent Arab mobs began to attack Jewish communities. This headline about Arab burning and looting Jewish shops is from the 3rd December 1947:

And nothing was left to chance. In the early months of the civil conflict, the Arabs had the upper hand – and by January 10,000s of irregular Arab forces began to cross into British Palestine:

Anyone who knows the actual history of the civil conflict is aware that for much of the first few months the Jews were on the defensive. They lost control of the roads, convoys were frequently attacked, losses were unsustainable, and there were frequent massacres of Jews across British Palestine. This attack in Jerusalem took place on 22 Feb 1948:

It is clear that the Arabs were not passive innocent victims at all, but rather Palestinian Arab forces were trying to kill as many Jews as they could. The second pillar of the Nakba narrative is a lie.

3. – The Jews carried had pre-planned the expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs – and then carried it out

The idea of all powerful Jews plotting away in secret to expel all the Palestinian Arabs goes against everything we know about the conflict. Arab Palestinians began to flee even before the conflict had started – like families always do in civil war. The idea is also rooted in antisemitic ideas of exaggerated Jewish power and underhand Jewish evil-doing. What unfolded was a civil conflict the Jews did not even want – and for the first few months of the civil conflict, there were serious doubts that the Jews would survive. But don’t take it from me, take it from the ‘British Commanders in Chiefs for the Chief of Staff’ in April 1948:

The pillar of all powerful Jewish forces able to do as they pleased – is also a lie.

4 – What took place was a one-sided slaughter

There is one clear statistic that highlights the truth about the civil conflict and that is that before May 1948 casualty figures on both sides were roughly equal. This from the British Archives listing casualty figures until the 26th April 1948 shows that there was nothing one sided about this conflict (file FCO 141/8742):

The pillar of the one-sided slaughter is just another lie.

5 – The Jews had to expel Arabs because they would be outnumbered in their new state

This one is just grasping at straws. The Jewish leadership knew that there were 100,000s of Jews trapped in DP camps in Cyprus or Western Europe who were just waiting for Israel to open its doors. The ‘demographic threat’ is a made-up motive that never existed.

Nakba Day myth - the demographic threat

The ‘demographic threat’ is just another lie in the Nakba myth.

6 – The Arab states needed to invade to save the Arab Palestinians

The mythical pillars build on each other, and this is the last. Their stories suggest that because the Jews were running riot and massacring and expelling Arabs – the Arab armies decided that they needed to invade to ‘save’ the Arab Palestinians. Except we already know that none of that is true. In addition the Arabs publicly said they were going to invade as soon as the partition was announced. Which means they have since revised the story to fit their new (and false narrative). This newspaper report from 7 Dec 1947:

The final pillar upon which the Nakba Day myth is built is also a lie.

The Nakba Day myth

The current Nakba narrative is a masterpiece of deception and antisemitic propaganda.

The conflict of 1947 – 1949 happened just like we say it did. It was an unnecessary conflict that the Arabs wanted and started because they could not accept Jewish self-rule in any part of British Palestine. Casualties were high on both sides and the fighting was brutal. The Jews declared independence, fought off the invading armies and won the war.

It was a war of extermination launched by Arabs to destroy the world’s only Jewish state. The Arab ‘catastrophe’ is that the Jews survived. This is really what their Nakba Day is all about.

Nobody should mourn the Arab failure to eradicate the Jews.

Everything that they say about the Nakba today – changed as they needed it to evolve. In reality the Nakba myth only expanded in the last few decades, as extremists wanted to make it more difficult to negotiate a settlement over the refugees.

This simple explanation – that the Nakba was the Arab failure to destroy Israel – is how the Nakba story was being reported in 1975:

That is the advantage with myths – you can just make it all up as you go along.

