ISRAEL MATZAV: Abu Mazen talks about how the 'Palestinian refugee' problem was created

The quote above is 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen talking about how the 'Palestinian refugee' problem was created. Rewriting history cannot erase the truth. More here.

The “Al-Aksa Is in Danger” Libel: The History of a Lie

The modern blood libel “Al-Aksa is in danger,” referring to the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, originated in the days of Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, ally of Hitler, and is propagated today by Sheikh Raed Salah, Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, and many others in the Muslim world. Now that it has come to be regarded as unalloyed truth by millions in the Muslim world, it is urgent to address this lie.

Nadav Shragai, a journalist and commentator at the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz for more than 25 years (1983-2009), has devoted this fascinating book to refuting the lie, drawing its portrait, and shedding light on its origins, purposes, and manifestations.

"Moses led Muslims out of Egypt to liberate Palestine"

Interview with Dr. Omar Ja'ara, lecturer at Al-Najah University in Nablus, and specialist in Israeli affairs on PA TV:

"We must make clear to the world that David in the Hebrew Bible is not connected to David in the Quran, Solomon in the Hebrew Bible is not connected to Solomon in the Quran, and neither is Saul or Joshua son of Nun [of the Bible]. We have a great leader, Saul, [in the Quran] who defeated the nation of giants and killed Goliath. This is a great Muslim victory. The Muslims of the Children of Israel went out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and unfortunately, many researchers deny the Exodus of those oppressed people who were liberated by a great leader, like Moses the Muslim, the believing leader, the great Muslim, who was succeeded by Saul, the leader of these Muslims in liberating Palestine. This was the first Palestinian liberation through armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the nation of giants led by Goliath.This is our logic and this is our culture."
[PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 15, 2012]

Palestinian Media Watch finally put up the story on their main site.

Palestinians Trying to 'Wipe Out Jewish History' "CBN News" Christian World News.

Palestinian Authority TV, August 10, 2011

"They [Israelis] know for certain that our [Palestinian] roots are deeper than their false history. We are drawing our new maps. When they [Israelis] disappear from the picture, like a forgotten chapter in the pages of our city's history, we will build it anew (residential area). The Mughrabi Quarter will be built here (on the Western Wall Plaza)."

YNET: Arabs rewriting history Op-ed: Arab reaction from 1949 shows Israel isn’t exclusively responsible for refugee problem

The late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said called Palestinians “the victims of the victims.” As the September deadline for the Palestinian “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” approaches, and the certain endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly, it is worth asking again who originally victimized the Palestinians. Today, of course, the unanimous consensus among Palestinians, and the Arab and Muslim worlds, is that it was Israel that, in 1948, attacked and expelled Palestinians. But who did Palestinians blame for their fate in 1949?
The two largest Palestinian communities in the US are located in Dearborn Michigan and Jacksonville Florida. On December 15th, 1949 the Michigan Arab newspaper As Sabah (literally the Morning Tribune) published an editorial on the question of the Palestine Arab refugees:

“What is the crime of the refugees in the eyes of the lords of Arabia who stand by and watch the misery of the refugees, and who suck the blood of the poor and needy-without shame before God and the world? Yes the poor refugees committed the crime of listening to those deceivers, they believed the liars, and went to the extreme foolishness of leaving their homes, counting on their deceitful leaders to bring them back! And because of what is happening to the Palestine refugees, Arab public opinion is changing little by little to support the Jews in Israel where not a single Arab dies from starvation and cold! And if there should be another war, it should be against the Arab leaders, the princes and kings who brought this catastrophe upon the poor people of Palestine.”

The editorial’s analysis regarding Arab public opinion favoring Israel was incorrect, to say the least. But the claim that Palestinians fled their homes in response to Arab leaders has been controversial since the events occurred. The Palestinians of Michigan in 1949 thought this was the case.

In October 1949, Palestinian intellectual Musa Alami wrote: “What concerned (the Arab states) most and guided their policy was not to win the war and save Palestine from the enemy, but what would happen after the struggle, who would be predominant in Palestine, or annex it themselves.”

