The Nakba of 1948

"Despite that, we’ve had other views being discussed on here, some of which are repugnant to me personally. These include that Palestine didn’t exist and was an empty land,"

You may find this view 'repugnant' which is your choice.

May I, respectfully, suggest that you read a bit more of the history of the region.

From 1239 the Ottoman Empire covered all the land we now know as Israel/ Palestine/The Holy Land/Jordan/Syria/Judea etc.

The Jews were kept in dhimmitude (second class citizens) in the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire (Turks) sided with Germany in World War I (1914–18); post-war treaties dissolved the empire, and in 1922 the sultanate was abolished by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who proclaimed the Republic of Turkey the following year.

So technically the landed didn't belong to anyone. It wasn't empty because some Turks, Jews, Arabs eked out a nomadic existence there as 'hunter gathers'..

Palestine per se did not exist. The Romans had called the area 'Judea'.

The “Philistines” refers to an ancient enemy of Israel who occupied the coast of what had been called “Canaan” prior to their arrival from overseas, which was around 1200 B.C. (Israelite tribes were in control of the hill country of what had been Canaan at that same time.) Most of where the Philistines lived is in the modern-day Gaza Strip. However there is no evidence that those that now live in Gaza have a common heritage with the Philistines.

@ER2
“I believe that had the Arab league been successful in 1948 in annihilating Israel, there would have never arisen a demand for a Palestinian state.”

The UN Partition established what should have been a Palestinian State, so there was international demand prior to 1948.

The Arab League gave reasons for its invasion in Palestine in the 1948 cablegram, which indicates they also demanded a Palestinian State:

• the Arab states find themselves compelled to intervene in order to restore law and order and to check further bloodshed. [Recall that half the Nakba was completed by this time under British rule]
• the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority. [Israel had by then started annexing some of what should be Palestinian lands per the UN partition]
• the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian state.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was caused by the UN Partition and half of the Nakba having happened.

Even then, the Palestinians didn’t declare war on Israel, they were too busy fleeing as refugees. Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon did on 15 May 1948

The first half of the Nakba happened under British rule between 30 November 1947 and 14 May 1948 as around 350,000 of the Palestinians had been displaced by then.

“Approximately 750,000 Palestiniansover 80% of the population in what would become Israelwere expelled or fled from their homes and became refugees in neighboring states.[3] About half were expelled or fled before Israel declared independence at the end of the British Mandate on 14 May 1948”

“The British terminated the Mandate at midnight at the end of 14 May 1948. On that day, the last remaining British troops and personnel departed the city of Haifa and the Jewish leadership in Palestine declared the establishment of the State of Israel. This was followed the next day by the invasion of Palestine by the surrounding Arab armies and expeditionary forces. The invasion marked the beginning of the second phase of the war, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Egyptians advanced on the southern coastal strip and were halted near Ashdod; the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands of Palestine. Syria and Lebanon fought several skirmishes with the Israeli forces in the north.”

"the following 75 years of the harsh treatment of the Palestinian people by every single Israeli government in power during those years."

You seem to be mistaken somewhat.

Jordan, as it was now known, ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. and those living there were offered Jordanian citizenship.

Gaza was under the military control of Egypt for the same time period.

Israel had no jurisdiction over either of those two areas during that time frame. So any 'harsh treatment' that was meted out was nothing to do with Israel.

So maybe the Palestinians should take up their issues with the countries concerned ?

Absolutely but there is also a huge difference between excusing and explaining.
Oct 7th was an act of utter horror. There will never be an excuse for it in my opinion.
The explanation for it might reside in the Nakba and the following 75 years of the harsh treatment of the Palestinian people by every single Israeli government in power during those years.

Really? I see many threads on difficult topics discussing events from one perspective or another, and not being particularly welcoming to alternative points of view. OP has at least been polite and respectful, which is not always the case.

I don't know too much about it but the alternative view of the Nakba appears to be "it never happened" which you must see would be pretty offensive to people posting evidence it did happen?

If I've got that wrong please correct me.

As I have said, kindly provide evidence (facts) to support your claims.
I find this from the JFJFP website very informative:
"Supporters of Israel make much of the supposed equality its Palestinian citizens are said to enjoy. And it is true they have the vote, unlike “non-whites” in South Africa. But to focus simply on the vote ignores the many arenas in which Palestinians do not even have formal equality (access to land and housing, or to marry spouses of their choice and live with them in Israel), let alone the substantive discrimination in area after area which blights Palestinian lives, “full citizens” though they are supposed to be. Budget allocations are vastly skewed in favour of Jewish citizens, military service confers wide social and economic privileges on Jewish citizens, the law is implemented unevenly. In 1948, the Palestinian Arab community owned and used most of the land within the area that became the state of Israel. Today it owns less than 3 percent of these lands."

