Ben Dror Yemini...the Nakba is a huge distortion
The biggest lie of an industry of lies, even in Israel, is the Palestinian Nakba. Yet nobody hears of the Jewish Nakba, which happened on a far larger scale, and was premeditated by the Arab League in 1947. The mass circulation daily Maariv columnist Ben Dror Yemini blames the Palestinian propaganda machine on the one hand, and ignorance on the other. (With thanks: Yoram)
"This distortion is their huge achievement. Because it creates a huge distortion. There was also a Jewish Nakba. After all, Jews experienced ethnic cleansing, a much more difficult experience than the flight and expulsion of Arabs from Palestine.
The property expropriated from the Jews in Arab countries was greater than the property left behind by the Arabs who left Israeli territory. The harassment of Jews from Arab lands was on a larger scale.
It also turns out that the mass deportation was in a master plan decided by the Arab League. But who has ever heard of it? Who knows of it? The decision to expel Arab Jews was made in 1947, before the mass flight of the Palestinians from the territories of the British Mandate.
Now, let's think - how often we heard last week, or in recent years, of the much more serious Jewish Nakba, and how much about the Nakba? The ratio is about a thousand to one.
How many in Israel and the world have heard of Deir Yassin, and how few about the
pogrom against the Jews in Aden, which was four months earlier, in December 1947?
In schools, across the country and worldwide the Khirbet Hizah is shown. Not the Khirbet Aden. There is no malice. Palestinians have a sophisticated propaganda machine here, on the one hand, and ignorance on the other.
In Israel and abroad, it's not just the media. Also books. Study in Israel is free of any mention of the Jewish Nakba. There is nothing.
Systematic brainwashing works. Israeli students are forced (to believe the lies) before they come to celebrate Literature at Tel Aviv (university). We are now seeing the grim results. The success of the industry of lies is not the number of participants in events commemorating the Nakba, on campuses in Tel Aviv or Haifa. These are still few. But the media and academic representatives are celebrating their presence. It's a tremendous lie.
Read blog in full - scroll down (Hebrew)
Ben Dror Yemini: And the world is lying: the truth about refugees
Ben-Dror Yemini is absolutely right about ignorance on our side, ignorance which Israeli govts have failed to correct over the years. I think that the present govt and the present minister of education, Gid`on Sa`ar are trying to correct this ignorance. But they are moving too slowly. Maybe they feel that they have to be cautious on this subject because of the ingrained prejudices within the educational and academic establishment. Yits'haq Kerem, who teaches at the univ in Salonika, Greece, of all places, told me that he had tried to get entrenched old-timers in the ministry of education to give proper attention to the history and specific cultural contributions of Eastern Jews. But they listened and continued with their old, failing and failure-producing practices and curricula. I think that some people in the ministry have been rewarded over the years for being ignorant, and not only about Jewish history in Arab lands.
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