British testimonials

But in addition to the usurpation of the Palestinian cause, which upset As Sabah’s editorialists, there was another dimension. British officials on the scene at the time, hardly pro-Zionist, were convinced that Palestinian leaders were steadily abandoning their people. In December 1947 the High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham reported that “panic of (the) middle class persists and there is a steady exodus of those who can afford to leave the country." He added later in April 1948, “In all parts of the country the effendi class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period and the tempo is increasing.”

In June 1949 Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo reported that the refugees “express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. “We know who our enemies are,” they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over.”

Israeli officials maintained from the beginning that a majority of the Palestinians were encouraged to flee by their own leaders and those of Arab states, who then abandoned them before or in the midst of battle. This has long been dismissed by Palestinians and their supporters as Zionist propaganda. But British officials on the scene and opposed to Israel, and Palestinians in America, would not have simply parroted their enemy’s assessment.

The implications of this long-forgotten editorial, and all the other statements, are in the first instance that Israel does not bear full and exclusive responsibility for the Palestinian refugee situation – the Arab states and the Palestinians themselves do too. This also puts their upcoming “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” into a wholly different light.

In effect, Palestinian leaders have asked the United Nations for yet another opportunity to turn the clock back to give them another chance at achieving statehood that could have been theirs in 1948 or even in 1938. Meanwhile, some Palestinian officials have begun floating the idea of returning to the 1947 partition plan, the same plan that their predecessors rejected summarily in 1947. When do these chances run out? In the process, as their predecessors did in 1949, they blame everyone but themselves for not having achieved their goals to date.

A culture without a sense of responsibility for its own decisions, that blames others for its own decisions and at the same time perpetually demands that its maintenance is someone else’s responsibility, is not likely to create a stable, functioning nation-state. Any new Palestinian state would be an instant pauper, utterly dependent on aid, primarily from the American taxpayer.

Little wonder then that at least some Palestinian leaders are
trying to back off from the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The “deceivers” that Palestinian Americans of 1949 railed against are ultimately their own leaders and other Arab states. Until new leaders can be found for both, and a new culture of responsibility and self-reliance installed, little progress will be made.

MATZAV: Abbas Rewrites History in NY Times

It’s not particularly surprising that Mahmoud Abbas, often dubbed “moderate” by the media (as opposed, for instance, to the “hawkish” Netanyahu), would fabricate about the past, contradicting a clear historical record.
Moreover, given the direction of the New York Times coverage in recent months, it’s no longer even surprising that the paper would allow Abbas to fabricate in its pages. It’s not surprising, but it’s also not excusable. Abbas has an Op-Ed today ^[1] in the former “Paper of Record,” claiming:
SIXTY-THREE years ago, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was forced to leave his home in the Galilean city of Safed and flee with his family to Syria. He took up shelter in a canvas tent provided to all the arriving refugees. Though he and his family wished for decades to return to their home and homeland, they were denied that most basic of human rights. That child’s story, like that of so many other Palestinians, is mine.
It’s a sad story, but it’s not his story. As blogger Daled Amos uncovered, Abbas once let it slip in an Arabic newspaper that his family was not expelled, but left under different circumstances. Daled Amos blogs:
In a Jerusalem Post article, Sarah Honig writes about Abbas and his admission that he and his family left Safed on their own:
Fatah’s cofounder reminisced at length about his Safed origins and haphazardly let the truth slip out. “Until the nakba” (calamity in Arabic - the loaded synonym for Israeli independence), he recounted, his family “was well-off in Safed.” When Abbas was 13, “we left on foot at night to the Jordan River… Eventually we settled in Damascus… My father had money, and he spent his money methodically. After a year, when the money ran out, we began to work. “People were motivated to run away… They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising [Muslim pogroms instigated by the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, known later for his Nazi sympathies]. This was in the memory of our families and parents… They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings.”
Abbas continues with his historical revisionism:
It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued. Indeed, it was the descendants of these expelled Palestinians who were shot and wounded by Israeli forces on Sunday as they tried to symbolically exercise their right to return to their families’ homes.
Minutes after the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948, the United States granted it recognition. Our Palestinian state, however, remains a promise unfulfilled.
Abbas of course doesn’t mention the Palestinian Arab rejection of U.N. Partition Plan, versus Israel’s acceptance. Had the plan been accepted by the Arab side, it would have been implemented, and a Palestinian state would have been a fulfilled promise 63 years ago.

