Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 , 2023
75 Years Palestine Nakba / Israel Statehood
Editorial
May 14th of this year marks the 75th anniversary of both the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba. These are two sides of the same coin, with two conflicting narratives. But as has been said, everyone has a right to their own opinion but not to their own facts.
And the fact is that the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, while it was a tremendous achievement for the Zionist movement, also led to the Palestinian Nakba in which 750, 000 indigenous Palestinians were uprooted from their homeland and became refugees all over the planet. Palestine was not a land without people for a people without a land. It was inhabited by the Palestinians, a people with their own culture, heritage, civilization, and public life, who were subjected to a severe historical injustice known as the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe.
By
Ziad AbuZayyad
Ziad AbuZayyad is the co-Founder and co-Editor of Palestine Israel Journal. He is a lawyer, graduate of Damascus University. He is a weekly columnist at al-Quds Arabic Daily, a former Palestinian Authority minister, former legislator, and former negotiator.
Hillel Schenker
Hillel Schenker is co-editor of Palestine-Israel Journal. He is a former editor of the Israeli peace monthly New Outlook founded in the spirit of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and was involved in the inception of the Peace Now movement. He is currently completing an activist/memoir whose working title is “Eye-Witness in Israel-Palestine: From Utopia to Dystopia?”
Table of Contents
Editorial
One Celebrates Independence While the Other Commemorates the Nakba ( )
By Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Focus
Seventy-Five years of Ongoing Nakba: 75 Years of Israeli Occupation ( )
These tactics of Hamas and Israel enabled short-term victories for both at the expense of a long-term resolution.
By Dalal Iriqat Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Right to Understand: Explaining the New Israeli Reality ( )
The roots of the current government's regime coup can be found in the policies conducted by Ben-Gurion when the state was first established and continued by successive governments over the years.
By Daniel Bar-Tal Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Palestinian Nakba: Two Narratives - One is Based on Facts, the other on Falsification of Facts ( )
The young generation is much more committed to the national struggle, and is stubbornly insisting that the Palestinian cause will not die, and one day they will achieve their rights.
By Tayseer Khaled Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Tel Aviv: 1948, Cradle of the State; 2023, Center of the Resistance ( )
Tel Aviv, the site where the State of Israel was declared and home to the country’s first generation of poets, artists, and other elites, is now leading the struggle over the future of the state.
By Hillel Schenker Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Is There No End to the Palestinian Nakba? ( )
Since 1948, Israel has been pursuing a policy designed to expel the Palestinians from their homeland. This constitutes the ongoing Nakba, and the international community must support the Palestinians in their struggle to achieve their rights.
By Ibrahim Abdullah Sarsour Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Choice Between Fanatic Fundamentalism or Democracy and Equality For All ( )
There is no doubt that the success of these so-called “reforms” will mark the beginning of the end of secular Zionism and the institutionalization of the state of Halachic law.
By Ziad AbuZayyad Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Disciplining Public Commemoration of the Nakba in Israel ( )
The attitude of Palestinian-Israeli citizens towards commemorating the Nakba from 1948 until today’s annual March of Return.
By Tamir Sorek Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Realistic Hybrids: The Identity Definition of the Arabs in Israel ( )
Considering contradiction, tension, and incompleteness exist between the two collective identities of the Arabs in Israel, the civil and the national.
By Maysoun Ershead Shehadeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Evasive Character of Forgetting National Traumas ( )
The trauma of massacres and war crimes is such that both the victorious and the defeated sides to the conflict try to forget the events, but they continue to fester and must be addressed in order to heal the wound.
By Izhak Schnell Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Nakba Is Not an Event of the Past but an Ongoing Process ( )
The Palestinian people have always been ahead of their leadership in their ability to capture the historical moment and the imperatives of confronting the occupation.
By Talal Abu Rokbeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Visions of a Shared Society ( )
A solid Palestinian national identity alongside a solid Jewish-Zionist national identity are the two building blocks for a shared society in our joint homeland.
