By Julie Nathan
May 18, 2016
In cities around the world, anti-Israel pro­test­ers com­mem­or­ate Al-Nakba Day on May 15. ‘Nakba’ is Arabic for ‘cata­strophe’. This is the day on which the Jewish state, Israel, was re-estab­lished in 1948, as recom­men­ded by the UN res­ol­u­tion to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Instead of estab­lish­ing an Arab state, the armies of five Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon) invaded the country to oblit­er­ate the nascent Jewish state and grab as much territory as possible. It is the Arab failure to destroy Israel at birth that is com­mem­or­ated on Al-Nakba Day.
In Sydney, several hundred pro­test­ers gathered outside the Town Hall on Sunday to “com­mem­or­ate 68 years since the Nakba (cata­strophe) befell not only Palestini­ans but humanity as a whole.” These are the words of Palestine Action Group (PAG), the organ­isers of the rally. Appar­ently, PAG consider it a cata­strophe for “humanity as a whole” that a tiny Jewish state was founded on the same land where previous Jewish states had existed, and where Jews, who are indi­gen­ous to the land, have con­tinu­ously lived for over 3,500 years.
Mona Abu Zalaf, the MC, began the speeches by making the bizarre accus­a­tion that Israel has “Judaised our villages, our culture, our land.” Several other speakers followed, including from the Maritime Union of Australia.
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon told the rally “the great crime of the 20^th century is now the great crime of the 21^st century – that is the Nakba. It started in 1948, it’s the longest military occu­pa­tion in history.”
Rhiannon’s words lay bare her real agenda. By referring to the Nakba as the “great crime of the 20^th century” Rhiannon was pro­claim­ing that the suffering and deaths in the Armenian genocide, the Nazi genocide of Jews, the Pol Pot genocide of Cam­bod­i­ans, the Rwandan genocide, the massacres of Muslims in Bosnia, and other mass killings are less important than the deaths of about 7,000 Arabs in the Arab-initiated war in 1948, a war in which 6,000 Jews were also killed.
By calling the ‘Nakba’ the “great crime of the 21^st century” Rhiannon relegated the suffering and deaths from the wars in Iraq and Afgh­anistan, the Syrian civil war with over 250,000 deaths and over 2 million refugees to a lesser status than the concerns of the Palestini­ans.

By stating that Israel’s “occu­pa­tion” started in 1948, Rhiannon was saying that Israel itself is occupied territory, not just the ter­rit­or­ies Israel captured in the Arab-initiated war in 1967. By this statement, Rhiannon is denying the legit­im­acy of Israel and Israel’s right to exist.
Rhiannon then spoke of the situation in Lebanon for Palestini­ans. She decried that “There are 1.5 million Palestini­ans in refugee camps in Lebanon. They are not allowed to work, not allowed to build, have no elec­tri­city, have no water. They are living under the most appalling situation because Israel dis­pos­sessed them.” What she failed to mention is that these restric­tions and con­di­tions are imposed on the Palestini­ans living there by the Lebanese gov­ern­ment under Lebanese law.
It is Lebanon, not Israel, which enacted the official dis­crim­in­at­ory laws against Palestini­an refugees and their Lebanese-born des­cend­ants, including the severely restric­ted rights in the areas of work, education, housing and health services. For example, Lebanese law has pro­hib­ited Palestini­ans from working in over 70 types of jobs, including pro­fes­sion­al, mer­cant­ile and admin­is­trat­ive, although in 2005, the law reduced those bans to 20 types of jobs. Yet to Rhiannon, Israel is to be blamed for how the Lebanese treat their fellow Arabs, the Palestini­ans.
Peter Slezak also addressed the crowd, pro­claim­ing: “I represent APAN, the ‘Australia Palestine Advocacy Network’, the largest umbrella group for Palestine in Australia.” He encour­aged pro­test­ers to take part in APAN’s campaign to lobby federal MPs to support Palestine, and drew attention to the “I support Palestine & I Vote” stickers being dis­trib­uted to the crowd. Slezak proudly announced that “APAN has now come out in support of BDS.”
The BDS (boycott, divest­ment sanctions) campaign has as its aim the elim­in­a­tion of the state of Israel. BDS* is ostens­ibly focused on economic measures, however, its true and unstated aim is to del­e­git­im­ise Israel – the nation State of the Jewish people – and to make Israel a pariah state, just as Jews were once a pariah people. Terms like ‘racist’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘apartheid’, ‘war crimes’ and ‘genocide’ are regularly deployed by the BDS campaign to falsely attribute those traits to Israel. BDS is another weapon in the long war against Israel. BDS is waged as a war of nar­rat­ives and pro­pa­ganda, rather than of economics.
