‘Naqba Day’ Rally Staged at Tel Aviv U & First Time Ever Event Held at the UN in NYC

‘Naqba Day’ Rally Staged at Tel Aviv U & First Time Ever Event Held at the UN in NYC

Edited by: Fern Sidman

Dozens of protesters carrying Palestinian flags held a “Nakba Day” rally at Tel Aviv University on Monday. Also joining them were Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif who took part in the rally.

Each year, the campus of Tel Aviv University becomes a bastion of anti-Israel hate at the  controversial rally that is held there annually to mark Naqba Day.  Nakba Day (Nakba meaning “the Catastrophe”) is marked by Palestinians to commemorate the establishment of an independent, sovereign Jewish State. They also speak of their alleged displacement during and after the 1948 war which was launched by seven Arab states and local Palestinian militias against the newly founded State of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reported that during the rally on Monday, activists from the Im Tirtzu movement raised a sign reading “Nakba? Nonsense” and “they attacked, they abandoned, they exiled and they lost.”

Last year, clashes broke out between participants and counter-protesters at the scene, with police arresting a number of suspects amid the violence, the JPost reported.

Tel Aviv University was not the only place that a Naqba Day rally or event was held. For the first time in history, the United Nations is officially commemorating the Nakba, NPR reported that the international body is marking the 75th anniversary of the “displacement” on Monday to “serve as a reminder of the historic injustice suffered by the Palestinian people” and to spotlight the ongoing refugee crisis, organizers said.

Resistance remains: The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom were among 30 countries that voted against the U.N. resolution to adopt this year’s commemoration, according to the NPR report.

Israel National News reported that Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan sent a letter to all UN ambassadors ahead of Monday’s ‘Nakba Day’ event, calling on them to boycott the event.

“On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel declared its establishment in line with the United Nations’ 1947 Partition Plan. The Arab states, including the Palestinians who lived in Israel, rejected the Partition Plan, and immediately following Israel’s declaration of independence, five Arab armies invaded Israel in order to obliterate the nascent state,” the letter opened, adding: “75 years later, on Monday, May 15, the United Nations will commemorate the momentous occasion of Israel’s independence, not by celebrating Israel and its accomplishments, but rather by holding a special event in the General Assembly branding Israel’s establishment as the Nakba – the catastrophe in Arabic.”

The letter continues: “The thought that an international organization could mark the establishment of one of its member states as a catastrophe or disaster is both appalling and repulsive. This event is a blatant attempt to distort history, neglecting the fact that those who paint themselves as the victims were actually the aggressors who initiated a five-front war on the newly established State of Israel. This horrifying falsification must not be condoned in any way, shape, or form.”

Also on Monday, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas addressed the “Naqba Day” event at the United Nations. INN reported that he demanded that the United Nations take the unprecedented step of suspending Israel’s membership in the organization if it does not give in to his demands to create a Palestinian Arab state and to accept millions of descendants of refugees from the 1948 War of Independence.

Abbas claimed that Israel’s acceptance as a UN member was contingent on its fulfillment of the 1947 UN Partition Plan and General Assembly Resolution 194, which called for refugees who were willing to live in peace to be allowed to return to their former homes following the war, according to the INN report. “Forcing Israel to implement these two resolutions was a condition, a prerequisite for their membership in the UN at the time. However, sadly, certain countries — we all know we are talking about, we will mention them later — in this organization have deliberately obstructed the implementation of these resolutions in a practice that undermines justice, ethics and human values.”

“We demand today, officially, in accordance with international law and international resolutions, to make sure that Israel respects these resolutions, or suspend Israel’s membership in the UN, particularly since Israel never fulfilled its obligations and the prerequisites for its membership in this organization that they committed to implementing,” he said, according to INN.

The PA chairman further accused the British and American governments of creating the State of Israel in order to “get rid of their Jews.”

