Commemorating the Nakba...
As I was sitting in a hotel room “two seas away” from the Arab-Israeli conflict and preparing to chose excerpts for reprint from last year’s “Nakba memorial,” I got mail from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics “on the 64th anniversary of the Nakba.” I happily observed from the press release that the Palestinians are getting better in humor.
The statement describes the Nakba as “ethnic cleansing and displacement (by Israel) of the (Palestinian) population.” It then goes on to say (seriously!) that: “The Palestinian population was 1.37 million in 1948 but by the end of 2011, the estimated population of Palestinians totaled 11.2 million. This indicates that the number of Palestinians worldwide has multiplied eight-fold in the 64 years since the Nakba.”
Like in other areas such as science, arts and corporate culture, the Jews have messed things up: Their ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians worldwide has resulted in an eight-fold increase in the Palestinian population. So if the Zionists had intended genocide against the Palestinians, the Palestinian population today could have been around 100 million.
Last year’s tickets to the opera are no longer good, but sadly last year’s Nakba memorial is still valid (“The Nakba: Blood and tears,” Hürriyet Daily News, May 17, 2011). Here we go:
“(Prime Minister Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan [said]: ‘I don’t see Hamas as a terror organization. It is a resistance movement.’ And according to Mr Erdoğan, ‘calling them terrorists would be disrespect to the will of the Palestinian people.’
“I am not going to list the names of the victims of Hamas’ violent campaign, which prompted the civilized nations of the world to add the jihadists on a list of terrorist organizations. I am not going to list Hamas’ attacks against civilian and military targets either, as I don’t want to fill up a hundred columns with a boring catalogue of crimes. But let’s see how Hamas defines itself, its members, and its mission and better comprehend what the ‘will of the Palestinian people’ is about.
“The Hamas Covenant, proclaimed in 1988, declares members to be Muslims who ‘fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors.’ Very impressive membership criteria ... The charter calls for the eventual creation of an ‘Islamic state in Palestine,’ in place of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the ‘obliteration or dissolution of Israel.’
“[The] charter defines ‘our struggle against the Jews,’ as very great and very serious: ‘The time will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslims! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him.’ That mission is almost impossible, especially the part about crying and speaking trees and rocks.
“And the charter goes on by outlining its peace mission: ‘The only way to engage in this struggle between truth and falsehood is through Islam and by means of Jihad until victory or martyrdom.’ Here, obviously, ‘victory’ means killing the last Jew tipped off by a rock or a tree; and martyrdom means getting killed by Jews.
“Finally, there is a nice little piece of fatwa on defining who is Muslim and who is not: ‘Renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion of Islam.’ So, there is this peaceful resistance group whose charter claims members must raise the banner of Jihad in a very great and serious struggle, who should fight against the Jews for the dissolution of Israel, kill the Jews, or get killed in the name of martyrdom, and the same charter bans renouncing any part of Palestine with a self-declared authority to assert that doing so would mean renouncing Islam.
“[That is the Nakba which] Mr. Erdoğan said, ‘Once again Palestinians have been obliged to commemorate with blood and tears.’”
I sincerely hope, knowing this is just futile, that “The Nakba: Blood and tears” could no longer be reprinted.