The New York Times halfway recognizes the Nakba today in a piece from Tel Aviv by Dina Kraft about (that cliche of the moment) competing narratives. Kraft can't work herself up to actually say that Arabs were driven out of western Palestine–
Zionist forces fought back. Some Palestinians fled, hoping to return
once the fighting ended; others were evacuated or saw their villages
destroyed by the Israeli forces.
Yes; and some were massacred by Begin's Irgun at Deir Yassin, and others had barrel bombs rolled down the streets of their city by Jewish terrorists….
But Kraft does mention the Nakba Archive of Diana Allan, and Zochrot's efforts to collect Palestinian memories, along with quoting Michael Oren on the alleged dubiety of oral testimony.
The historian Michael Oren, who was recently appointed the Israeli
ambassador to the United States, said videotaped testimony collected by
these groups and others would inevitably become part of not only the
historical record, but also the political debate. “I have no doubt it
will become a weapon on both sides,” he said. “Maybe those documenting
don’t have political agendas, but they will be asking different types
of questions.”
The Jewish interviews focus “on the struggle for
statehood, heroism and sacrifice,” he said, whereas the Palestinian
ones are “about pain and uprootedness.”
Watch what he does, not what he says. Here's the book, Six Days of War, by Oren. On pages 403-405, he lists more than 60 "Oral
History Interviews," conducted in 1999-2001, more than 30 years after
the fact.