“Britain and the United States specifically bear political and ethical responsibility directly for the Nakba of the Palestinian people, because they took part in rendering our people a victim when they decided to establish and plant another entity in our historic homeland for their own colonial goals. These countries wanted to get rid of their Jews and benefit from their presence in Palestine,” Abbas said.

INN also reported that Abbas further stated that right-wing Israeli Ministers “Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are calling for the expelling of Palestinians out of their homes and demolishing their homes and displacing them, which the Israeli government itself is doing led by who? It is led by Netanyahu.”

“Netanyahu and other and even worse people, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, this is what they’re calling for. Some people are calling for massacring Palestinians and this is what happened in Huwara,” he said, according to the report.

Abbas falsely accused Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of questioning why the residents of Huwara were not massacred.

“When things happened in Huwara, Ben-Gvir said: ‘Why didn’t you massacre them?’ So what happened in Huwara, the killing and burning of houses and properties by terrorist settler gangs, happened under the protection of the Israeli army,” he claimed, INN reported.

The Zionist movement accepted the 1947 Partition Plan, Resolution 181, while the Arab side rejected it and immediately launched attacks against the Jewish population of what would become the State of Israel in an effort to prevent the establishment of a Jewish State. INN reported that both the Partition Plan and Resolution 194 were General Assembly resolutions, which are legally non-binding and irrelevant to Israel’s acceptance as a member of the UN, contrary to Abbas’ claims.

Also on Monday, INN reported that the Tishreen Association held an event at its headquarters in the city of Tayibe to mark ‘Nakba Day.”  INN reported that it was hosted by the left-wing Lochmim L’Shalom (Combatants for Peace) organization.

Pro-Palestinian organizations often hold ‘Nakba Day events on May 15 to mourn the failure of the effort to destroy the nascent State of Israel in 1948.INN reported that Tishreen received NIS 142,050 in funding from the Israeli Culture and Sports Ministry in 2022. In 2021, the organization received NIS 134,235 from the Culture Ministry.

Section 3-b of the Budget Foundations Law authorizes the Finance Minister to reduce funding to an organization that carries out “activity that is contrary to the principles of the state,” including by “commemorating Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning.”

INN reported that Shai Glick, the CEO of the B’Tzalmo organization, wrote to Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar to demand that he enforce the law by removing the Tishreen Association’s funding.

“I would appreciate it if you instructed the staff of your ministry not to cooperate with this association and not to budget them a single penny, in accordance with the law,” Glick wrote.

Also on Monday, INN reported that the international grassroots movement ‘EndJewHatred’ had plans to mobilize outside the United Nations Headquarters on the corner of 42nd Street and 1st Ave, to stand in solidarity with citizens of Israel who were under terrorist attack by Islamic Jihad last week and to protest against the “blatant Jew-hatred displayed by the UN.”

INN also reported that the movement stated: “As Islamist terrorists fire hundreds of rockets targeting innocent civilians in Israel – a war crime – the United Nations (UN) is failing to support and stand in solidarity with the Jewish people. Instead, it is hosting events on Monday that call the independence of the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people from colonial rule and occupation a “catastrophe” (nakba). The UN is giving a platform to, and enabling, the same vile Jew-hatred that fuels the terrorist rocket attacks.”

“The UN’s tacit endorsement of the same hate-filled rhetoric used by the terrorists attacking civilians is only the latest example of the systemic Jew-hatred in that institution. Another glaring example is the overt bias and bigotry shown by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who not only has met with the same terrorist groups carrying out war crimes against Israeli civilians, but has suggested they have a ‘right’ to carry out these attacks.

“By hosting events that decry the existence of the state of Israel, the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, and by tacitly supporting the right of terrorist organizations to target civilians, the UN is stoking the flames of violence and perpetuating a cycle of human suffering that should be an anathema to its core values. The #EndJewHatred movement calls on the UN to reject Jew-hatred and stand in solidarity with the Jewish people as they celebrate the 75th anniversary of their independence from colonial rule.”