APAN’s adoption of BDS indicates how the lobby group has abandoned its previous non-committal stance on whether it supports a one or two state solution to the Arab-Israel conflict, and has embraced the extremist position that works towards isolating, demon­ising and elim­in­at­ing the only Jewish state in the world. They do this in order ostens­ibly to create the 23^rd Arab state in the world.
Chants abounded at the rally and the march from those sup­port­ing the destruc­tion of Israel with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” to those sup­port­ing violence against Israeli Jews with “Israel out of Gaza, intifada, intifada” and “Res­ist­ance is justified, when Palestine is occupied.” Trans­la­tion: Violence is justified against the whole of Israel.
Banners and placards included the text of “End 68 yrs of occu­pa­tion. Support BDS!” impliedly opposing Israel’s right to exist; “Google: Roth­schild Zionism!” espousing antisemitic con­spir­acy theories; and “One Holocaust doesn’t justify another” comparing the Nazi genocide of six million Jews with the Arab-Israel conflict which is one of the least deadly of the world’s inter­na­tion­al conflicts. The message is a false analogy aimed at demon­ising Jews, by min­im­ising the evil of the delib­er­ate and planned mass exterm­in­a­tion of six million Jews by the Nazis, and in turn ret­ro­spect­ively jus­ti­fy­ing the Holocaust against the Jewish people. Other banners and placards had ref­er­ences accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing, war crimes, apartheid, and targeting children.
The political organ­isa­tions flying their colours at the anti-Israel protest were the red flag of the Communist Party of Australia, Maritime Union of Australia, Socialist Altern­at­ive, Socialist Alliance, The Greens, and Students for Palestine at Sydney Uni­ver­sity. This year, there were no Hezbollah, Hamas, or Shahadah flags, as at previous anti-Israel protests. Although people dressed in tra­di­tion­al Muslim garb comprised 80% of the pro­test­ers, the slogans on the banners were extreme Left rather than Islamist.
Al-Nakba Day com­mem­or­ates and bemoans the existence of a Jewish state in part of the Jewish national homeland. Pro­ponents talk of occu­pa­tion and ethnic cleansing.
While the partition of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan in 1947 resulted in 12 million refugees and up to 2 million deaths, no one calls for the destruc­tion of Pakistan. While China occupies Tibet, Turkey occupies Cyprus, Morocco occupies Western Sahara, Indonesia occupies West Papua, and many other occu­pa­tions continue, only Israel (whose occu­pa­tion of the West Bank and Gaza occurred in a defensive war in 1967) elicits inter­na­tion­al protests and a BDS campaign.
Al-Nakba Day pro­ponents’ choice of Israel’s inde­pend­ence date is sig­ni­fic­ant. It signifies their oppos­i­tion to a Jewish state in Palestine. It is not in support of an Arab state in Palestine, unless it is estab­lished on the ashes of Israel. Al-Nakba Day is not about empower­ing Palestini­ans to create a state next to Israel. Al-Nakba Day is about demon­ising Israel and opposing Israel’s existence. Pro­ponents seek to blame Israel solely for the situation the Palestini­ans are in – the refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and the absence of a Palestini­an Arab state.
An Arab state could have been estab­lished at any time after the British Mandate in Palestine ter­min­ated on 15 May 1948. The Arabs of Palestine could have estab­lished an Arab state at the same time Israel was re-estab­lished – when the British Mandate ended. An Arab state could have been declared at the armistice agreement in 1949. The Arabs could have estab­lished an inde­pend­ent state at any time between 1948 and 1967, while Gaza was under Egyptian Arab control, and the West Bank was under Jordanian Arab control. The fact that no Arab state in Palestine was estab­lished shows that the real issue is not the non-existence of an Arab state in Palestine but the existence of a Jewish state.
When Al-Nakba Day pro­ponents accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing, they never mention the fact that while some 160,000 Arabs chose to remain in Israel, all Jews in the Arab con­trolled territory of Gaza and the West Bank were either killed or fled to Israel. That is ethnic cleansing. No Jew could remain. In addition, 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries, from 1941 onwards, with many settling in Israel. Most of the Arab world became Judenfrei (free of Jews).
Anti-Israel activists are free to organise and attend al-Nakba Day protests. The Palestini­an Arabs have indeed suffered over many years. They have suffered at the hands of their own lead­er­ship in the past and the present, at the hands of Arab countries which took them in but have treated them abom­in­ably and refused to integrate them, and at the hands of the UN, which has kept them as refugees. However, al-Nakba Day is not about pursuing a state for Palestini­an Arabs. It is about pursuing the destruc­tion of the one Jewish state in the world.
Julie Nathan is the Research Officer for the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry
This article first appeared in the Times of Israel and J‑Wire
* see Inside BDS for a com­pre­hens­ive document on the origins and devel­op­ment of BDS, its tactics, strategy, and aims.