Today the United Nations (UN) will officially commemorate the Nakba for the first time. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver a keynote address before an “immersive experience” of photos, videos, and personal testimonies.
“This is an occasion to highlight that the noble goals of justice and peace, require recognizing the reality and history of the Palestinian people’s plight and ensuring the fulfillment of their inalienable rights,” explains a UN website.
The Nakba (Arabic for the “catastrophe”) refers to the 1948 displacement and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians due to massacres carried out by Zionist militias. 500 Palestinian towns and villages were ultimately destroyed.
Israel has pushed for member countries to boycott the event. “Israel will not be pressured by this slanderous campaign to rewrite history and therefore calls on all member states who truly support reconciliation not to attend this shameful and antisemitic event,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan recently declared.
US lawmakers also condemned the UN. It is outrageous that the UN is stepping up its anti-#Israel rhetoric today,” tweeted Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) All countries should boycott this biased event.”
“To say Israel’s founding is a ‘catastrophe’ is shameful and works against the United Nation’s mission of maintaining peace and security,” wrote Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). “I stand with Israel against this event. #EndJewHatredAtTheUN.”
Axios‘s Barak Ravid reports that the Biden administration will not be sending anyone to the event at Israel’s request:
According to Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen 31 additional countries will stay away, including England, Canada, Italy, and Ukraine.
Israeli officials have consistently attempted to suppress acknowledgment of the Nakba. In 2009 the country’s education ministry ordered the removal of the word from a school textbook for Arab children. In 2011, the Knesset adopted a “Nakba law” to withdraw state funds from any institution commemorating the history.
The UN commemoration is not the only Nakba event to face backlash from lawmakers recently. Back in Washington, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) attempted to block “Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People” from occurring in the Capitol Building. The educational event was organized by a number of human rights groups and featured remarks from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress.
“This event in the US Capitol is canceled,” McCarthy tweeted. “Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.”
Tlaib refused to back down. “Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history and erase the existence and truth of the Palestinian people, but he has failed to do so,” she said in a statement. “This event is planned to bring awareness about the Nakba and create space for Palestinian Americans who experienced the Nakba firsthand to tell their stories of trauma and survival.”
“The Nakba is a well-documented historical event that is recognized by the United Nations,” she continued. “We cannot allow the same people who want to ban books and erase history simply because they’re uncomfortable with the truth to silence Palestinian voices…We fully plan on moving forward with this event and we will continue to ensure that Palestinian voices are heard. We will not be silenced.”
The event proceeded despite McCarthy’s efforts. However, it faced criticism from multiple lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
“I wholeheartedly disapprove of the Majority permitting the use of the HELP Committee room for this divisive event,” said Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) “The Capitol Grounds should not be used as a pedestal to legitimize anti-Semitic bigotry.”
Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told the Jewish Insider website that “bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship has always been unbreakable and will remain strong for decades to come. Efforts to rewrite history and question the Jewish State’s right to exist will never succeed in Congress.” They also accused Tlaib of perpetuating “malicious narratives” by speaking about her family’s personal experience.
A similar statement came from Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV). “Calling the establishment of the world’s only Jewish state a ‘catastrophe’ is deeply offensive, and I strongly disagree with allowing this event to be held on Capitol Hill,” she said. “Israel was founded as a refuge for the Jewish people fleeing millennia of antisemitic persecution and violence. Let me be absolutely clear: the United States is and will always remain a stalwart ally of the State of Israel.”
You will recall that Winston Smith** works in the Ministry Of Truth as a history-rewriter. Recently he changed jobs and now works for Israel’s Defense Ministry:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-07-05/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs/0000017f-f303-d487-abff-f3ff69de0000
Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs…Since early last decade, Defense Ministry teams have scoured local archives and removed troves of historic documents to conceal proof of the Nakba…it’s not just papers relating to Israel’s nuclear project or to the country’s foreign relations that are being transferred to vaults: Hundreds of documents have been concealed as part of a systematic effort to hide evidence of the Nakba…
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Smith_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
The United States of America, the world’s greatest “democracy”, and so called champion of freedom and justice for all around the world, is once again sending a strong message to all nations….it is willing to ignore the rights of the Palestinian people, because the nation that occupies them, steals from them, and kills women and children while they sleep, because they have a sick relationship with that apartheid nation. America is willing to stand up to the United Nations, which was established primarily to work for human rights, and the freedom of people around the world, to shamefully take the side of the occupier. An occupier that wants the world to ignore a catastrophic event like the Nakba, because all their present day crimes stem from that day, and they are responsible for the displacement, occupation, killings, collective punishments, and theft of lands, ever since.
The apartheid nation does not want the world to be reminded of that, and the US helps them of course.
The suffering of the Palestinian people is on the United States of America, because we fund them, arm them, and make sure the nation that occupies them, keeps being protected from being held accountable in every way especially at the UN.
FOR SHAME!!! US and israel…and all other nations submitting to this utter idiocy. FOR SHAME!!!
Israel yet again proving it knows absolutely nothing about actual American culture. Sure they might have enough America politicians in their back pocket to try and suppress some of these events, but in doing so they are merely drawing MORE attention to the Nakba, not less.
America is the land of “hold my beer…”. Tell Americans they can’t or shouldn’t do something or know something, and you can bet a case of Bud Light that they’ll say, “hold my beer” and go right ahead and do it anyway.
This is Israel completely failing to read the room. Again.