I disagree.

The poster has stated quite clearly that they are putting forward information about the Nakba from a Palestinian point of view and has shut down discussion on any other viewpoint

They say "Above all, it is about the Palestinian experience and perspective."

That isn't either balanced or fair IMO..

The world is too complex for "goodies" and "baddies" outside films, all human conflict has nuance and explanatory context. OP has provided some really interesting context in a balanced and fair way so that's really not a fair thing to say at all.

It seems the author is keen to perpetuate the idea that Palestinians are victims and Israel is a 'baddie'.
It's sad they don't want to hold their ideas up to scrutiny.

Whatever happened 76 years ago does not excuse the atrocities of the Oct 7th attack.

Have you read the AMA of the Israeli leftist? She speaks about the Nation State laws and how she attempts to speak out about discrimination against Arab Citizens of Israel who supposedly have equal rights. There's no point saying "I can't see anything" if you aren't prepared to read links to the numerous ways Palestinians are treated differently.

@ER2 do you have any reflections on the Nakba at all?

I gave a link above to a full article prepared by Amnesty as well as quoted examples in my post and other posters above have also listed sites and information about the routine discrimination against Israeli Arabs, and in the face of this evidence, you still choose to ignore it.

You seem unwilling to accept or recognise this evidence so I am not sure it is worth continuing to engage with your posts on the matter, particularly as it is derailing from discussing the Nakba. And the OP has requested this topic keeps on track.

Please keep on topic, do you have any reflections on the Nakba?

correction for my post above "celebrating" should say "commemorating".

It is absolutely terrible and apparently celebrating the Nakba is criminalised.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/5/14/israel-continues-to-criminalise-marking-nakba-day

@shareabear
Heartbreaking and appalling.

Could you, please, give evidence to support your statement " all citizens absolutely have equal rights, both in law and in practice", otherwise it is an opinion, not a fact.

Back to the main OP though, as I think this thread is getting derailed, I found this Nakba info sheet www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/JVP-Nakba-Fact-Sheet.pdf that offers a great summary of what happened.

Few select quotes below and it is worth reading through fully as there is much more.

On April 9, 1948, Deir Yassin village was occupied by the Irgun and Stern Gang (Lechi) Jewish forces. At least ninety three Palestinian villagers were killed in cold blood, their bodies abused while a number of the women were raped and then killed. Of those killed, thirty were babies.(8)

On May 22, 1948, Jewish soldiers from the Alexandroni Brigade occupied Tantura and shot 110-230 Palestinian men. As Pappe documents: The Jews gathered all the women and children, in a place where they dumped all bodies, for them to see their dead husbands, fathers and brothers and terrorize them.(9)

On October 28, 1948, in the village of Dawaymeh, near Hebron, about 145 children, women and men were killed. Over 450 went missing, of which 170 were women and children. On October 29, Jewish and Druze On On October 29, Jewish and Druze soldiers attacked and occupied the village of Safsaf. The next morning, seventy men were shot in cold blood.

It's not true that everything is equal for Palestinian citizens of Israel though, is it.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

Lesser citizens

Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise about 19% of the population, face many forms of institutionalized discrimination. In 2018, discrimination against Palestinians was crystallized in a constitutional law which, for the first time, enshrined Israel exclusively as the “nation state of the Jewish people”. The law also promotes the building of Jewish settlements and downgrades Arabic’s status as an official language.

The report documents how Palestinians are effectively blocked from leasing on 80% of Israel’s state land, as a result of racist land seizures and a web of discriminatory laws on land allocation, planning and zoning.

The situation in the Negev/Naqab region of southern Israel is a prime example of how Israel’s planning and building policies intentionally exclude Palestinians. Since 1948 Israeli authorities have adopted various policies to “Judaize” the Negev/Naqab, including designating large areas as nature reserves or military firing zones, and setting targets for increasing the Jewish population. This has had devastating consequences for the tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins who live in the region.

Thirty-five Bedouin villages, home to about 68,000 people, are currently “unrecognized” by Israel, which means they are cut off from the national electricity and water supply and targeted for repeated demolitions. As the villages have no official status, their residents also face restrictions on political participation and are excluded from the healthcare and education systems. These conditions have coerced many into leaving their homes and villages, in what amounts to forcible transfer.

Decades of deliberately unequal treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel have left them consistently economically disadvantaged in comparison to Jewish Israelis. This is exacerbated by blatantly discriminatory allocation of state resources: a recent example is the government’s Covid-19 recovery package, of which just 1.7% was given to Palestinian local authorities.