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22 thoughts on “Things you really need to know on ‘Nakba Day’

  1. in 1947 there was not even one case that after arab capture of a jewish settlement that jews were allowed to remain..between 1947 til 1967 when under palestinian jordanian rule jews were not allowed entry and all jewish property was confiscated eg sheik jarrah.
    TODAY..the basic palestinian demand is territories that will have no jewish communities to be achrived by removing all jews…judenrein
    The similarity of the nurenberg laws and bds are striking and the boycott isolate eliminate process is directly related to 1933 1945 period when palestinian and nazi nationalism cooperated eg 1941 hitler ,husseinni ,rauche of the murder trucks and himmler meet 1942 rashid ali revolt in iraq 1943 rauche comes to libya and husseinni recruits 2 ss muslim divisions in yugoslavia

  2. I wonder how much the Soviet Russian KGB were involved in this deception

    Nakba revisionism/ creationism began in earnest after the Soviets began their propaganda blitz claiming ‘Zionism is Racism’.

    So much Antisemitism, Jew hatred and similar myths ( The Protocols of Zion, anti-Zionism, the Palestinian people and the Nakba) seem to have the fingerprint/signature of Russian/Soviet secret services and police. And there has always been a ready audience for this Russian Jew hatred around the world

    1. Richard, I’ve always found this piece to be useful in answering your question and in vexing our opponents. It’s a compilation of information in the public domain about the origins of the Palestinian cause and has attributable quotes from notable members of their leadership. This is an example that is fairly telling from Zuheir Mohsen, a PLO member responsible for the Damur massacre from an interview in March 1977.

      “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.

      In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.”

      Here’s the link. https://www.israelandstuff.com/the-kgb-and-the-origins-of-the-palestinian-narrative#.Xu08WCxlOaw.facebook

      1. Thanks Ian. I’ve read much of this in other publications over the years, but until Israel devises a strategy to fight ‘Palestianism’ this is just so many words. Israeli politicians for some reason accepted the ‘Palestinian’ narrative and now it has grown so large that is seems to have become semi-unstoppable

  3. All Muslim holidays follow their calendar, which like our Jewish calendar, follows the Lunar cycle.

    The west uses the Gregorian calendar

    Why is it then that the Palestinians celebrate/mourn the Nakba using the Gregorian calendar when all their other holidays follow the Lunar calendar.

    It ‘surely’ couldn’t be to make it easier for the Palestinians ‘useful idiots’ in the west to follow their anti-Israel/Antisemitic project. I mean al-Quds day follows the Muslim calendar, and yet this most important of Palestinian holidays (Nakba) follows the western dating system.Something terribly amiss there

  4. please can you reference the British Commanders in Chiefs for the Chief of Staff’ in April 1948:
    thanks

    1. It is an extract from a file in the British Archives in Key – file CO 537/3926. It was a telegram written by the Senior Commander of the British Mediteranean forces in April 1948.

  5. The answer to all the nonsense which David spouts is, if there had been no occupation of Palestine by Zionist terrorists from Europe, whose goal was the elimination of Palestinian Arabs from Palestine where they had lived in peace with Palestinian Jews for centuries, there would not be the racism and apartheid which is practiced by the Zionist Israeli government today.

    1. Since when were Arabic speaking Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula the indigenous peoples of a Hebrew / Aramaeic speaking country Jack T(wat) ?

      And here was you thinking that the Arabs aren’t the Middle East’s biggest (and original) land thieves ??

      Really ????

      😆

      Never been the brightest of sparks have you Shit-for-Brains ??

      The Jews got their country back so it’s all good

      You might not like it but who gives a shit what you think anyway ?

      😝

      1. Dozey Dobkin – “You might not like it but who gives a shit what you think anyway ?”

        You obviously do Dozey otherwise you wouldn’t bother responding 🙂

        The proof of what I say is in the Zionists own archives.

        1. Thanks for taking the bait Jacky lad

          😝

          Showing you up for what you really are is always a pleasure for me

          😜

          And so easy too

          😉

          Am Yisroel Chai

          🇮🇱

    2. Only someone as mentally challenged as yourself Jack could possibly refute the excellent painstaking research done by David. So where is your counter proof?apart from parroting the unevidenced BS that has been spouted by the sore Arab losers of the wars.

      1. Don’t be mean too our Jack. He’s the Guilty Remnant, the Last Troll Standing here and the poor sod ran out of steam months ago. Now he only pops by when he gets his ping about a new post and taps out some banal twaddle with a single mission; winding up a few neurotic diaspora Jews. I give him another 6 months before he goes the way of all his predecessors over the last 10 years.

