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Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Special Projects Elizabeth Berney, Esq. released the following statement:
Immediately after the anniversary of Israel’s reestablishment, Democratic “Squad” members Rashida Tlaib (MI), Jamaal Bowman (NY), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Betty McCollum (MN), Marie Newman (IL), and Cori Bush (MO) introduced a pernicious Congressional resolution entitled, “Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian Refugees’ rights” (H. Res. 1123) to promote lies and hatred against Jews. Ringleader Tlaib’s defamatory resolution falsely claims that 7 million alleged descendants of fraudulent “Palestinian refugees” have the “right” to overrun and annihilate the Jewish state. Tlaib’s resolution also grossly misstates international law; and demands that more U.S. tax dollars must be sent to the corrupt, Hamas-supporting, hatred-teaching UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). No one with a shred of decency or understanding of law or history will ever vote for this resolution; it’s just a hateful propaganda stunt. But it’s also an opportunity for us to, once again, set the record straight about the antisemitic lies that the hateful “squad” is spewing.
The Real Meaning of “Nakba”: Tlaib’s resolution demands that Americans must commemorate the “Nakba” – an Arabic term for “catastrophe.” The “Nakba” is the sick, hateful belief that Jewish survival is a catastrophe. The “Nakba”’s genocidal premise is that it was a catastrophe that local Arab terrorists and six invading Arab armies failed to exterminate every Jew in the reconstituted Jewish state in 1948, to finish the job started by Hitler and anti-Jewish pogroms throughout the Arab world. Arab rioters and terrorists massacred hundreds of Jews in ancient Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and elsewhere in pre-state Israel in the 1920s-1930s. Local and invading Arabs murdered 6,000 plus Jews in Israel in 1948. And Arab terrorists murdered or maimed thousands of Jews in Intifada terror wars since then. But the “Nakba” holds that all this anti-Jewish terror wasn’t enough. The “Nakba” is the absurd notion that Jews living peacefully in their own lawful, historic, homeland is a catastrophe. Simply put, the “Nakba” is a propaganda lie used to try to transform genocidal Arab aggressors into victims, and promote more hatred and terror against Jews.
At the Celebrate Israel parade on Sunday, a “Nakba” sign appeared next to another Palestinian Arab protestor wearing terrorist gear. It was an apt depiction of how the Nakba is a call for more anti-Jewish terror.
The Tlaib-Squad resolution also includes numerous falsehoods about so-called “Palestinian refugees,” grossly inflates refugee numbers, ignores their origin outside Israel, and ignores that “Palestinian refugees” do not qualify as refugees under U.S. and standard international law. Part 2 of this article also documents that Arab leaders and governments (not Israel) created and perpetuated the “Palestinian refugee crisis”; and that UN General Assembly resolution 194 created no “right of return.”
Tlaib’s Resolution Grossly Inflates Palestinian Arab “Refugee” Numbers; and Ignores their Origins Outside Israel: Rashida Tlaib’s proposed Congressional resolution falsely asserts that there were “at least 750,000” Palestinian Arab refugees from Israel in 1948. Tlaib’s exaggerated number is impossibly high – because it far exceeds the approximately 600,000 Arabs residing in Israel in 1947-48, before some Arabs left – and ignores that many of those Arabs remained in Israel. The best estimate of Arabs who left Israel is approximately 367,000. (See Dr. Pinner’s thorough analysis, discussed in Samuel Katz’s Battleground, pp. 26-27.)
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