On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq invaded the young state to destroy it. Israel, however, prevailed, and has thrived ever since. This moment marked the realization of the Jewish people’s 2,000-year dream of returning to self-governance in their ancestral homeland after centuries of exile, persecution, and the recent horror of the Holocaust.
On that day, Israel took its cue from Resolution 181 of the UN General Assembly, which approved the partition of Palestine into an Arab state as well as a Jewish one. May 14, 1948, could have been a Palestinian Independence Day too, but the Palestinian Arabs refused to accept the existence of a Jewish State, no matter the size, in Palestine. The Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha famously declared before the invasion: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres” – underscoring that the war was initiated to prevent Jewish self-determination.
For that reason, on May 15 each year, rather than celebrating their independence, the Palestinians observe “Nakba Day.” Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe, which is how Palestinians describe the founding of the State of Israel, and Israel’s victory against those invading Arab forces during the 1948-1949 war. This narrative often omits that Arab leadership rejected the UN partition plan that would have created both Jewish and Arab states, choosing war instead.
Indeed, that war led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being displaced and becoming refugees. Of course, those refugees suffered personal and collective trauma, which has become a cornerstone of Palestinian identity. Their suffering has been exacerbated by the refusal of neighbouring Arab states to which many fled to integrate the Palestinians, often denying them citizenship and other privileges, and continuing to regard them and their descendants as “refugees” many decades after their arrival. Palestinians who were displaced to other areas within the Palestinian territories are also considered “refugees” in the Palestinian narrative. Simultaneously, approximately 850,000 Jews were forced to flee Arab countries after 1948, creating a parallel refugee crisis that is rarely acknowledged in discussions of the conflict.
Many thousands of Arabs accepted Israeli sovereignty in 1948 and are today Israeli citizens. They mark Independence Day as Israeli Arabs, who celebrate full social and legal equality and citizenship in the Middle East’s only democracy. Today, approximately 2 million Arab citizens comprise over 20% of Israel’s population, serving in the parliament, supreme court, and all sectors of society, while maintaining their distinct cultural and religious identities.
Understanding both narratives – Israeli Independence and Palestinian Nakba – requires acknowledging the complex historical circumstances, including Jewish persecution culminating in the Holocaust, Arab rejection of the partition plan, the invasion by five Arab armies, Palestinian displacement, and the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands.
Sources
[1] Israel State Archives, “Declaration of Independence,” 1948.
[2] The Arab League, “Official Statements,” May 1948.
[3] United Nations, “UN Partition Plan Documentation,” 1947.
[4] World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, “Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands,” 2023.
[5] Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, “Population Demographics,” 2024.