  6. 21% of israels population today according to amnesty..an anti israel.organisation..is palestinian..growing . as it shouid.
    no jewish communities..in any palestinian rntity ..gaza fatah jordan ..and jews were ethnically cleansed from all areas captured by arabs in 1947 war and the basic palestinian demand in territorial cedeing in a 2 state solution is that is should be judenrein by removing all.jews living there…abbas declared that the western wall is not jewish but islamic

  7. JackT, our resident Antisemite and coward because he will not use his full name

    So where is this supposed proof in the Zionist archives

    Links and proof please, otherwise we can just assume its another of your ‘smoke and mirror’ nut case cons

    1. Happy ETERNAL NAKBA to ALL!

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism

      P.S. Just a day ago an Unrepentant Terrorist Jihadi Sand Nazi Pig was sentenced to

      LIFE IN PRISON (like the Sand Nazi Blind Snake of the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center)

      for the 2017 attack murdering 8 people on a pedestrian path in Manhattan when he ran over pedestrians with a van he was driving.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

      Marg Bar Islamofascist Iran!

  8. The core at the Middle East ‘conflict’ is about anti-Jewish bigotry

    * The intolerance started mainly since Sheikh Suleiman al-Taji al-Faruqi wrote a hateful poem in Falastin newspaper on November 8, 1913 mixing Quranic ideas with old anti Semitic stereotypes (leading to the 1914 closure of the newspaper by the Turks for inciting race-hatred). Then by Haj Amin al-Husseini in the 1920s. The Mufti also chose to “believe” in ancient blood libel.

    * The brunt of the victims in 1920, 1921 and especially in Hebron 1929 massacre, were non-Zionist pious-Jews.

    * March 1933, within weeks of Hitler’s coming to power, the Mufti already approached German’s council and offered alliance.

    * May 1933, Falastin newspaper glorified Hitler as “noble” and justified his persecution of the Jews.

    * September 1933, Eissa Bendak, editor of the radical bi-weekly Sawt Al Shaab has left for Paris to receive instructions from a group of Germans and Arabs on “conducting Nazi propaganda” in Palestine.

    * Ibrahim a-Shanti’s 1934 founded the newspaper ‘Ad Difa’a’ was very pro Hitler.
    (Asides from the instances he had to moderate his tone under British censorship and threat of banning).

    * May 1935, when delegates returned from an Arab youth conference in Haifa, their train to Afula bore a swastika chalked on one of the coaches with an Arabic inscription beneath it reading “Germany over All.”

    * June 1935, Arabs in Haifa form Nazi club, called ‘Red Moon,’ well funded by the Nazis. “Groups of brown-clad Arab youths are now organized.”

    * 1936, Grand Mufti with Jamal al-Husseini established the Futuwwa modeled on Hitler Youth.

    * 1936-1937, Hitler’s book Mein Kampf – a best sellers among radical Arabs in Palestine.

    * Jan 1937, Istiqlal’s Auni Abd al-Hadi told Nazi magazine: “Arabs Like the Nazis.”

    * 1937, ahead of the Bludan conference, the Grand Mufti, (after Nashashibi left the Arab Higher Committee) sent a warning (officially by the Arab Higher Committee) to other Arab countries (including Lebanon) in the Middle East not to accept any Jews. The Mufti sent also a hate booklet to the conference. It was used in his 1943 recruitment of SS Bosnian Muslims.

    * 1937, Walter Doehle, German consul in Jerusalem: ‘Palestinian Arabs in all social strata have great sympathies for the new Germany and its Führer…’

    * September, 1938, around 100 representatives from Arab Palestine at Nazi conference in Nuremberg.

    * May 1939, Istiqlal’s Auni ‘abd al-Hadi, meets Nazi officials in Berlin.

    * Hitler’s radio ‘voice of the Arabs’ was first by, Younis Bahri. It was especially boosted by the aforementioned Mufti himself after 1941.

    * Poll by Mr. Sari Sakanini in Palestine, in February 1941, found, 88 percent of Arabs supported the Nazis.

