Comments for A little respect for the Nakba - Jerusalem Post »
Posted By dissent 6 months, 4 weeks ago in NewsIt's touch-and-go now whether Israel Beiteinu's "Nakba law" will make it through the Knesset, but even if it does, I have no doubt it will be struck down by the Supreme Court. The law would make it a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison, to publicly mourn the 1948 Palestinian Nakba ("catastrophe"), which a small but influential minority of Israeli Arabs do around Yom Ha'atzma'ut.
The Nakba law is a gross violation of freedom of expression, something the Supreme Court wouldn't tolerate. Still, the controversy is making Jews and Arabs in this country hate each other just a little bit more, so Israel Beiteinu is getting what it wants.
Among Jews, the debate seems to be between nationalists who say the State of Israel shouldn't allow citizens to brand its creation a "catastrophe," and liberals who say such gestures are infuriating but, for the sake of democracy, must be allowed.
Yet even the liberal argument here is misguided, because when Israeli Arabs speak of the catastrophe of 1948, they don't mean the creation of the State of Israel, they mean the price that Palestinians, including themselves, paid for it.
By nakba, they mean the 700,000 Palestinians who became refugees; they mean the 400-odd Arab villages that Israel bulldozed after the War of Independence; they mean the loss of their national home.
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