“The Duty of Muslims to Drive all Jews from Arab and Muslim Countries” The Strategy that Doomed Palestinians to the Nakba
Scenes from the War of 1948, the bottom with Arab fighters next to a Israeli food supply truck near Jerusalem
This is a historical background to the one-sided coverage that I am seeing in many outlets about the Nakba, the movement of Palestinian Arabs out of the territory of Israel before, during, and after the 1948 War for Israel’s Independence. Contrary to much of what is being said in the media and by inti-Israel protestors amid the drumbeat of the slogan “from the river to the sea Palestine must be free,” the Nakba was not the fault of Israel, it was due the direct action of Arabs to try to destroy Israel in its infancy by armed force, even as nearly 1.9 million Jews were being driven from Arab countries where many had lived for centuries, even millennia in the case of Jews living in Iraq and Iran. The Israelis were aided by Arabs, particularly Druze and Bedouin during the war, and many Arabs remained and became citizens of Israel, an option, that was open to all Palestinians at the time.
When Israel gained its independence and successfully fought off attacks from Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in 1948, it offered citizenship and equal rights to Palestinians in its territory. However, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians chose the path of leaving their homes because they could not abide living alongside Jews. Despite this many remained and today Arabs, including Palestinians, Druze, Bedouin, and Christians are full Israeli citizens. They serve in the Knesset, the military, the police, and government agencies. Every week Israeli Arabs die in the defense of their country against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
Unfortunately, there was a long history of Jew hatred long before Israel’s independence and the war of 1948. Much was led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al Husayni, a man with his own dark past.
Amin Al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem reviewing Bosnian-Muslim troops of the 13th SS Handschar Division in November 1943 (above) and meeting with Hitler on November 28th, 1941 (below).
As early as 1933 some Arab leaders were looking into the time when the British would leave Palestine, at which time they could drive the Jews in Palestine into the sea. One of these men was Amin Al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem. during the Second World War, he supported the Nazi Holocaust and helped recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS 13th SS Mountain Division, Handschar. He met with Hitler and Himmler and fought the resettlement of Jews into Arab lands during the Holocaust. Husayni fully and publicly endorsed the Nazi Final Solution, and stated in November, 1943:
“It is the duty of Muhammadans [Muslims] in general and Arabs in particular to ... drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries... . Germany is also struggling against the common foe who oppressed Arabs and Muhammadans in their different countries. It has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution [endgültige Lösung] for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world.”
Following the war he had to flee Europe as a suspected war criminal, and was identified by a senior SS aid to Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg for having fully supported the Nazi Final Solution.
The Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948 is called the Nakba, in which about 700,000 Palestinians left or were driven from Israel. Almost 300,000 left of their own volition before the Arab armies attacked Israel. Those armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen massed on the borders of what was to be the Israeli part of the two states in order to attack. The war war often brutal and fought with little quarter on either side. In many ways it was fought with the same brutality as Arab and Jewish fighters attacked each other and the British army in Palestine before Britain handed it to the U.N.
Map of the November 1947 U.N. partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab States produced in a 1957 U.N. report. Note the large amount of Israeli territory that lay in the then inhospitable Negev Desert.
The Arabs had previously rejected other partition plans in the 1930s, because they did not want the Jews in what they saw as their territory. When one hears the chant “from the River to the sea, Palestine must be free”, it is not about Palestinians being able to live peacefully alongside Israelis, it is about driving seven million Jews out of the only county that they have. Since there are only about 15 million Jews in the world today, numbering just .02% of the earth’s population it seems that those who want Israel to be destroyed are all about finishing what Hitler began.
However, that same year nearly 1.9 million Jews were forced from their ancestral homelands in the Arab world. This happened barely three years after Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust killed 6 million Jews and drove millions more from countries they had lived for centuries. The Jews had lived in Iraq since before the time of Christ, having stayed following the Babylonian captivity. However, unlike the propaganda surrounding the Nakba, and yes it is propaganda masquerading as a historical narrative, few if any Jews have been able to return to their ancestral homelands in Europe or Arab-Muslim countries.
The fact is that the Nakba as presented is propaganda. From the very beginning many Arabs intended to erase Israel from the map. Unfortunately, that is still the intent of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran and others still have the goal of destroying Israel. They are no different than the Nazis.
Please know that I have great empathy for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and little respect for Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies. I have been to war, seen its carnage and the suffering of civilians. That being said, Hamas began this war and has publicly stated that they do not want it to end. Instead of doing anything to help the people of Gaza since they took power in 2006, they have only used Gazans as human shields for their terrorist and military attacks on Israel. The Israelis are correct that Hamas as a military and political organization must be destroyed in order for Israelis and Palestinians to be safe and for an environment conducive to the return of Gaza’s refugees and the rebuilding of Gaza. It will take something like the Marshall Plan to do that, but it cannot get done if Hamas and Islamic Jihad remain in any kind of power.
Excellent.
Yes. History, people.