"Nakba" Bombs Out

Palestinians Riot on Nakba Day -Khaled Abu Toameh & Tovah Lazaroff

One Israeli soldier, three border policemen and 270 Palestinians were lightly hurt, mostly from tear gas inhalation, in clashes in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem as Palestinians marked the "Nakba," meaning "catastrophe," their loss to Israel in 1948. In Ramallah, children marched into Martyr Yasser Arafat Square beating drums and wearing black T-shirts that read "1948." PA representatives including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad led the rally. "The right of return is sacred and cannot be compromised," Fayyad told the crowd.
(Jerusalem Post)


Nakba Day Defanged -Mitch Ginsburg

On May 15, "Nakba Day" demonstrations were limited to the West Bank. Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights worker, attributed the relative calm to the state of Palestinian society, which he described as frustrated, fractured, tired and hopeless. "The back of Palestinian society has been broken by the Hamas-Fatah separation," he said, noting that within the West Bank, the rifts within Fatah were so deep there was no hope of any coordinated uprising. "There cannot be an intifada so long as we have an intrafada," he said.
(Times of Israel)


Israel: Palestinians Should Direct Anger at Their Own Leaders -Herb Keinon

Rather than demonstrating against Israel, the Palestinians should be directing their "Nakba Day" anger at the extremist Palestinian leadership that 64 years ago rejected any accommodation, Prime Minister Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said. "The Palestinian leadership in 1947 and 1948 adopted an extremist and maximalist position. Unlike the Jewish leadership, they rejected partition and refused to accept a Jewish state even in truncated borders."
(Jerusalem Post)


The Meaning of Nakba Day -Jonathan S. Tobin

Nakba is an Arabic word which means disaster, and that is what those who participated in the protests consider the founding of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948. The focus on 1948 is significant. For those who claim the Middle East conflict is about borders or Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the prominence given Nakba commemorations ought to be an embarrassment. It highlights that the goal of the Palestinians isn't an independent state alongside Israel. Their goal is to eradicate Israel and replace it with yet another Arab majority country.
(Commentary)


Jews from Arab Lands: Displacement and Loss -Matti Friedman

Roughly half of the 6 million Jews in Israel today came from the Muslim world or are descended from people who did. The simple narrative of Nakba Day conveniently erases the uncomfortable truth that half of Israel's Jews are there not because of the Nazis but because of the Arabs themselves.
(Times of Israel)
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UPDATE: 

Nakba, a Self-Inflicted Catastrophe -Moshe Arens

More than 5 million German soldiers were killed during World War II, and more than 2 million German civilians died during the war. In addition, millions were left homeless and millions became refugees. Yet the German people do not commemorate V-E Day as the German Nakba. The German people know that they brought the catastrophe upon themselves.

More than 2 million Japanese soldiers were killed in the war and more than 3 million Japanese civilians perished. Tokyo was firebombed, and two atomic bombs devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the Japanese people do not commemorate their suffering during the war on V-J Day as the Japanese Nakba. They know that they brought that catastrophe upon themselves.

So what is the Palestinian Nakba all about? The Arabs intended to destroy the Jewish community in Palestine, were confident that they were going to win, but in the end lost the war. That is the origin of the Palestinian catastrophe, a catastrophe the Arabs brought upon themselves.

The difference is that unlike the Germans and the Japanese, many Palestinians and their Arab supporters still harbor hopes of ultimately defeating the State of Israel and destroying the Jewish state.
The writer served as Israel's minister of defense three times, as minister of foreign affairs, and as Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
(Ha'aretz)
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