When the arabs colonized the levant? or the many massacres of native jews? The wars of aggression by arabs? This conflict is awfully messy and each side has a laundry list of legitimate grievances.
Not really. It’s absurd to draw the line into ancient history of Arab’s colonizing the Levant. Early 1900s to 1948 are more reasonable given that people actually exist that lived in this time or at least meaningful records of history.
The fact is the British/UN gave a bunch of land to people that wasn’t really theirs to give. Nakba happened (which is illegal to even talk about in Israel) which was already a mass genocide/forced displacement). People alive today saw this happen. Watch the documentary Tantura to see some of the horrors by early Israelis (rapes, torture, killing people and feeding them their own genitals).
The point is: throughout most of modern history “Israel” has been invading Palestine. The fact that the UN recognized Israel in 1949 doesn’t matter… because that recognition required mass displacement and horrors to actually materialize.
Arab wars etc are a consequence of this. Sure maybe Israel won some of those. But one has to accept that the very conceptualization of Israel is rooted in genocide and displacement from the start. Many (or maybe most) states throughout history were formed this way I guess … Israel had the bad luck of doing it during a time that the human rights and morality of modernity was beginning to fully form.
You're correct it was not genocide.
The other side carried out quite a few massacres of its own and tried to displace the Jews (or worse) - so it was pretty much just a war.
The Nakba is ongoing, and fulfills the definitions (a)-(d) in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the letter.
You can call it a "small" genocide if you want. But you won't get anywhere denying either the facts of what has been happening to the Palestinians, or their relation to genocidal acts as defined above.
Indeed! For instance, Kuwait Nabka'd about 400,000 Palestinians in the wake of the Gulf War. And Syria just Nakba'd another 300,000, with barrel bombs dropped from helicopters.
I’ve seen you use the word Nakba alot when describing events other then the Nakba. For example a counter-Nakba to describe the Jewish exodus from Middle Eastern and North African countries which followed Israel’s unilateral deceleration of independence.
I don’t think this is fair, nor helpful. It is kind of like saying that the ongoing Gaza Genocide is another Holocaust. The Nakba is a unique historic event, by calling other historic events the same name it kind of reduces the effectiveness of giving names to events, and what made them unique enough to be named in the first place.
The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait for example was nothing like the actual Nakba. To begin with the victims were already refugees, so they had a place that they could flee to. Second the exile orders were a limited time (I think a week), as opposed to permanent in the case of the actual Nakba. The exile orders were not enforced with terrorism and military occupation.
While the exodus from Kuwait was a terrible human rights violation, it is actually much more like ongoing refugee evacuations from Europe and North America than the actual Nakba. Calling it a Nakba is either denying the horrors of the the Nakba, or exaggerating the Palestinian exodus from Kuwait.
I respectfully disagree with you about this, and don't see the distinction you're trying to make. I am, in particular, responding to a comment --- from a commenter you agree with generally --- who himself referred to the Nakba as ongoing.
Since this is just a rhetorical point, I don't think it's much worth arguing. I could come back at you with the Holocaust comparison, but what do we get out of that?
So, I'm going to continue using the wording I'm using, but with respect to your objection: heard.
When I hear people describing the Nakba as ongoing, I generally take that as to mean that the practices and policies of the Nakba have never been reversed, that the expulsion orders are still in effect, the refugees are still as such, partitions, occupation, and land grabs are still ongoing and expanding, the right of return has never been granted.
I think this is valid because the same government entity keeps these practices and policies onto the same victims. There is also a distinction to be made on the original event which we call The Nakba and the ongoing policies which followed. It is kind of like saying that the Korean War never ended. We have this original event, and then we have the aftermath which is still unresolved (not making a comparison though granting the right of return to displaced Palestinian is a million times less complicated than the Korean reunification).
I also hear people talking about the Gaza Genocide as a second Nakba. I also think this is valid (although The Gaza Genocide is a descriptive enough name IMO) since it mirrors the original event in scope and horrors, in policies. This would be akin to calling a second world war following The Great War World War II.
The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait, or the Syrian reign of terror against Palestinians are, however, not a direct followup or a continuation by the same entity of the same practices and policies of the original Nakba.
