PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — A clause in U.S. House Resolution 409, Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian Refugees’ Rights, urges Congress to “reject bigoted efforts to question, dismiss, or otherwise deny the existence of Palestinians and their humanity.”
Palestinians and their humanity? Such as those 6,000 Palestinians who beheaded, burned, shot, blew up, mutilated bodies and raped almost 1,200 Israelis in 21 communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? Or shooting to death a 37-year-old Israeli woman last week on a drive to the hospital – to deliver her baby in the West Bank?
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) inserted this “humanity” phrasing into a resolution she re-introduced last Wednesday to recognize the 77th anniversary of the Arab world’s “Nakba” on May 15, 1948, when the modern state of Israel was formed and its people resisted a massive invasion by five Arab countries.
The bill states that “Nakba” means “catastrophe.” It was a Nakba that left Arab forces defeated and thousands of Arab villagers out in the cold. That is, the Arabs refused to compromise and share the land, mounted an overwhelming military strike and ended up with 22 percent of the land that they expected to control.
Tlaib, a Democrat who represents parts of Detroit and its suburbs, wants America to recognize Nakba Day through this House resolution.
Americans should readily identify because of our own Nakba days: Aug. 24, 1814 (burning down the White House); April 14-15 (President Lincoln’s assassination); Dec. 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor); Sept. 11, 2001 (the Twin Towers); and, lest we forget, Nov. 6, 2018 – the day Rashida Tlaib was first elected to Congress.
Tlaib claims in a news release that Israel is furthering the Nakba by “carry(ing) out genocide in Gaza. It is a campaign to erase Palestinians from existence.”
She justified her arguments with the most sordid lies that revise the course of modern history borrowed from the dog-ate-my-homework department. It was all Israel’s fault, the bill emphasizes, not that it should surprise anyone.
“Whereas, almost immediately following the passage of the United Nations partition plan,” the proposed resolution states, “Zionist militias began a deliberate and systematic effort to expel Palestinians from their lands, a campaign which included massacres and other atrocities against civilian populations;
“Whereas, before the state of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, between 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees had already been forcibly expelled or fled from their homes, often following attacks by Zionist militias on major Palestinian cities and villages.”
The Jewish Virtual Library offers a far different take: “The Palestinians left their homes for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, and thousands more responded to Arab leaders’ call to get out of the way of the advancing armies; a handful was expelled, but most fled to avoid being caught in the crossfire of a war.”
Three-quarters of a century later, it is still not fully clear what happened, but the signs heavily point to the library’s version. One columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer once charged, with no attribution, that Israel expelled most of the Palestinians. The Inquirer writer specified 80 percent with no explanation where she got this figure.
The bill contends that the United Nations directed that Palestinians “wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors” should be allowed to do that, and that the U.N. resolution is based on Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Why should Israel allow them to return? Many of these so-called refugees colluded with their leaders in 1948 when they voluntarily fled Israel to make way for the Arab armies to attack Israel and wipe out the Jews. They believed they would return to lands free of Jews.
These Arabs deliberately chose the side that plotted another Holocaust three years after Nazi Germany completed its slaughter of 6 million Jews.
Instead, they were spread out among various Arab countries left to rely on the mercy of their rulers and people. These refugees were left high and dry and usually mistreated by their new neighbors.
Contrary to the bill’s language, they never left “any country.” It had not been a country of its own since many Jews fled or were expelled two millennia ago. Plus, how can anyone expect them to “live at peace” after cooperating with the Arab armies?
Two House members linked to the Philadelphia region are among the eight Democratic co-sponsors. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who represents Trenton and Princeton, N.J., has among her constituents a sizeable Jewish population. Rep. Summer Lee of Pittsburgh represents the heavily Jewish community of Squirrel Hill.
The other co-sponsors are Rep. Lateefah Simon (Oakland and Berkeley outside San Francisco), progressive faction leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (the Bronx and Queens), Ilhan Omar (Minneapolis), Ayanna Pressley (Boston), Delia Ramirez (Chicago and its suburbs) and Andre Carson (Indiana).
A rogue’s gallery of pro-Palestinian groups has endorsed the resolution, including Jewish Voice for Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Mennonite Action. Also, the curiously-named Gen-Z for Change and Busboys and Poets.
The resolution is right when it states: “Protracted refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political solutions to their underlying political crises.”
Arabs consistently reject “political solutions,” so what are they talking about? Until they heed their own advice, the Nabka will never end.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.