By Shuli Dichter Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
75th Commemoration of Recuperation, Reclamation and Remembrance ( )
The media systematically blames the victims for resisting occupation along their quest for freedom; it is so biased that it has become a partisan to the conflict.
By Manuel Hassassian Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The History of the American Attitude Towards Israel/Palestine ( )
From a primarily pro-Zionist approach in 1948 to today’s more critical view of Israeli policies.
By Eric Alterman Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Imagine an Abrahamic State in the Middle East ( )
If Israel shows ingenuity and magnanimity, we could see the establishment of a new Abrahamic state in which Jews and Palestinians would live side by side in cantons within a confederative model.
By Albadr Alshateri Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Is it possible for Israel not to be a fascist state? ( )
There will be no sustainable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because of ignoring the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland mainly to their original homeland as well from which they were displaced.
By Marwan Emile Toubasi Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
“But anytime it bangs, please just get in touch!” ( )
The obstacles facing German journalists when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Nakba.
By Johannes Zang Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Al-Ard Episode: From “Stranger in My Own Land” ( )
Fida Jiryis recounts the experience of al-Ard, founded in 1959 by Sabri Jiryis, the author's father, and others, as the first Palestinian national movement after the establishment of the State of Israel.
By Fida Jiryis Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Iraqi Jews and the War for Palestine: An Autobiographical Fragment ( )
The experience of one Iraqi Jewish family that felt it necessary to leave Iraq for the new State of Israel in 1948.
By Avi Shlaim Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The 1948 Villages – A New Approach to the Refugee Issue ( )
A Palestinian peace proposal should include a village-based approach with land swaps.
By Jerome M. Segal Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Roundtable
75 Years Israel/75 Years Nakba ( )
Ahmad Soboh, Firas Yaghi. Adam Raz, Noam Sheizaf, Ilan Baruch, Galit Hasan- Rokem, Gershon Baskin, Frances Raday, Yudith Oppenheimer, Suhair Freitekh, Alon Liel, Ziad AbuZayyad, Hillel Schenker. Moderated by Daoud Kuttab
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Culture, Literature and the Arts
We Will Return ( )
By Abd al-Karim al-Karmi Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Also The House ( )
By Ghassan Zaqtan Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
My Grandfather and Home ( )
By Mosab Abu Toha Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Jewish Time Bomb ( )
By Yehuda Amichai Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Exercises in Practical Hebrew ( )
By Dan Pagis Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Justice, Hope ( )
By Tahel Frosh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Reflections
On Belonging ( )
Al-‘Awda is the Arabic term Palestinians use to connote both something tangible and identifiable that can be described, but also something intangible and amorphous that it is hard if not impossible to describe or put into words, or for others to understand even if it is skillfully described.
By Sari Nusseibeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Grants and Donations
2022 Grants and Donations for Palestine-Israel Journal ( )
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Documents
Documents and Resources Related to the Nakba ( )
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Editorial
May 14th of this year marks the 75th anniversary of both the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba. These are two sides of the same coin, with two conflicting narratives. But as has been said, everyone has a right to their own opinion but not to their own facts.
And the fact is that the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, while it was a tremendous achievement for the Zionist movement, also led to the Palestinian Nakba in which 750, 000 indigenous Palestinians were uprooted from their homeland and became refugees all over the planet. Palestine was not a land without people for a people without a land. It was inhabited by the Palestinians, a people with their own culture, heritage, civilization, and public life, who were subjected to a severe historical injustice known as the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe.
The Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands by force, intimidation, and sometimes by massacres, and were replaced by Jewish immigrants, many of them Holocaust survivors from Europe, and others who left countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The Palestinians had to pay the price of a crime, the Nazi crimes, that they had nothing to do with and were not responsible for.
In an age when fake news is widely circulated on social media, our goal at the Palestine-Israel Journal (PIJ) is to try to understand exactly what happened in 1948 and how that affects today’s reality. We believe in the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a manner that will enable both peoples to exercise the right to freedom and grant them the ability to lead a dignified life. With this edition, we examine ways to address and reverse the injustice done to the Palestinians without committing another injustice against the Israelis who live in Israel/Palestine today.