Ground Zero Imam: 'We Have More Of A Right To Moses'

New York - Muslims have “more of a right” than Jews to the biblical prophet Moses, declared the imam who has become the new face of the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City.

Imam Abdallah Adhami also urged Muslims to “compete” with other religions.

“We must be doing it first, we must compete with you to be doing more of that. We want to fast Ashura too, because that’s the day God saved Moses; that is certainly a day to be celebrated. We have more right to Moses,” stated Adhami in a 2008 lecture obtained and reviewed by WND.

Ashura is an Islamic fast day that commemorates Muslim events, including the Islamic claim that Moses fasted on that day to express gratitude to God for liberating the Israelites from Egypt.

In his lecture, Adhami recounted the Islamic story of the Muslim figure Muhammad arriving in Medina, where he encountered Jews who fasted on Ashura and asked them why they were celebrating the holiday.

'Palestinians' renaming Jewish historical sites

A new study indicates that since 2001, the 'Palestinian Authority' has systematicallychanged the names of Jewish historical sites in 'Palestinian' textbooks in order to deny the Jewish heritage.

According to the CEO of the institute and the author of the report, Shelley Elkayam, the phenomenon is characterised by a few levels of significance, among them gender symbolism alongside subversive logical undermining and a slipping away from the modern-historical to the mythical-legendary.

Elkayam asserted that the Palestinian edition itself explains the process of change as a conscious manipulation which was done by "Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic centres and with the help of charities working to revive the Arab Palestinian heritage to maintain the character of Palestine and its heritage like Al-Burke Wall – the Western Wall, Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque – Rachel's tomb."

The IMPACT-SE report showed the change clearly. On page 91 in the 1995 grade 6 book Palestinian Civil Studies, Rachel's tomb was "Rachel's tomb: mother of Joseph our lord (Said) and Jacob's wife", while on page 56 in the 2001 version of the book for grade 7 Rachel's tomb was transformed by the Palestinians into a mosque.

In the schoolbook from 2001, in an exercise titled "attempts to erase the Palestinian heritage" Bilal Mosque [Rachel's tomb] and the cave of the Patriarchs are presented to the children as part of the Palestinian "philosophical heritage" and examples of "the attempt to 'turn Jewish' Muslim-religious places like: Abraham's Mosque [cave of the patriarchs] and Bilal Ibn Rabah mosque [Rachel's tomb]".

But their goal is 'two states living side by side in peace.' Tell me about it....

PMW: Jesus was a Palestinian; "no one denies that," says PA TV

One of the ways the Palestinian Authority attempts to create a Palestinian history is to deny the Judean/Jewish nationality of Jesus, and  misrepresent him as a "Palestinian."

Palestinian Media Watch has documented this ongoing Palestinian Authority historical revision. Recently on PA TV, the author Samih Ghanadreh from Nazareth was interviewed about his book "Christianity and Its Connection to Islam."

The following is the transcript of the discussion describing Jesus as a Palestinian:

Religious program on PA TV: This is our religion 

Author: "The Shahid (Martyr) President Yasser Arafat used to say: 'Jesus was the first Palestinian Shahid (Martyr).' I heard him say that sentence many times."
PA TV Host: "He [Jesus] was a Palestinian; no one denies that."
Author: "He [Jesus] was the first Palestinian Shahid (Martyr). He (Arafat) attributed this Martyrdom to Palestine, as well." Click To View

[PA TV (Fatah), Dec. 3, 2010]

Fatah proud of "Palestinian" Virgin Mary Earlier this year the Fatah Communications and Education Authority issued as statement on the official Fatah website claiming the Virgin Mary was "of the nation of Palestine":
     "If we are proud of the holiness of our land, then we are proud and pride ourselves that the first and most important holy woman among the nations and peoples is from the holy land: The Virgin Mary - the woman of love and peace - is of the nation of Palestine..." [palvoice.com/index.php?id=23043]

Jesus and Mary were Palestinians par excellence
The Palestinian Authority religious leader, the Mufti Muhammad Hussein:    "Jesus was born in this land; he took his first steps in this land and spread his teachings [of Islam] in this land. He and his mother [Mary], we may say, were Palestinians par excellence." Click to view

[PA TV (Fatah), May 12, 2009]


---------------

commentary by Rabbi Nachum Shifren

If Jesus was a Palestinian, then I'm John the Baptist!

You CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!!

Wonder if Jesus ever threw Molatov cocktails at busses filled with children?

Wonder if Jesus ever beheaded anybody on Al Jezira TV?

Wonder if Jesus was involved in the Intifada?

Wonder if Jesus strapped explosive belts on children to blow up the money changers in the market place?

Wonder if Jesus lynched and burned the bodies of unsuspecting Jews that drove into Arab towns?

If Jesus was a "shahid", would that make Mary the "mother of all terrorists"?

Guess that would sure change the image of Jesus from our "outdated" understanding  of him...

And by the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

SERAPHIC SECRET: Dance of Death

Pious Jewish men praying at the Kotel, the Western Wall. Photo by Robert J. Avrech, all rights reserved.

Imagine for a moment that you are dancing with a partner who has loudly announced plans to murder you when the music stops. You want to get off the dance floor, but clueless wallflowers insist the dance continue.

“He doesn't mean it,” they insist, even as your partner presses a knife to your heart.

Israel is in a dance of the death with the Palestinians.

The Islamist strategy of terrorism coupled with a global delegitimization of Israel knows no bounds. Palestinian culture denies Judaism's 3,000 plus year old relationship with the land of Israel. Muslims understand—in contrast to scores of liberal Jews—that it is Judaism that binds the Jewish people to Israel. Israel's enemies understand that history is witness to the simple and timeless truth that Israel is the Jewish homeland.

Contrary to the perceived wisdom among the elite, the war against Israel has nothing to do with so-called occupation, nothing to do with national boundaries, and most certainly nothing to do with establishing a Palestinian reichlet—it already exists in all its Islamic totalitarian glory in Gaza.

Rather, the Arab-Israeli conflict is and always has been a religious war where Islamists—imperialist conquerors and theocratic supremacists—have made plain their intention to establish a world-wide caliphate. The annihilation of Israel/Jews is simply the point of the jihadist spear.

Thus, the, ahem, moderate PA, led by Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, have officially declared that the The Western Wall, a remnant of the Second Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. is not a holy Jewish site, but a wall from the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The report states:

“Jews did not worship at the Wailing Wall at any time until the Balfour Declaration of 1917…nor can any Muslim, or Arab, or Palestinian give up a single stone or piece of dust from the Wailing Wall or other holy places because that would be a concession on the Temple Mount.”

Make no mistake about it, The PA has plans to colonize every single Jewish holy site in the land of Israel and claim it for Islam.

Harnessing pliable intellectuals to rewrite Jewish history is a thriving industry in the Muslim world. It is a strategy that was pioneered and implemented by the Nazis in order to dehumanize Jews and turn them into objects fit only for slaughter.

This blatant lie about the Western Wall does not come from Hamas or Hizbullah. No, it comes directly from the Palestinian Authority, the moderate terrorists.

It is easy to cook up outrageous lies about Judaism and Israel and spread these falsehoods over the internet. But it takes Israel's supporters a good deal of time to carefully and honestly debunk the lies. And by that time, the lies have spread to a global audience anxious to believe the worst about Jews.

And then, of course, a new set of lies are unleashed.

There are never any consequences to the liars. Thus, they are encouraged to continue with their blood libels; their hatred is encouraged, especially in Europe, where the genocide of the Jews is unfinished business.

Israel and her supporters are fighting an endless rear-guard action, a defensive war in which truth is at a disadvantage.

Yet Israel continues negotiation with the PA, a genocidal yearning mob. The PA's only difference with Hamas and Hizbullah is tactical; the PA wants to move at a slower pace in order to destroy Israel and make the Middle East Judenrein.