    * There were also no excuses for: the grand Mufti in inciting (with other Arabs, including from Palestine: Akram Zuaiter and Darwish al-Miqdadi) the 1941 Farhud pogrom where some say upto a thousand died. There was mass rape and children were thrown into waters in front of parents); or calling (in his voice of the Arabs broadcast from Berlin) all Arabs “to kill the Jews wherever they are – this pleases Allah;” or planning a crematorium in Dotan Valley near Nablus, among other things.

    * His disciple Ahmad Shukairy (who helped the Mufti’s gang to kill his brother Dr. Anwar Shukeiri on June 8, 1939) and partner Jamal al-Husseini, both justifying the Holocaust in 1946.

    * The married immoral Mufti spent the war years 1941-1945 in Berlin, surrounded by German women and received a lot of money.

    * By the way, it wasn’t just the Mufti who worked with the Nazis. He had some 200 Arabs with him, mainly from Palestine.

    * After the war, the Mufti was cheered by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
    Infamous Nazi anti-Semite Johann Von Leers (Omar Amin) was welcomed in Egypt by the Mufti and he became the political adviser to the Information Department under Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser. He also helped Nazi Ernst-Wilhelm Springer escape into Egypt.

    * 1946, though the Mufti ‘was not allowed to set foot in Palestine, the Arab League now enthroned him as the new leader of the Palestinian Arabs with an annual budget of 10,000 pounds sterling.’

    * 1947, Arabs recruit ex Nazis to fight the Jews. All in all. Some research showed, around 1,000 of them.

    * 1947, Issa Nakhleh would work for the Mufti in the Arab Higher Committee, then agitating in Argentina, then coming back to the US and spread propaganda for decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s) with neo-Nazis.

    * 1947-1948, Arab leadership including the Mufti, told the Arabs of Palestine to leave the land till “victory.”

    * The Arab League worked with Neo Nazis on South America in the 1960s. And the Palestinian terrorists were linked with Neo Nazis in the 1960s such as with François Genoud [Genaud], the PLO linked with Nazis or/and neo-Nazis in the 1970s-1980s, among them: Otto Ernst Remer, L’Oeuvre Francaise, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, Udo Albrecht, Willi Pohl / Voss (pseudonym E. W. Pless).

    * Ask yourself, had all the Israelis been ethnicaly Arab or most of them Muslim, would there then even be a conflict? = “Arab racism!”

    * Returning to a historic homeland has nothing to do with “racism” and the 2001-Durban Hitlerist propaganda especially by Arab Lawyers Union and others, showed the bitter irony of racists masked as “anti-Racist”.

    * One can not detach bigotry from Ahmad Shukairy’s invention of the “apartheid” false-analogy in 1961 (a little bit over a year after he had promoted a neo-Nazi group and quoting the Sep.16.1962 New York Times article which in fact states the Nazi nature of the group), or of Omar Shakir’s anti-Israel activities since 2010 and abusing the HRW group in 2021 for this propaganda in falsifying or misrepresenting facts and via changing the Apartheid definition to fit his propaganda.

    * Praising Hitler, denying the Holocaust and creating (hateful, racially motivated) fake comparisons to clashes and security measures are all happening at once.

    * If anti-Israel bigoted propaganda had any truth in it, then why do the Israelis keep going into trouble, risking its soldiers lives, and even inventing measures only to minimize Arab casualties when going after terrorists?
    How much does the Arab world know about preferential treatment for Arabs over Jews, including in courts’ decisions, academia, employment and more?

    * If the Arab leadership or anti-Israel “activists” were worried for Arab lives more than defaming Israel – then, when was the last time it condemned the use of civilians as human shields, school, places of worship, or shooting from densely populated areas?

    * The 113 UNRWA teachers between 2015-2022 engaging in pro terror and many in anti-Semitism, including pro Hitler propaganda.

    * By the way, the TikTok (since April 2021) attacks by many Arabs and getting thousands of feedback from other Arabs are attacks against pious Jews in Jerusalem who (most) are not Zionist and even refuse to serve in the IDF. The same is the, (past and present), anti-Semitic cartoons in Arab media often of clearly visible such pious Jews. Worst is, the terror massacres specifically targeting such communities in various cities. Which again, shows the underlying ‘Arab racism’ motivation behind it all, in principle.

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