Minnesotans to Commemorate Al Nakba

This week Palestinians and their friends will be educating people on the Nakba [Catastrophe] across the nation. For 61 years, a twisted and distorted narrative that is at odds with the facts has been told in a spirit that is insecure. These voices of insecurity, both Israeli and Arab leadership, lacked the confidence and belief in their own narrative, hence they silenced all voices that disagreed by raging in a psychopathic manner at any other narrative creating a thick fog of fear around this historical event.

In the face of such raging and emotional blackmail, many people in positions of power and influence, whose lives were not transgressed upon, want the Palestinian narrative to disappear. To them this is peace. The responsibility due to the power and influence they have over the situation is thrown in the sea. Such people are evidence that what you cannot say in weakness and lack of influence, you will not say in power and influence.

Yet, a growing number of people of many faiths and ethnicities, including Jews feel peace can never be achieved through the emotional blackmail, denial of facts, distortions and compulsory forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a process that compels the victims to deny their reality, identity, and their needs. Forgiveness is a process that requires validation, acknowledgement of the abuse and nurtures the victim to let go as a choice. For peace to begin to take root in the Middle East, between Israelis and Palestinians, the facts and narrative of the other, the price paid by Palestinians must be told.

Once upon a time, over 61 years ago, on Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 181, the Partition Plan.

The partition divided the area of Palestine (which did not include Transjordan or Jerusalem) into two states, a Jewish State -- as yet unnamed -- that received 55 percent of the land (the more fertile parts at that), while the Arab state received 45 percent of the land. Resolution 181 passed by a vote of 33-13 with 10 abstentions was completely rejected by the Arab states basically on the grounds that it was ridiculous to accept this plan without consulting the majority population within the mandate, who owned the overwhelming majority of the land.

The Jewish ownership of the land in the mandate, including private holdings, amounted to about 6 percent while the Arab ownership was 84 percent plus the 10 percent of Church and Islamic Wafq ownership.

In 1946, the population of Palestine consisted 1,035,000 Arabs (66 percent) and 533,000 Jews (34 percent).

This injustice was the reason that the Arabs rightly rejected the partition plan.

Immediately following the passage of the Partition Plan in November 1947, the Jewish forces, Haganah and the terrorists groups (Stern Gang and Irgun) launched their infamous "Plan D" aimed at capturing as much territory as possible inside the proposed Palestinian state. In the book, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Pappe writes: " ... on 10 March 1948 ... veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."

This led to 750,000 Palestinians being driven from their towns and villages in 1947-48. Many fled in the wake of atrocities such as the massacre of the villagers in Deir Yassin by Jewish forces on April 9, 1948. Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, and vast tracts of land, houses, shops, olive and orange groves were confiscated. The leaders of the Stern Gang and Irgun later became prime ministers of Israel. Israelis did not face starvation like Palestinians do in Gaza, as a result of electing Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.

Furthermore, the Arab states, which invaded and attacked Israel, mounted an ineffectual, poorly coordinated offensive into Palestine on May 15, 1948 -- six months after the Jews attacked and invaded the proposed Palestinian state. By that time, one-tenth of the population had already been ethnically cleansed Kosovo style, including most of the Arab residents of Jerusalem.

Not only did the Arab armies arrive six months too late, but they did too little to defend the 750,000 that were driven out. It is also important to point out that Israeli historian, Benny Morris found no evidence in Zionist archives or elsewhere of the famous radio broadcasts from Arab states allegedly telling the Palestinian population to leave so that they would have a clear run to "destroy" the Jewish state.

Avi Shlaim's seminal work, "Collusion Across the Jordan," shows quite clearly that Transjordan and the Zionists had made a deal to partition Palestine and Jerusalem. If anyone broke that deal, Shlaim concludes, it was the Zionists, who could never resist the temptation to seize more land. Shlaim finds that the Arab Legion stuck firmly to its agreement, especially in Jerusalem, where it did not advance into the west even when it could have done so.

After 17 years of negotiating peace, the Israeli government continues to confiscate Arab land, build Jewish-only Settlements and demolish Arab-only homes in violation of international law. How does random acts of Palestinian violence justify demolishing over 11,000 homes and collective punishment of all Palestinians? How do suicide bombings justify illegal land grabs that disconnect Arab villages? How does Israeli insecurity justify the racist laws that elevate Jews above non Jews and allow the building of Jewish-only settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads?

In Islam, oppression is worse than killing or terrorism. Oppression is the seed that nurtures and cultivates the climate or environment where hatred, killing, terrorism and subjugation of the other becomes the norm and acceptable. To end hatred and terrorism, Islam made oppression of anyone even a cat a pathway to hell.

It is said in Islamic traditions that a woman was thrown in Hell because of a cat which she had kept caged till it died of hunger. The woman neither fed it nor watered the cat that was caged, nor did she set it free to eat the insects of the earth. This woman has done many acts of piety that were thrown back in her face for the oppression of one cat. What of the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza, who are denied humanitarian aid and protection? Israeli policy created a prison that does not allow Gazans to receive any kind of humanitarian support from anyone, and does not allow Gazans to leave for employment, or earn income. Caging people like the cat is a form of oppression that must be condemned.

Today, Friday the 15^th, Minnesotans of many faiths will commemorate Al Nakba at the corner of Snelling and Summit in St. Paul around 4:15-5:30 PM. For info call; 612-827-5364