The PA's information ministry this week released an official "study" declaring that the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City - revered for 2,000 years as one of Judaism's holiest sites - isn't Jewish at all. In fact, claims the report by a senior ministry official, it is nothing more than the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and has only been a worship site for Jews since World War I - and then, only because of "Muslim tolerance."

This, it should be noted, isn't coming from Hamas. It emanates from the same "moderate" Palestinians whom President Obama and the rest of the world embrace, make concessions to, and trust with Israel's long-term security. What is contemptible is that those efforts increasingly are being endorsed by the world at large.

Last month, UNESCO endorsed the PA's demands that Rachel's Tomb outside of Bethlehem - long revered as a Jewish site of worship - not only be removed from Israel's declared historic sites but actually be declared a mosque. Not even Yasser Arafat ever made such a claim until 1996 — and even then, without a shred of historic evidence.

UNESCO also declared that Israel cannot claim the Cave of the Patriarchs, the traditional burial site of the biblical forebears of the Jewish nation, as a national heritage site. The whole point of this ongoing exercise is to erase any Jewish connection with the biblical Land of Israel - with an eye toward negating the modern state of Israel's existence.

Full editorial from The New York Post here.

This is nothing new, this Muslim rewriting history in such an outrageous fashion. Let us not forget that Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, asserted that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Palestinian. He also stated that Abraham the Jewish patriarch was not a Jew, but an Iraqi.

The Arab Muslim world is continually brainwashed with the notion that Israel has no right to exist; the Muslim public is convinced that this tiny country—the size of El Salvador—democratic and prosperous, is the cause off all Arab Muslim woes.

Now, by denying the ancient Jewish connection to the Jewish homeland, the annihilation of Israel has become an accepted idea in the Muslim world.

What can be done?

Break off all negotiations with the PA. Stop treating these barbarians as rational partners in peace.

Do not forget that the PLO's covenant makes it “a national duty . . . to eliminate the Zionist presence from Palestine.” This is a polite call for genocide against the Jews.

You do not dance with a partner who plans to murder you when the music stops.

MEMRI: Palestinian Officials: Western Wall Is Islamic Waqf, We Won't Give It Up A Single Stone

Palestinian officials have condemned the decision by the Israeli government to renovate the Western Wall plaza.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that the Wall is part of occupied eastern Jerusalem and that its historic, cultural, and religious characteristics must not be changed.

PA Deputy Information Minister Al-Mutawakkil Taha stated in a study he published that the Wall is Islamic Waqf and an integral part of Al-Aqsa mosque, that the Jews have no historical religious ties to it, and that not a single stone or grain of soil from it or from the other holy sites can be relinquished.

Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Sheikh Muhammad Hussein said that Al-Aqsa mosque belongs to the Muslims alone and that the occupation will not manage to plunder the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem.

NYT: Western Wall Feud Heightens Israeli-Palestinian Tensions

JERUSALEM — The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday strongly denounced a Palestinian Authority paper that denies any Jewish connection to the Western Wall, the iconic holy site and place of Jewish worship in the Old City of Jerusalem, describing the report as “reprehensible and scandalous.”

The episode appeared to signal a worsening atmosphere after a two-month hiatus in peace talks.

Mr. Netanyahu’s statement referred to a long article that appeared in Arabic on Monday on the Information Ministry Web site of the Western-backed Palestinian government, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank. Its publication was previously reported by The Jerusalem Post.

Jerusalem and its holy sites are one of the most intractable and emotional issues of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israel conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan in the 1967 war, and annexed it in a move that was never internationally recognized. About 200,000 Jews live in areas of East Jerusalem that have been developed since 1967, among about a quarter-million Palestinians. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The Western Wall is a remnant of the retaining wall of a plateau revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the site where their ancient temples once stood. The plateau is also the third holiest site in Islam. Known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, the compound now includes Al Aksa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock.

In Muslim tradition, the wall is the place where the Prophet Muhammad tethered his winged steed, Buraq, during his miraculous overnight journey from Mecca to Jerusalem in the seventh century.

The Palestinian paper denying any Jewish historical connection with the site was written by Al-Mutawakel Taha, an Information Ministry official. In it, he stated that “the Al Buraq Wall is the western wall of Al Aksa, which the Zionist occupation falsely claims ownership of and calls the Wailing Wall or Kotel.”

