Israel just finished celebrating its 70th anniversary of statehood, known as Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day. This day falls annually as the sun sets, marking the end of Memorial Day for soldiers and victims of terror. Despite the difficulty, sadness and painful reflection of the previous day, the transition to Independence Day sees the entire country shift to a mood of utter joy and exhilaration. Sadly, Israel’s independence is equally marked annually by Palestinians and others in the Arab world as “Nakba Day.” Nakba, or catastrophe, is an Arabic term used to describe the declaration and formation of the State of Israel. What we are witnessing today however, is a narrative that builds upon the foundations of the Nakba, attempting to discredit and deny the indigenous connections of the Jewish people to the land of Israel altogether.
Falling annually on May 15th, the Gregorian calendar day that follows Israel’s Independence Day on May 14, 1948, Nakba is intended to commemorate those who fled or were expelled during Israel’s War of Independence. It has been used as a foundation upon which current Palestinian rights of return are based, and has become a popular rhetorical device among western sympathizers of the Palestinian narrative. It is therefore necessary to unpack the Nakba, and expose it to the historic facts that surround both the formation of the State of Israel and the ancient links that form the basis of Jewish existence in the land.
The reality is that it was firmly decided by the Arab leadership to reject the UN’s partition plan in 1947 that would have seen the establishment of an Arab state next to a Jewish one, a plan that was accepted by the Jews. It is equally true that Nakba itself was punctuated by Israel’s War of Independence, in which the armies of Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Egypt attacked the newly formed Jewish state with the goal of destroying it. This is generally left out of discourses concerning the Nakba, but only begins to address the flaws of its narrative.
Prior to Israel’s establishment, the Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine were attacked on countless occasions leading up to statehood. The 1929 Hebron massacre, for example, saw the small community of 700 Jews living in the biblical city of Hebron, where the Tombs of the Patriarchs are located, violently attacked. Ultimately, nearly 70 Jews were murdered, hundreds were injured, homes were pillaged and Synagogues were burned. All of Hebron’s Jews were evacuated shortly after, marking the first time that Jewish presence in Hebron was eliminated in centuries. Events such as this are never mentioned in any Nakba discourse. Furthermore, there has never been any narrative of Nakba that has acknowledged the 850,000 Jews from Arab lands who were persecuted and expelled following Israel’s independence. In some cases, this followed over two thousand years of continued Jewish presence in countries such as Iraq and Libya.
Moving beyond just the events leading up to and immediately following Israel’s independence and Nakba, it is critical to assess and acknowledge the undeniable history (see link) of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. By definition, an indigenous people are those who were the original inhabitants of a given region and who maintain traditions of the earlier culture. The Abrahamic period (1800 BCE) saw the beginning of Jewish presence in the land of Israel. This continued throughout major turning points in Jewish history, from the Exodus from Egypt (roughly 1200 BCE), to 586 BCE when the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and finally in 70 CE when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. Throughout this entire period, and the entire period since, leading up to today, the Jewish connection to the land of Israel was never lost. In fact, the indigenous link can be made simply by reflecting on the historic terms used to describe the region’s population over time. Beginning with the “Hebrews” in Abraham’s time, to the Israelites following the Exodus and during the Temple periods, to Jews (a reference to the dominant Jewish tribe of Judea), leading to modern day Israelis.
JUDAEA, Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem). Hadrian 117-138 A.D. AE 21mm Obverse: Laureate bust of emperor, right Reverse: Bust of Sabina Reference: Meshorer 7 pic-Hanan Eshel.
Conversely, the word “Palestine” was in and of itself initially termed as a means of erasing the Jewish connection to the land. After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Roman Emperor Hadrian named the colony built on the conquered the land “Aelia Capetolina.” Responding to the Bar-Kochba revolts that followed, Hadrian vowed to eliminate Judaism from the province, which he renamed “Paelestina,” after the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Jews who had disappeared a thousand years prior. The term Palestine has been used by conquering entities ever since as a means of further repressing Jewish links to Israel. This too is wholly lacking from any meaningful Nakba discourse.
Ultimately, the Jewish people’s indigenous links to the land of Israel can be best, and most simply explained by acknowledging that they are the only people in the Middle East that still inhabits the same land, embraces the same religion, studies the same ancient text, the Torah, speaks the same aboriginal language, Hebrew, and bears the same aboriginal name, Israel, as it did 3,500 years ago.
