What "Nakba Day" Is Really About

In August of 1929, Hajj Amin Al Husseini, who was at that time the Mufti of Jerusalem, incited a series of anti-Jewish massacres that left hundreds of people dead. Al-Husseini provoked the local Muslims by claiming that a Jewish religious gathering near the Western Wall was actually part of a plot by the Jews to take over Muslim holy sites, and quoted from the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion to buttress his point. He also made the emphatically religious statement: "He who kills a Jew - his place in the life after death is assured!"

Historian Jennie Lebel describes what happened next as follows:

...Arab crowds streamed into Jerusalem from all towns, carrying truncheons, and a bloody anti-Jewish pogrom started...

After prayer in the mosque, there occurred attacks of Arabs on Jews who were praying in front of the Western Wall. The disturbances spread quickly throughout the whole town. 133 Jews were killed, and 239 severely wounded. The orthodox Jews suffered most casualties, in spite of the fact that they not only did not support Zionism, but even distinguished themselves as anti-Zionists...

A week later...the Mufti struck simultaneously in seven places. The 1929 riots culminated in the worst and most painful massacre in Hebron, where the attackers stormed houses, slaughtered 64 and wounded 85 Jews. If it had not been for some friendly Arab families, not a single Jewish soul in Hebron would have remained alive. In Safed 45 Jews were killed and their bodies were brutally mutilated. The Jewish quarter was set on fire. The police interfered only in Jaffa and thus prevented a renewed massacre in this town as well. Much of the Jewish Yishuv (Hebrew name for the Jewish community) had been totally destroyed. (pp.25-26)

In an interview on Palestinian television this past Friday, Sara Jaber, a 92 year old Palestinian woman who lived through these events, fondly recalled the Hebron massacre, and prayed for another one just like it:

Interviewer: So you remember May 15, 1948, the day of the Nakba [catastrophe, i.e. the day of Israel's creation].

Sara Jaber: Why wouldn't I remember? May Allah support us. I hope we forget those days. Allah willing, you will bury [Israel], and massacre the Jews with your own hands. Allah willing, you will massacre them like we massacred them in Hebron.

Interviewer: What does this day mean to you? You have lived 63 years since the Nakba. You have experienced the entire Nakba...

Sara Jaber: 92 years. That's 92. I lived through the British era, and I lived through the massacre of the Jews in Hebron. We, the people of Hebron, massacred the Jews. My father massacred them, and brought back some stuff...

It is in this historical context that we must consider the events currently taking place in Israel, where Muslims from surrounding nations have literally invaded Israel to "protest" against its mere existence. These Muslims' anger has nothing to do with Zionism or with any "occupation" or "oppression" committed by Israel, just as the 1929 Hebron massacre - in which anti-Zionist Jews were butchered by Muslims years before Israel "stole" a single piece of land from any "Palestinians" - had nothing to do with any provocation whatsoever.

These events have solely to do with a pathological hatred of Jews, which stems from the foundational sources of Islam, including the Qur'an. Below are some of the Qur'an's sentiments on Jews, along with one apocalyptic hadith and the views of al-Jahiz, a ninth-century Iraqi polymath who wrote a treatise explaining why the Muslims of that time - over a thousand years before the advent of Zionism - hated the Jews more than they hated the Christians:

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“And when ye said: O Moses! We are weary of one kind of food; so call upon thy Lord for us that He bring forth for us of that which the earth groweth – of its herbs and its cucumbers and its corn and its lentils and its onions. He said: Would ye exchange that which is higher for that which is lower? Go down to settled country, thus ye shall get that which ye demand. And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them and they were visited with wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully. That was for their disobedience and transgression.” (Qur'an 2:61)

“And ye know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: Be ye apes, despised and hated!” (2:65)

“That they said in boast, ‘We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah’;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not.” (4:157)

“The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so. Nay, but both His hands are spread out wide in bounty. He bestoweth as He will. That which hath been revealed unto thee from thy Lord is certain to increase the contumacy and disbelief of many of them, and We have cast among them enmity and hatred till the Day of Resurrection. As often as they light a fire for war, Allah extinguisheth it. Their effort is for corruption in the land, and Allah loveth not corrupters.” (5:64)

“Those of the Children of Israel who went astray were cursed by the tongue of David, and of Jesus, son of Mary. That was because they rebelled and used to transgress.” (5:78)

“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans...” (5:82)

“The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'” (Sahih Bukhari v.4, b.52, no.176-177 and others)

“I shall begin to enumerate the causes which made the Christians more liked by the masses...than the Jews, more endeared, less treacherous, less unbelieving, and less deserving of punishment...

“The first cause is as follows: The Jews were the neighbours of the Muslims in Medina and other places...When the [Muslim] Emigrants [from Mecca] became the neighbours of the Jews [in Medina]...the Jews began to envy the Muslims the blessings of their new faith, and the union which resulted after dissension. They proceeded to undermine the belief of our [i.e. the Muslim] masses, and to lead them astray. They aided our enemies and those envious of us. From mere misleading speech and stinging words they plunged into an open declaration of enmity, so that the Muslims mobilised their forces, exerting themselves morally and materially to banish the Jews and destroy them. Their strife became long-drawn and widespread, so that it worked itself up into a rage, and created yet greater animosity and more intensified rancor...

“Another circumstance, which is the most potent cause, is the...interpretation given by the masses to the Qur'anic verse 5:82 [see above]...” ~ Al-Jahiz (d.869), "Why The Muslims Prefer The Christians To the Jews"