Palestinian officials have often denied claims of Jewish heritage in Jerusalem, arguing that there is no evidence that the plateau was the site of ancient temples.

In the principles for a peace accord laid out by President Bill Clinton in late 2000 after the failure to reach a final Israeli-Palestinian agreement at Camp David, the suggestion was for Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, with mutual consent needed for any excavation in the area.

Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, proposed in his talks with Mr. Abbas in 2008 that the holy sites in and around the Old City be administered by an international trusteeship made up of Israel, the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United States. Mr. Olmert, who left office in early 2009, says that he got no response.

Mr. Netanyahu has insisted on continued Jewish building in the Jewish areas of East Jerusalem, like all Israeli governments since 1967, but he has not spelled out his intentions regarding the future status of the city since taking office.

The unofficial competition for control of Jerusalem takes place stone by stone and house by house. On Tuesday, Jewish activists moved into a building they had acquired in Jebel Mukaber, a predominantly Arab neighborhood overlooking the Old City and its holy shrines, and on Wednesday another group of Jewish activists moved into an apartment on the Mount of Olives, in a Palestinian neighborhood, A-Tur.

Mr. Taha’s paper appeared on his ministry’s Web site a day after the Israeli government approved a $23 million five-year project to renovate and develop the Western Wall Plaza and its environs.

Mr. Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office, said the Western Wall “has been the Jewish people’s most sacred place for almost 2,000 years, since the destruction of the Second Temple.” He added that the Palestinian Authority’s denial of a Jewish link “calls into serious question its intentions of reaching a peace agreement, the foundations of which are coexistence and mutual recognition.”

Mr. Netanyahu called on the authority’s leaders to disavow the document. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.

But in another indication of the strained atmosphere, the Palestinian government issued a statement titled “Israeli crimes of destruction,” listing Israeli actions in Jerusalem and Israel’s demolition in recent days of numerous Palestinian structures that were built without permits in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank.

The Palestinian narrative is a falsification of history If true peace is ever to reign among Israel and its Arab neighbors, it is important that the Arabs recognize that what they call the Nakba was a self-inflicted tragedy. By Moshe Arens

The legendary TV sleuth Columbo used to question witnesses to a crime he was investigating by confronting them brusquely: "Just give me the facts," he would say. He was not interested in hearing conflicting subjective accounts of the kind that appear in Akira Kurosawa's famous film "Rashomon," where each of the witnesses to a crime gave his subjective impression in mutually contradictory ways. The facts, that is all he wanted to hear. The facts, that is what is required of those who teach history to our children in school when they teach the history of Israel's War of Independence.

Some years ago, the Ministry of Education instructed schools to teach our children the "Palestinian narrative" in addition to the Jewish (Israeli? ) narrative of the events of Israel's War of Independence. Now that this instruction has been countermanded, a demand is voiced by some that the "Palestinian narrative" nevertheless continue to be taught in our schools. Are there really two narratives which our children should be taught? Is history no more than a collection of conflicting narratives?

The "narrative" mode of history is something of recent vintage, a fad not likely to persist. It is the facts that we want our children to be taught in history lessons. There may be different interpretations of certain events that may need to be elaborated, even when the events themselves have been established beyond doubt. It is only when the actual course of events has been difficult or impossible to ascertain that there is room for presenting different versions.

As a matter of fact, the narrative form of teaching history seems to have struck root primarily in Israel. Would anyone suggest that in American schools the "Japanese narrative" of the American-Japanese conflict during World War II be taught alongside the "American narrative"? Is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 no more than the American version? Or how about teaching in Russian schools the "German narrative" of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941? This seems too preposterous to contemplate.

So why is this happening in Israel? Yes, there is a "Palestinian narrative" of the 1948 war, and it is called "Nakba." But as every student of that war and the still-living witnesses know only too well, the Nakba version is no more than a pack of lies. No juggling and politicized interpretations of the events of that war, in which one percent of the Jewish population fell fighting against the Arab attack, can change the fact that the Arab world - the local Arab militias and the regular armies of the neighboring Arab countries, plus Iraqi forces - attempted to destroy the Jewish State in a war they started immediately after the UN resolution dividing western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in November 1947.