This PIJ issue is being prepared at an extremely sensitive time in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The November 2022 elections produced the most extreme ultra-right-wing government in Israel’s history. It is a racist, messianic, and homophobic government which has a dangerous agenda of restricting Israel’s independent judiciary and undermining its democratic character, while Orthodox ministers who make up half of the government aim to convert it into a Halachic state run according to Jewish law. This government has key ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and minister within the Defense Ministry, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a follower of the racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, calling to continue and complete what was done to the Palestinians in 1948 by expelling the 6+ million Palestinians who still live under Israeli control in Israel within the 1967 borders and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 1967. The outcome of this situation is catastrophic for both peoples, with an increasing cycle of mutual and deadly violence and no political horizon in sight.
The Palestinian leadership has failed to provide its people with what it promised to achieve through political negotiations: conducive to end the occupation, resolve the refugee problem, and create a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel on the June 4, 1967, armistice lines. Despite this failure, it still declares its full commitment to peaceful negotiations and its objection to violent struggle against the occupation. It even continues security coordination with Israeli security forces, incurring the wrath of its own people, many of whom no longer support this leadership and opt for violent armed struggle.
The unexpected emergence of a mass protest movement in Israel representing many important sectors of society, which is pushing back against the government’s reactionary antidemocratic policies, is focusing on defending the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, education, and women’s rights, but it has not placed the primary threat to Israeli democracy – the continuation of the occupation – on its agenda. No nation can remain democratic if it continues to deny democratic rights to another people.
What is urgently needed is to correct the historical injustice done to the Palestinian people without committing an injustice against the Israeli people. It is necessary to find a formula that will enable the two peoples to reconcile and compromise, so that both can live in peace and security.
We hope this issue will contribute to an understanding of the current, extremely complex and dangerous reality and to the quest for solutions.
By
Ziad AbuZayyad
Ziad AbuZayyad is the co-Founder and co-Editor of Palestine Israel Journal. He is a lawyer, graduate of Damascus University. He is a weekly columnist at al-Quds Arabic Daily, a former Palestinian Authority minister, former legislator, and former negotiator.
Hillel Schenker
Hillel Schenker is co-editor of Palestine-Israel Journal. He is a former editor of the Israeli peace monthly New Outlook founded in the spirit of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and was involved in the inception of the Peace Now movement. He is currently completing an activist/memoir whose working title is “Eye-Witness in Israel-Palestine: From Utopia to Dystopia?”
===
Table of Contents
Editorial
One Celebrates Independence While the Other Commemorates the Nakba ( )
By Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Focus
Seventy-Five years of Ongoing Nakba: 75 Years of Israeli Occupation ( )
These tactics of Hamas and Israel enabled short-term victories for both at the expense of a long-term resolution.
By Dalal Iriqat Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Right to Understand: Explaining the New Israeli Reality ( )
The roots of the current government's regime coup can be found in the policies conducted by Ben-Gurion when the state was first established and continued by successive governments over the years.
By Daniel Bar-Tal Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Palestinian Nakba: Two Narratives - One is Based on Facts, the other on Falsification of Facts ( )
The young generation is much more committed to the national struggle, and is stubbornly insisting that the Palestinian cause will not die, and one day they will achieve their rights.
By Tayseer Khaled Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Tel Aviv: 1948, Cradle of the State; 2023, Center of the Resistance ( )
Tel Aviv, the site where the State of Israel was declared and home to the country’s first generation of poets, artists, and other elites, is now leading the struggle over the future of the state.
By Hillel Schenker Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Is There No End to the Palestinian Nakba? ( )
Since 1948, Israel has been pursuing a policy designed to expel the Palestinians from their homeland. This constitutes the ongoing Nakba, and the international community must support the Palestinians in their struggle to achieve their rights.
By Ibrahim Abdullah Sarsour Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Choice Between Fanatic Fundamentalism or Democracy and Equality For All ( )
There is no doubt that the success of these so-called “reforms” will mark the beginning of the end of secular Zionism and the institutionalization of the state of Halachic law.
