Re “The Catastrophe Continues”
In “The Catastrophe Continues” (June issue of the Community Alliance), the authors present a familiar but flawed account: that Jews “stole” Arab land in 1948, displacing Palestinians who have since lived in unjust exile. However emotionally resonant this narrative may be, it distorts essential history.
From the 1880s through the mid-1940s, under Ottoman and then British control, Jewish immigrants legally purchased land in their ancestral homeland. Despite outbreaks of Arab violence, they focused on building a robust community with the goal of peaceful sovereignty in a modest portion of that land.
In 1947, the UN proposed a two-state solution. The Jews accepted; the Arab leadership rejected it and went to war. When Israel declared independence in 1948, five Arab nations invaded. Though vastly outnumbered, Israel prevailed. Some Arabs remained and became Israeli citizens. Many fled, encouraged by their leaders, who expected a quick victory and return. But they lost the war they started.
That humiliating defeat is now called the Nakba—“catastrophe.” But it was not the result of unprovoked Jewish aggression; it was the outcome of a failed attempt to destroy a nascent Jewish state. The tragedy of displacement is real, as is the unbearable shame of lopsided military failure, but denial of responsibility for that war has fueled a narrative of eternal victimhood rather than reconciliation.
The heart of this conflict has never been about land. It is about Jews who want to be sovereign in a limited part of the land, and Arabs who don’t want Jews to be sovereign in any part of the land.
As for the accusation of “genocide,” it is not only false, it has been leveled for decades, even in times of relative calm. Today, the only party openly calling for genocide (aside from its principal, Iran) is Hamas, as made clear in both their charter and their actions.
Yes, the loss of innocent life in any war is tragic and should grieve every decent person. But peace cannot be achieved through denial, distortion or hate. It will only come when Palestinian leaders—and their supporters—face and acknowledge historical realities, accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, reject terrorism and commit to building a viable, peaceful and self-governing society.
Rachel Youdelman
Clovis
Why Aren’t Democrats Supporting Immigrants?
As a loyal Democrat, I am getting many calls from colleagues and social media as to what direction the Democratic Party is going. I only share what is being communicated. Why are Democrats aligning themselves with Republicans and hurting our immigrant communities? Is the new vision for Democrats to abandon our immigrant communities?
Eliseo Gamino
Firebaugh
Unheard Voices
Dr. Leni Villagomez Reeves wrote a well-reasoned summary of the speakers’ presentations for the third annual Malcolm X El-Shabazz birthday event held on May 18. (See “Honoring Our Revolutionaries” in the June edition of the Community Alliance.)
I learned a lot from Dr. [Michael Onyebuchi] Eze’s presentation. However, my major criticism of this event is that there were three Black public intellectuals who attended this event, Dr. Malik Simba, Kehinde Solwazi and myself, and at the end of all the presentations there was no time allocated for us to ask questions addressed to the presenters.
This was a disservice to the public intellectuals in the audience and to the non-intellectuals in the audience who could have learned from the questions we would have asked and from the answers to these questions from the presenters.
I felt intellectually unfulfilled at the conclusion of this event.
Hopefully, they will do better next year.
Homer Gee Greene Jr.
Fresno
Republicans Against Trump
For most of my adult life while living in the Central Valley, I wrote letters to your newspaper critical of some policies of the Republican Party—whether the issue was war and peace, unionization of farmworkers, civil rights, media news coverage of various issues, etc.
This letter is directed to my friends in the Republican Party throughout the Central Valley asking them to publicly unite under the banner of Republicans Against Trump. Why? President Donald J. Trump is not a Republican by any definition of what made up the GOP.
President Trump is a serious danger to world peace and domestic tranquillity. My differences with President Trump are not found in present-day Democratic Party policies and Republican Party policies but in the continued preservation of the Constitution of the United States and by extension the elimination of fascism and potential anarchy in the streets.
Vincent J. Lavery
Ireland
