![]() Thus, even as early as 1937, Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, wrote in a letter to his son Amos: “We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places. ![]() Israel was not born in sin-with a few justified exceptions there were no expulsions, nor was there any policy of harming innocents. ![]() Though this Palestinian narrative is credulously accepted by many Europeans and an increasing number of “progressive” Americans, it is nonetheless false, and contradicts basic historical facts. If, as is believed almost uniformly throughout the Arab world, Israel was born in original sin, if the Jews really did ransack placid Palestinian villages, murdering children in front of parents and parents in front of children and expelling whoever was left, then Palestinian hatred for Israel and Jews would be understandable, as would their fundamental refusal to really make peace with Israel. In contrast, Israelis view their War of Independence as a battle of the few against the many, a battle forced on a beleaguered Jewish community by Palestinian militias and five invading Arab armies. This narrative is summed up in the Arabic word “nakba,” or catastrophe. In the years since Israel’s rebirth in 1948 a narrative has taken root, a story of well-armed and financed Jewish immigrants overrunning peaceful Palestinian villages, brutally expelling Palestinians from home and country. ![]()
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