Nabka Day and the truth of who’s to blame for Palestinian refugees

Nakba Day (May 15) is the “day of the catastrophe” on which Palestinians “mourn” the creation of Israel. In truth the day became a catastrophe for the Palestinian Arabs thanks to the nations of the Arab League. Over the years, maintaining the refugee status of thousands of Palestinians became the Arabs’ best strategy in their quest to destroy Israel, a strategy endorsed in the 2012 Democratic Party platform.

Let’s start with the fact that there would have been no refugees if the Arab nations accepted United Nations Resolution 181, which called for dividing Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states. (Yes, the U.N. said it was to be a Jewish state). Instead, the Arab League invaded the Jewish state and thereby created both Arab and Jewish refugees.

Despite what the propagandists may say, the Palestinian refugee camps were a catastrophe created by the Arab League and especially Egyptian President Nasser whose objective was to use them as a weapon against Israel.

Even though Israel offered the return of territories gained in the 1948 war (at the Rhodes armistice conference of February 1949), Arab leaders (among whom there were no representatives from the Arabs of the former Palestine) rejected Israel’s peace offers. Instead, they declared jihad, condemned the refugees to eternal refugee status, and In occupied the remaining areas which the United Nations had envisioned as a Palestinian state. Egypt herded Palestinian Arabs into refugee camps in its new fiefdom in the Gaza Strip, assassinated Palestinian leaders, and shot anyone who tried to leave. Jordan annexed the West Bank and maintained martial law there for 19 years.

As the conflict with Israel hardened throughout the 1950s, Nasser came to see that Palestinian nationalism, if carefully manipulated, could be an asset.