Israel slams UN after vote to mark Israel's rebirth as 'catastrophe'

The United Nations has this week passed a series of anti-Israel resolutions including one calling the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 a “catastrophe”.

The “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic) is what the Palestinians call the events following the rebirth of the modern state of Israel. During that time, Arab leaders urged Palestinians to flee Israel so they could launch a war and wipe out the Jewish people. When the Arab armies invaded, Israel repelled the attack and saved the Jewish people, however, Israel lost some territory with Jordan occupying Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Muslims who had left the country were now stranded in neighbouring Arab countries.

This became known as the Nakba and the Palestinians have used it as propaganda against Israel ever since, with the Palestinians falsely claiming that people fled the land of Israel because of persecution. The truth is that the vast majority left because Arab leaders in neighbouring countries ordered them to do so.

The real catastrophe was what happened since Israel’s rebirth both in the fact that Palestinians have refused to accept the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Also, it was the Jews of the Middle East who suffered the real “Nakba”. More than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee their communities in many Arab nations due to persecution and laws being passed to discriminate against them and expel them. It was a purely antisemitic act that the world seems to have ignored. Thankfully, those Jews found a home in Israel.

The UN resolution that passed this week called for a “commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Nakba, including by organizing a high-level event at the General Assembly Hall” in May 2023. It also urges the “dissemination of relevant archives and testimonies.”

The initiative was sponsored by Egypt, Jordan, Senegal, Tunisia, Yemen and the Palestinians and passed by a vote of 90 in favor, 30 against and 47 abstentions.

Thankfully, many of Israel’s allies voted against this shameful resolution, including the United States, Canada and the UK, as well as most European Union countries.

Today the #UNGA passsed a shameful resolution calling for an official event to commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba” on the 75th Anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. By passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict pic.twitter.com/RH3cHVWdT1

— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) November 30, 2022

As expected, Israel has slammed the bias and said the move contributes to ongoing friction between Israel and the Palestinians rather than resolving the issue.

“What would you say if the international community celebrated the establishment of your country as a disaster? What a disgrace,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said after the vote.

Just days earlier, Israel launched an exhibition to highlight the “Jewish Nakba” and tell the story of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and Iran.

Erdan said he launched the exhibition as an attempt “to fight in every way the false narrative that the Palestinians spread at the UN.”

במלאת 75 שנה להחלטת כ״ט בנובמבר, הצלחנו להציב תערוכה באו״ם, שמציגה את האמת: מי שבאמת סבל מ״נכבה״ בעקבות ההחלטה זה העם היהודי- כמעט מיליון יהודים שגורשו מארצות ערב ומאיראן. מאז ההצבעה שאותה הערבים דחו, מספרים באו״ם סיפור שקרי לחלוטין על ה״אסון״ שהפלשתינים הביאו על עצמם. צפו> pic.twitter.com/3Awlw5znHE

— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) November 29, 2022