Moving beyond the Nakba

On May 14, 1948, immediately following the end of the British mandate on Palestine, David Ben-Gurion announced the establishment of the State of Israel. On the same day, U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the Jewish State. That day is now recognized as Israel’s Independence Day—a national holiday celebrated annually on the fifth day of the Jewish month Iyar.

Unlike the Israeli celebration, many Arab Muslims label the events connected to Israel’s nationhood as the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic.

On May 15 of every year, Arabs commemorate “the Nakba,” which for them highlights two catastrophic events: one, the disaster of founding a Jewish State in the Arab Muslim world; and two, the disastrous military failure of six Arab nations—Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon—that attacked Israel only hours after it declared its independence.

Since 1948, Arab Muslims use the commemoration of the Nakba to lament Israel’s existence and what they view as the displacement of Palestinians into neighboring Arab lands. While Arab Muslims insist that Israel forced Palestinians out of their homes to occupy their lands, many recognize that some Palestinians kept their homes and obtained legal Israeli status, while others willingly sold their land to Jews.

But the insistence of the Arabs on lamenting the past is the real catastrophe, the real Nakba, not the founding of Israel.

Many Arabs ignore their repeated failures to accept excellent deals with Israel in past generations—a mistake they could easily make again—leading to lost opportunities for peace and tranquility in the troubled region. As long as Arab Muslim leaders maintain their rigid traditional way of thinking that Israel’s establishment was a catastrophic disaster, they will remain in a state of denial and continue to miss opportunities in the real world in which we live.

Many in the Arab World are still driven by Arab nationalist slogans and anti-Jewish religious sentiments, often despising Israel and Israelis, as well as the Jews and anything Jewish. These slogans and religious sentiments often call for the annihilation of the “poison” planted in the midst of the Muslims. These can be found in speeches of Arab Muslim presidents and in the Charter of Hamas, a terrorist Islamist organization.

The Arab thinking appears frozen for generations, tangled up in a web of religious mottos and Arabian tales of superiority over the Jews.

In the 1930s, many years before the establishment of Israel, Jewish leaders were ready to accept any deal, under the British patronage, to build a Jewish state even “the size of a tablecloth,” but the Arabs rejected the deal, though it could have given them four times the size of the land the Jews would be assigned. The Jews of Palestine were initially satisfied with any land they could get, but the Arabs were adamant either to reject any Jewish presence or to insist on gaining the maximum benefit of any deal.

This rigidity of the Arabs became a reoccurring pattern for decades, as it has a strong religious component to it. Any cooperation with the Jewish State is viewed by many Arab Muslims as religious infidelity due to the way the Jews and Judaism are criticized in Islam’s sacred texts.

In fact, many Arab leaders could entertain the idea of negotiating with Israel, but they often fear the rage and anger of the Arab masses. This is evident in how the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat was closely tied to his visit to Israel and his agreement to peace with the Jewish State. Similarly, in 2000, under U.S. President Bill Clinton, a ground-breaking deal was offered in which a Palestinian State would be established. Israel accepted the proposal, but the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected it, due to pressures of Arab Muslim leaders.

Just consider what Hamas did on Oct. 7. The terrorist group’s rigidity and unwillingness to accept reality on the ground led to a mission that would result in murderous consequences. Israel’s response has been very costly. The disaster Hamas created caused over $40 billion in damage to Gaza, and rebuilding might take over two decades—if accomplished at all.

If Arab leaders continue to live with the same “Nakba” mindset, there can hardly be any deal. The more this is prolonged, the more the situation will harden and worsen.

This is why, even in the midst of today’s war and chaos, we can all see real opportunities for the region.

Many Arab leaders are willing to cooperate and normalize relations with Israel. We saw this brokered under President Donald J. Trump with at least five Arab Muslim nations, many of which are dissatisfied with Hamas and the rigidity and terrorist ideology it represents.

Once the Gaza war ends, let’s all hope for Arab leaders to come together and make good and acceptable agreements with the Jewish State. The real disaster for the Palestinian people would be the continuation of this disastrous lack of statesmanship.