By Ziad AbuZayyad Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Disciplining Public Commemoration of the Nakba in Israel ( )
The attitude of Palestinian-Israeli citizens towards commemorating the Nakba from 1948 until today’s annual March of Return.
By Tamir Sorek Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Realistic Hybrids: The Identity Definition of the Arabs in Israel ( )
Considering contradiction, tension, and incompleteness exist between the two collective identities of the Arabs in Israel, the civil and the national.
By Maysoun Ershead Shehadeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Evasive Character of Forgetting National Traumas ( )
The trauma of massacres and war crimes is such that both the victorious and the defeated sides to the conflict try to forget the events, but they continue to fester and must be addressed in order to heal the wound.
By Izhak Schnell Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Nakba Is Not an Event of the Past but an Ongoing Process ( )
The Palestinian people have always been ahead of their leadership in their ability to capture the historical moment and the imperatives of confronting the occupation.
By Talal Abu Rokbeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Visions of a Shared Society ( )
A solid Palestinian national identity alongside a solid Jewish-Zionist national identity are the two building blocks for a shared society in our joint homeland.
By Shuli Dichter Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
75th Commemoration of Recuperation, Reclamation and Remembrance ( )
The media systematically blames the victims for resisting occupation along their quest for freedom; it is so biased that it has become a partisan to the conflict.
By Manuel Hassassian Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The History of the American Attitude Towards Israel/Palestine ( )
From a primarily pro-Zionist approach in 1948 to today’s more critical view of Israeli policies.
By Eric Alterman Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Imagine an Abrahamic State in the Middle East ( )
If Israel shows ingenuity and magnanimity, we could see the establishment of a new Abrahamic state in which Jews and Palestinians would live side by side in cantons within a confederative model.
By Albadr Alshateri Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Is it possible for Israel not to be a fascist state? ( )
There will be no sustainable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because of ignoring the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland mainly to their original homeland as well from which they were displaced.
By Marwan Emile Toubasi Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
“But anytime it bangs, please just get in touch!” ( )
The obstacles facing German journalists when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Nakba.
By Johannes Zang Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Al-Ard Episode: From “Stranger in My Own Land” ( )
Fida Jiryis recounts the experience of al-Ard, founded in 1959 by Sabri Jiryis, the author's father, and others, as the first Palestinian national movement after the establishment of the State of Israel.
By Fida Jiryis Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Iraqi Jews and the War for Palestine: An Autobiographical Fragment ( )
The experience of one Iraqi Jewish family that felt it necessary to leave Iraq for the new State of Israel in 1948.
By Avi Shlaim Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The 1948 Villages – A New Approach to the Refugee Issue ( )
A Palestinian peace proposal should include a village-based approach with land swaps.
By Jerome M. Segal Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Roundtable
75 Years Israel/75 Years Nakba ( )
Ahmad Soboh, Firas Yaghi. Adam Raz, Noam Sheizaf, Ilan Baruch, Galit Hasan- Rokem, Gershon Baskin, Frances Raday, Yudith Oppenheimer, Suhair Freitekh, Alon Liel, Ziad AbuZayyad, Hillel Schenker. Moderated by Daoud Kuttab
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Culture, Literature and the Arts
We Will Return ( )
By Abd al-Karim al-Karmi Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Also The House ( )
By Ghassan Zaqtan Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
My Grandfather and Home ( )
By Mosab Abu Toha Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
The Jewish Time Bomb ( )
By Yehuda Amichai Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Exercises in Practical Hebrew ( )
By Dan Pagis Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Justice, Hope ( )
By Tahel Frosh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Reflections
On Belonging ( )
Al-‘Awda is the Arabic term Palestinians use to connote both something tangible and identifiable that can be described, but also something intangible and amorphous that it is hard if not impossible to describe or put into words, or for others to understand even if it is skillfully described.
By Sari Nusseibeh Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Grants and Donations
2022 Grants and Donations for Palestine-Israel Journal ( )
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
Documents
Documents and Resources Related to the Nakba ( )
Vol. 28 No. 1 & 2 2023
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