Six thousand Jews - soldiers and civilians - fell in that war fighting against the Arab onslaught. Where the Arabs were successful the Jewish population was killed or deported, and all Jewish property was destroyed. What happened in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and in the Etzion bloc in May 1948 when they fell to the Jordanian Legion was a portent of the fate that awaited the entire Jewish community had the Arabs won this war. All this has been effaced in the "Palestinian narrative."

Is it suggested that this falsification of history should be taught to schoolchildren - Jews and Arabs - in Israel?

It is true that the Arab population of Palestine suffered grievously during that war. But it is also beyond doubt that this tragedy was brought on them by the decisions taken by the Arab leadership. It is essential that this part of the history of Israel's War of Independence, of the "Israeli narrative" if you like, be taught in our schools to Jewish and Arab children alike. And if true peace is ever to reign among Israel and its Arab neighbors, it is important that the Arabs recognize that what they call the Nakba was a self-inflicted tragedy.

PMW: Jews persecuted in Europe because of their "great love of money:" PA TV history program

A history program on official Palestinian Authority television has repeated an odious PA distortion of history. 

Since its inception, the PA has been rewriting the history of Zionism, teaching that the Jews came to Israel not because of their historical ties to the land, but because Europe wanted to be rid of "the burden of its Jews," [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 12, 1998] and "wanted to get rid of the Jews and their problems,"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 15, 2009].

PMW: Rewriting history

Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel in order to deny Israel's right to exist is central to Palestinian Authority (PA) policy. Long before it started the Terror War in 2000, the PA was fighting a history war – erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history.

PMW: PA Chairman Abbas holds up map of "Palestine" that erases Israel

During a visit to Bethlehem this week, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas held up a stone model of a map of "Palestine" that erases Israel. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 26, 2010]

Mordechai Kedar in al-Jazeera about Jerusalem & Islam; Jerusalem is none of al-Jazeera's business

mkedar@mail.biu.ac.il Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University defends the Jewishness of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital for over 3000 years. He also defends the right of Israelis to settle in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank.

Gil Ronen

"We were here when your forefathers were drinking wine, burying their daughters alive and worshipping idols" -- this was just one of Bar Ilan University political scientist Dr. Mordechai Kedar's ripostes to questions by an Al Jazeera interviewer two weeks ago, in an interview that has received rave reviews from Israel-lovers the world over for its forcefulness. "They did not expect me to take the discussion to history and especially not to religion," Kedar told Israel National News. But discuss religion he did in the above video, reminding his interviewer that Jerusalem was not mentioned even once in the Koran and saying directly in fluent Arabic that "Jerusalem is not on the negotiating table," and that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, period."

"This was very aggravating" for the Al-Jazeera interviewer, Kedar explained, "because in the Islamic view, Islam came into the world to replace Judaism and Christianity, not to live side by side with them. And here, all of a sudden, the Jews are coming from exile and building their state again and G-d forbid they also regained Jerusalem." Judaism is thus regaining its meaning, and Islam is challenged by this, the Bar-Ilan professor explained. "The mere existence of the State of Israel and the fact that we are in Jerusalem is some kind of challenge to the legitimacy of Islam in their eyes," Kedar explained.

"This is not pro-Israel public relations," Dr. Kedar told Israel National News. "This is a battle for the Arab heart, which Israel is apparently losing because Israel gave up on the main tool which should have served it, which is an independent Israeli Zionist satellite channel in Arabic." Many Arabs, he said, would consider changing their views if such a channel were available.

PMW: PA TV awards $100 prizes for denial of Israel's existence

During the month of Ramadan, PA TV broadcast a special daily quiz program from refugee camps in Lebanon and in Syria, in which residents were asked to name five cities "in Palestine" or "the countries sharing borders with Palestine" in order to win $100 cash prizes. The PA TV host gave cash prizes to those who defined Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramle, and others as Palestinian cities and to those who disregarded the existence of Israel as a neighboring country. Referring to Israel, the host said, "All of Palestine is occupied."