For the first time, the United Nations will officially commemorate the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel on the 75th anniversary of their exodus — an action stemming from the U.N.’s partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is headlining Monday’s U.N. commemoration of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” or “catastrophe.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, called the U.N. observance “historic” and significant because the General Assembly played a key role in the partition of Palestine.
“It’s acknowledging the responsibility of the U.N. of not being able to resolve this catastrophe for the Palestinian people for 75 years,” Mansour told a group of U.N. reporters recently.
He said “the catastrophe to the Palestinian people is still ongoing:” The Palestinians still don’t have an independent state, and they don’t have the right to return to their homes as called for in a General Assembly resolution adopted in December 1948.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, condemned the commemoration, calling it an “abominable event” and a “blatant attempt to distort history.” He said those who attend will be condoning antisemitism and giving a green light to Palestinians “to continue exploiting international organs to promote their libelous narrative.”
The General Assembly, which had 57 member nations in 1947, approved the resolution dividing Palestine by a vote of 33-13 with 10 abstentions. The Jewish side accepted the U.N. partition plan and after the British mandate expired in 1948, Israel declared its independence. The Arabs rejected the plan and neighboring Arab countries launched a war against the Jewish state.
As the 75th anniversary approached, the now 193-member General Assembly approved a resolution last Nov. 30 by a vote of 90-30 with 47 abstentions requesting the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People organize a high-level event on May 15 to commemorate the Nakba.
The United States was among the countries that joined Israel in voting against the resolution, and the U.S. Mission said no American diplomat will attend Monday’s commemoration.
Explaining why a U.N. commemoration took so long, Mansour told The Associated Press on Friday that the Palestinians have moved cautiously at the United Nations since the General Assembly raised their status in 2012 from a non-member observer to a non-member observer state.
U.N. recognition as a state enabled the Palestinians to join treaties, take cases against Israel’s “occupation” to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, which is the U.N.’s highest tribunal, and in 2019 to chair the Group of 77, the U.N. coalition of 134 mainly developing nations and China, he said.
At the 70th anniversary of the 1948 exodus five years ago, Mansour said, “the word Nakba was used in a General Assembly resolution for the first time,” and Abbas then gave instructions to obtain a mandate from the U.N. to commemorate the 75th anniversary.
Mansour said Friday that Palestinian refugees “are being forcibly removed from their homes and forcibly transferred by Israel at an unprecedented rate”.
In a speech to the U.N. Security Council on April 25, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said “it is time to bring the Nakba to an end,” stressing that the Palestinians have suffered from the most protracted refugee crisis in the world and “the longest occupation of an entire territory in modern history.”
He was sharply critical of the U.N. and the wider international community for adopting resolutions that make demands and call for action – but doing nothing to implement them. He said if the international community made Israel’s occupation costly, “I can assure you it will come to an end.”
Malki renewed his call for countries that haven’t yet recognized the state of Palestine “to do so as a means to salvage the moribund two-state solution.” He also urged countries to support the Palestinian request for full membership in the United Nations, which would demonstrate international support for a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians lived side-by-side in peace.
To hurt Israel economically, Malki urged countries to ban products from Israeli settlements and trade with settlements, to “sanction those who collect funds for settlements and those who advocate for them and those who advance them,” and to list settler organizations that carry out killings and burnings as “terrorist organizations.”
And he urged the international community to take Israel to the International Court of Justice. The General Assembly asked the court in December to give its opinion on the legal consequences of “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories”, a move denounced by Israel.
(AP)
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8 Responses
Democrats are on their side. You’re on that team if you vote Dem. You can justify the millions of dollars you take from them for your mosid but it doesn’t change the facts.
The Nakba did happen. It’s a historical fact.
It doesn’t delegitimize Israel though, it just makes the Arabs look bad that they couldn’t/wouldn’t solve the refugee issue from 75 years ago.
Eretz Yisroel of course is our land and we all belong there. Obviously, while we are still in golus we are not all located in EY and even those in EY especially those in areas that the world considers “Palestinian territory” have to deal with this whole “Palestinian” thing and the general intension of our Enemies like Iran to wipe us off the face of the earth chas v’shalom. What many misguided Jews fail to realize though, is that just as a “Palestinian” state doesn’t belong in EY, the current Medina doesn’t belong in EY either. The only government that is supposed to be ruling EY and the entire world is Malchus Beis Dovid. A western democracy, even one that is put together by Jews is not what is intended for anything beyond golus. We must be makir tov to any government that we benefit from in any way. We especially must be makir tov to the Israeli soldiers who are (for the most part Jews) that put their lives on line to protect the rest of the Yidden living in EY. (We also need to be makir tov to the solders that aren’t Jewish although of course most are) We must all love each other and with true Ahavas Yisroel we will certainly see the Geulah Sheleima immediately.
It’s made to. It was Nakba because that was appropriate reaction to arab violence and Jordan and Egypt didn’t want them. Jordan is the real so called Palestine.
the arabs are deliberately not solving their refugee crisis to help them put world pressure on Israel to “repatriate” these Arabs to E”Y so they can have demographic possession of the land and control of Jerusalem/Al Quds.
lebanon, egypt, and syria of full of ‘palestinians’ that their respective govts are not going absorb or give legal rights to as a political ploy to advance their islamic religious agenda. and the situation is looking more and more ridiculous. there are more ‘palestinians’ in jordan than there are jordanians…etc. you tell me what the fundamental difference is between a palestinian and a jordanian? Lol. if the jews come back and have control of al-Quds then islam is irrelevant. to prevent this they are using every political tool at their disposal including the rewriting of historical books to erase any jewish connection to the land, teaching their young to kill Israelis and die as shaheeds, getting everyone to sanction Israel, garnering world sympathy and attention & getting world media involved, trying to act like/pretend they are a country with a rich history & culture, repeatedly condemning Israel at the UN…etc, and getting the world to help solve their “refugee” issue.
this is a religious war.
the return of the jews to eretz yisroel is a theologic threat to islam.
They attacked and lost and brought about their own Nakba
Thank you Nakba- Lapid, Liberman, Bennet-.
Nakba wouldn’t be Nakba if it wasn’t for the reform and antifa.
The democrats are the party of civility.