At most I can understand the use of the word Counter-Nakba as the Jewish hostile policies of e.g. Iraq were a direct response to the original Nakba. However the scale and horrors of that policy were nowhere near that of the original Nakba (even though the scale of the results [somewhat] did). And the practices and policies of Muslim majority countries did not mirror those of Israel during the Nakba, quite the contrary.
But we have to keep in mind that none of those people would be forced to live in such inhospitable places were it not for the bold, decisive actions of that man who got an airport named after him.
... or, as we've talked about before, the bold, decisive actions of people throughout every MENA country who expelled their own Jewish populations in the wake of the 1948 war --- those specific people are the core of the right wing in Israel.
Hate to point this out -- but this really is just whataboutism, here.
The MENA expulsions (which we have already acknowledged) didn't have anything to do either with Nakba '48 or the expulsions of Palestinians in other countries in subsequent years. Let alone with the topic of subthread we've all jumped in at here. (Which started with the Nakba after all; I didn't introduce it to make some broader moral point).
I thought about what you said. I don't think this is whataboutism. The people most responsible for the policies you most disapprove of in Israel are precisely the people who were victims of reprisal pogroms and ethnic cleansings in other countries.
I don't think my thesis is "Israel is right". My awareness of Israel started with them killing that activist with a bulldozer, and didn't go better places from there. I'm guessing we 80% agree about Israel.
I think my thesis is "no simple argument about Israel or Palestine will ever be true". Which is, to me, kind of fascinating, if you can get past the horror, which I understand people (on both sides) not being able to do. Also: I sound like a Bond villain right now.
The people most responsible for the policies you most disapprove of in Israel are precisely the people who were victims of reprisal pogroms and ethnic cleansings in other countries.
So ... if Palestinians are still going through what they're going today, at home or abroad, it's ultimately (or to large extent) a delayed result of the MENA expulsions, and the slight electoral tilt among the descendants of those affected (we're talking 2 full generations later, heading up on a 3rd by now) within Israeli electoral politics?
That is to say, ultimately an outgrowth of -- external antisemitism?
“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”
Right. I can find a collection of quotes by current and previous Palestinian leaders that make them appear to be a bunch of genocidal, religious fanatics and holocaust deniers. But I'm not gonna do that because the day is short and I'm not sure what its going to achieve.
So is it mutual acts of genocide between Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis?
Oh, absolutely. If the Nakba falls under the modern definition of genocide (as per the Convention), then the MENA expulsions and of course the Oct 7 pogrom do as well, in my view.
My intent is not to isolate blame on one side for this mess (which I see as ultimately symbiotic, the result of provocations by both sides). But to identify the common fabric between these events -- in the hopes of finding some way to stop if from continuing perpetually, ever forward.
Are Jews living through an ongoing holocaust now? Perhaps, since the term genocide lost all meaning why not.
Neither side is going through a true Holocaust in the sense of what happened to the European Jews (and certain other groups at the time), of course. We are very far from that, and I see your point here about a possible dilution of the term, and of the (nearly but not entirely unique) trauma and anguish related to those events (which I spent a certain phase of my life obsessively studying, BTW).
Again the overall intent is to identify sources of harm done to people, at scale and on the basis of group identity -- intended to diminish their numbers, destroy their spirit, and threaten their long-term survival as a people.
The word "genocide" (and many other terms) means very little nowadays. Well you can tell at least the parent isn't trying to be neutral in providing history there.
> 4. Referring to the Israeli Independence Day or the founding day of the country as a day of mourning.
So you are not allowed to call it the Nakba, or describe it as anything but something to celebrate as long as you receive funding from the government.
I don’t know how the media, libraries, schools or other institutions work in Israel, but in Iceland this would pretty much amount to a ban, as almost all media, and institutions receive at least some funding from the government, and the most important ones actually depend on it.
I also find it curious how this flies in Israel’s participation in Eurovision. Russia was banned for using state media to spread misinformation. Meanwhile Israel has laws which bans their state media from recognizing previous state atrocities, and is not banned.
Where should we start?
When the arabs colonized the levant? or the many massacres of native jews? The wars of aggression by arabs? This conflict is awfully messy and each side has a laundry list of legitimate grievances.