How many years will it be till neoconservative Commentary Magazine apologizes for its Nakba denial? 5, 10, 50? Well, I’m setting the egg-timer. Because the National Post of Canada, a neocon hive–owned by rightwing Jews, long guarantor of a platform to David Frum, who invented two dangerous slogans, "Victory or Holocaust" and "Axis of Evil"–yesterday stated there was "ethnic cleansing" in ’47-48 Palestine. First it printed a piece by contributor Jeet Heer on the Nakba that was unapologetic:
there was a tragic side to Israel’s founding. The ethnic cleansing
that allowed Israel to emerge was a terrible trauma for the Arab
victims, and it continues to haunt the Jewish state to this day. The
external war against Arab armies was mirrored by an internal war
against Arabs living inside Palestine. Because of this tragic legacy,
uncritically celebrating 1948 does a disservice to Jews and Arabs alike.I
know many readers will be shocked by my use of the words "ethnic
cleansing," which seem so harsh to those raised on the myth-making of
Leon Uris. But the fact is that the best recent historians of Israel’s
founding, some of whom are ardent Zionists, have made it clear that the
events of 1948 were an ethnic cleansing.
The Post then felt it necessary to "contextualize" the piece with an editorial somewhat denying it.
If anything, in fact, Israel represents a relatively mild exhibit in
the "ethnic cleansing" department. Local Arabs did die among the
bloodshed attending Israel’s creation, as Mr. Heer argues. But the
death toll was orders of magnitude lower than that in, say, south Asia,
which divided between India and Pakistan during the same period.
Yes; and the Pakistanis have had a state for 60 years.
But let us hail the Post for diversity of opinion. And the loyalty and respect it has shown to Jeet Heer, a regular contributor–loyalty and respect absent in the treatment by the Chicago Global Affairs Council and the New York Times of former contributor John Mearsheimer.
