If Francesca Albanese, (UN’s appointment of Italian legal expert to the post of Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories) had the slightest interest in truth, she would read Muslim and Arab media and learn that the “Nakba” was self-inflicted.
Muslim and Arab journalists were not silent about the alleged Nakba. Even a cursory glance at Arab and Muslim newspapers and other Muslim media makes clear that it was Arab leaders who commanded the local Arab population to “flee” their homes in anticipation of the genocide of the Jews:
a) On April 3, 1949, the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station reported: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem.”
b) On
October 12, 1963, the Egyptian daily Akhbar el-Yom reported that “the 15th May,
1948 arrived... On that day the Mufti of Jerusalem (the Grand Mufti Amin
al-Husseini) appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because
the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead.”
c) On
April 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily Al Urdun reported: “For the flight and fall
of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their
dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as
atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs. By spreading rumors of Jewish
atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror
in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes
and properties to the enemy.”
d) Even
the reporting of The Economist makes clear that the alleged Nakba was
self-inflicted. On October 3, 1948, The Economist reported: “Of the 62,000
Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained.
Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is
but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements
made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit... It
was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted
Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.”
e) On
August 19, 1951, the Beirut weekly Kul-Shay opined: “Who brought the
Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now the malign attitude of
newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who
brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their homes?
The Arab states, and Lebanon among them, did it.”
f) The
Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the Arab Higher Committee’s
March 8, 1948 orders, instructed women, children, and the elderly living in
Jerusalem to leave their homes: “Any opposition to this order... is an obstacle
to the holy war... and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these
districts.”
g) Furthermore,
the Jordanian newspaper Filastin on February 19, 1949 stated: “The Arab states
who encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to
be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies have failed to keep their promise
to help these refugees.”
h) The
Syrian prime minister in 1948-49, Haled al-Azm, also openly acknowledged the
Arabs’ role in persuading the refugees to leave: “Since 1948 we have been
demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the
ones who encouraged them to leave.”
Further, the word “nakba” originates with Syrian professor and intellectual Constantin Zureiq. In August 1948, he first used the term nakba as “a self-inflicted and humiliating wound caused by the Arabs themselves” (Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth,” Noa Tishby, 2021).
“When the battle broke out, our public diplomacy to speak of our imaginary victories, to put the Arab public to sleep and talk of the ability to overcome and win easily – until the Nakba happened... We must admit our mistakes... and recognize the extent of our responsibility for the disaster that is our lot.”
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