The Myth of the Nakba, and Its Consequences

Used by Palestinians to denote the creation of the Jewish state, the term nakba—meaning “catastrophe”—has come to be part of the vocabulary of anti-Israel activists. Shmuel Trigano investigates the historical narrative summed up by this word, which involves a deft inversion of good and evil and has evolved in such a way as to appeal to Western, especially European sympathies:

The defeat of [the Arab] armies and [the Arab states’] political failure in opposing the partition of Mandatory Palestine have been rewritten . . . as a shocking, congenital injustice of which [Palestinians] are the victims. This injustice is affixed to the very existence of Israel, which, in order to exist, purportedly dispossessed an innocent people of their land so that it could take their place. The Palestinian aggressors, [through this interpretation] became the victims. The [failed attempt at the] extermination of others became [reason for] self-pity and compassion.

The actual term, nakba, is an evident translation of shoah, meaning “catastrophe,” and it derives its emotional impact from accusing the victims of becoming the executioners, so that the new Palestinian “victims” have taken the place of the victims of Nazism, the holders of the memory of the Holocaust. This follows exactly the formula coined by Edward Said: “The Palestinians are the victims of the victims.”

By manipulating the West’s sensitivity and feelings of guilt, the Palestinians have not only become known as victims, but they also offer Westerners a delayed reaction to the Nazi extermination of the Jews, thereby freeing themselves from blame. Westerners can now denounce the victims’ descendants by accusing them of the same atrocities as the Nazis and the Europeans of [the colonial] era. In this way they accomplish two goals at once: Nazi Europe effectively becomes colonial Europe, and honoring the memory of the Holocaust becomes, through this manipulation, an occasion to condemn racism—“apartheid”—by the Israelis against the Palestinians and to accuse them of colonialism [and even of] Nazism.

Read more at Jewish Political Studies Review

More about: Edward Said, Europe and Israel, Israeli War of Independence, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa