Israeli media says 1234 missiles have been fired from Gaza since the start of the escalation

‘Nakba’ commemoration elicits racism from right-wing Zionists, silence from the liberals

“The Palestinians are addicted to an endless cycle of ‘nakbas’” the Jewish News Syndicate tells us. This celebration of Israel’s founding describes the country as “ever-miraculous” for Jews and never mentions Palestinian history. This podcast by Dan Senor and Daniel Gordis also overlooks the Nakba in hailing Israel’s foundation– “magical,” “mythical,” “something that defies imagination,” “an unbelievable story,” Gordis exults– in which a Jewish state is born three years after Auschwitz.

Some day my community’s refusal to acknowledge Palestinian history will be a source for mortification (I believe), but on this anniversary it’s clear that any mention of the Nakba makes American Jewish leadership extremely uncomfortable.

When a Jewish academic brought up the Nakba at a Center for Jewish History event commemorating Israel’s founding, there were boos and cries of “Shame” from the New York audience. That conference also hosted Einat Wilf– an Israeli “liberal” but a Nakba denier, who wrote a year ago that “the Nakba was the failure” of Arab armies to defeat Zionism after Israel established itself on May 14, 1948. (This is a misrepresentation of Palestinian history.)

Liberal Zionists in the U.S. are not much better than Wilf. They largely ignore the Nakba. For instance, a J Street official celebrating Israel’s 75th birthday mentioned the “occupation” but left out the Nakba, and then recommended this video aimed at American Jews, which declares of the recent protests in Israel: “We are literally fighting for our survival, not just as a democracy, but as the homeland for the entire Jewish people.”

That is the Zionist credo, of course. But if you sanctify Israel as the homeland for Jews everywhere, it’s hard to accept the fact that when the state was formed, Israeli leaders sought a large Jewish majority, and in order to achieve that they pursued policies of ethnic persecution/cleansing, which have not ended.

Not surprisingly, those Jews in the U.S. who have a strong stance on the Nakba are anti-Zionist. “In Israel, as well as in the U.S., the Nakba is often disregarded or denied altogether. Instead, the focus is on the creation of Israel as a haven for Jews, completely ignoring the mass dispossession of the Palestinian people,” writes Donna Nevel of Jews Say No and Jewish Voice for Peace.

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Rabbi Brant Rosen also put the Nakba at the center of his reflections on Israel’s founding: “[T]he over 700,000 Palestinians refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes and forbidden to return were decidedly not included as part of the newly established nation.”

Jewish Voice for Peace is taking an active part in Nakba Day events, and puts Nakba education at the center of its work.

But those voices are exceptional. Even leading leftwing groups like IfNotNow and Jews for Economic and Racial Justice don’t put much emphasis on the Nakba.

And establishment organizations are way worse. In celebrating Israel’s 75th birthday last week, one liberal Zionist organization after another left the Nakba out.

The New Israel Fund sent out a map of Israel to its mailing list, covered with pro-Israel slogans.

Yossi Alpher at Americans for Peace Now described Israel’s achievements after 75 years and simply erased the Nakba. The downside of the past 75 years, he says, is “the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians, failure to achieve universal recognition of the country’s capital Jerusalem, failure to achieve recognized borders,” etc.

Nakba was also a hushed whisper in the Progressive Israel Network’s announcement of an “energizing gathering” for Israel’s 75th: “The creation of the State of Israel represents one of the most profound and important achievements of Jewish history, even as the day means something very different for Palestinians,” it said. So the Nakba was an achievement?

Nakba is, at best, obliquely mentioned in this J Street celebration of Israel’s 75th anniversary of independence in late April. Some statements in that post amount to Nakba denial.

For instance, Rabbi John L. Rosove, a chair of J Street’s rabbinic cabinet, said reestablishing Israel was “a herculean task.” And offered this Hollywood version of that period:

As time passes, however, it is easy for us in the 21st century to forget or to take for granted how very difficult it was for the early Zionist pioneers and state’s founders to settle the land, protect themselves, renew Hebrew into a modern language, welcome immigration waves, build cities, towns, kibbutzim, and moshavim, hospitals and universities, forge cooperative relationships with surrounding Arab villages and Bedouin camps, and redefine what it means to be Jewish in the modern era.

Another chair of that committee, Rabbi Andrea London, acknowledged that the Palestinians’ “displacement from their homeland” began with the Balfour Declaration of 1917– very euphemistic. London left out the word Nakba, preferring to focus on the occupation.

On this 75th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, we need to open our minds to the Palestinian perspective and recognize our role in enabling Israel’s entrenchment of the Occupation and persecution of the Palestinians.

Today Tlaib leads seven Congresspeople sponsoring a Nakba commemoration bill— all familiar names to us in the Palestinian solidarity community. But U.S. politicians are generally obedient to the Israel lobby; even progressive congresspeople are no better than the liberal Zionist line.

Look at this letter from Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jamie Raskin to Israeli protesters celebrating the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding and hailing it as a “vibrant democracy.” Palestinians are barely mentioned in that letter.

While Democratic Majority for Israel tweeted out this billboard, which is surely accurate with respect to Democratic presidents, and then quoted then-Senator John Kennedy’s slavish speech to Israel lobbyists in 1960 as he was running for president.

Democratic Majority for Israel celebrates uniform Democratic presidents' support for Israel in May 2023.

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Kennedy spoke to the Zionists of America convention in New York, and his remarks are charged with Nakba denial. Kennedy was running to Richard Nixon’s right on Israel and, urging a “reconsideration of the Arab refugee problem,” he left out Palestinian refugees in relating Israel’s creation:

I returned in 1951 to see the grandeur of Israel. In 3 years this new state had opened its doors to 600,000 immigrants and refugees. Even while fighting for its own survival, Israel had given new hope to the persecuted and new dignity to the pattern of Jewish life.

That official denial of the Nakba does not end.

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement celebrating 75 years of Israel’s existence, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) promptly amended him: “What he failed to mention, however, was that Israel was founded through the Nakba: when Israeli forces ethnically cleansed at least 700,000 Palestinians, expropriated their land and property, demolished over 500 villages, and banned refugees from returning to their homes. 75 years later, there remains a lot of work to do in educating Canadians about this catastrophe.”

Today at least, the left is taking on these mythologies and trying to raise awareness. Rashida Tlaib staged a commemoration of the Nakba at the Capitol to an overflow crowd, an event enabled by Senator Bernie Sanders. And some inside the Jewish community are paying attention.

#Nakba75

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As we approach the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) we call on our supporters worldwide to join us in solidarity by taking 5 actions to help #EndIsraeliApartheid.

“One of the most important relationships we’ll have is the relationship we have with our mothers.”

#HappyMothersDay

The 75th anniversary of Al Nakba (the catastrophe) in 1948, when Zionist terrorist gangs began to carry out massacres, ethnic cleansing and the seizure of Palestinian land to create the state of Israel.

Join Us 15th May 2023

#Nakba75

75th anniversary of the Nakba

Every year on 15 May Palestinians mark the Nakba, "catastrophe" in English, when around 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of Israel in 1948.

It is an event that has shaped politics in Israel and Palestine ever since, and one which Palestinians say continues today in different forms of war, occupation, siege, home demolitions, land confiscations and more.

The events of the Nakba can be traced back to 1917, when Britain, in the "Balfour Declaration", promised Zionists leaders that it would help establish "in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people".

After capturing Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One (1914-18), Britain ruled over Palestine between 1923-1948 under a "mandate" from the League of Nations.

Under 25 years of British rule, Palestinians were repeatedly suppressed, while European Jewish immigration flourished and Zionist groups were trained and armed.

With Britain deciding to end its mandate over Palestine in 1947, and the United Nations failing to enforce an alternative administration, Zionists began attacking Palestinians as part of a systemic campaign of forced expulsion.

By the end of the war, Zionist forces had killed 13,000 Palestinians, destroyed and depopulated around 530 villages and towns, committed at least 30 massacres and expelled 750,000 people.

Around 150,000 Palestinians remained within the boundaries of the newly formed state of Israel, many of them internally displaced.

Those expelled in 1948 and their descendants number 5.8 million refugees today, living mostly in neighbouring Arab countries.

Israel has never allowed Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, making their plight the longest unresolved refugee crisis in modern history.

#Nakba75

Pro-Palestinians in Vienna commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba or catastrophe, which refers to the mass forced expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of ‘Israel’ in 1948.

#Nakba75

Bangkok, Thailand – The crowd of thousands in central Bangkok erupted into deafening cheers at the arrival of Pita Limjaroenrat, the opposition politician who led his party to a stunning victory over the military-backed groups that have dominated Thai politics for nearly a decade.

Smiling and waving from the back of a pick-up truck, the charismatic 42-year-old businessman led a short victory rally on Monday, from Bangkok’s Democracy Monument to a plaza in front of the capital’s Metropolitan Administration Office, where he declared a “new day, bright with hope” for Thailand.

“Anything is possible in our country when we all work together,” he told a sea of supporters clad in his Move Forward Party’s signature orange.

“The next prime minister of Thailand will be named Pita Limjaroenrat and soon, we will change this country together.”

The Arab League's 32nd summit in Jeddah concluded by emphasizing the Palestinian cause as central for Arab nations and crucial for regional stability.

Thousands of Israeli settlers are demonstrating again in Tel Aviv against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan.

King Abdullah II of Jordan: "We cannot abandon our pursuit for the achievement of a just peace, which will not be achieved if the Palestinian people do not get their right to an independent and sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital".

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese: "It is not 75 years from the Nakba, it is 75 years of the Nakba for the Palestinian people."
#Nakba75

Kuwaiti fencer Abd Al-Aziz Al-Shatti has withdrawn from the 2023 Fencing World Cup in Turkey, declining to compete against an Israeli opponent.

The Arab League's 32nd summit in Jeddah concluded by emphasizing the Palestinian cause as central for Arab nations and crucial for regional stability.

REMINDER: 2 million Uyghur Muslims are in concentration camps in China 🇨🇳

Chat control violates the right to privacy

The EU Commission's proposal provides for a whole range of obligations for certain online services such as internet access providers, app stores, hosting platforms and interpersonal communications services. Interpersonal communications services are, for example, email services such as GMail or instant messaging services such as WhatsApp. The term “chat control" is often used colloquially to refer to the EU Commission’s draft regulation as a whole. Chat control in the narrower sense is the part of the draft according to which authorities can oblige providers of communications services such as WhatsApp to monitor private communications. This is a particularly serious restriction on the right to privacy and the protection of personal data (Art. 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): The monitoring is not limited to persons specifically suspected of having committed a crime. Additionally, unlike data retention, which is also incompatible with the Charter but is limited to metadata – i.e. information about who communicated with whom at what time – chat control includes the surveillance of the contents of private messages.

Authorities can impose so-called "detection orders" against providers of interpersonal communications services. This means that authorities can, for example, oblige messenger services to monitor the communications of all their users. It is sufficient that the authority has identified a significant risk that the service in question is being used for the dissemination of depictions of sexual violence against children. Detection orders do not have to be limited to monitoring the communications of specific users who are under suspicion. Instead, authorities can order that the content of all communications of all users of the service be monitored preventively. This is therefore a form of mass surveillance without probable cause.
Such a detection order can oblige service providers to filter content for known as well as unknown depictions of sexual violence against children. In addition, they can include an obligation to detect attempts by adults to solicit minors (grooming). Content detected in this way must be forwarded by the service providers to a newly created EU centre, which will pass the information on to the law enforcement authorities of the member states after a plausibility check. Although service providers are free to choose which technologies they use to comply with the detection order, these technologies must in any case be able to analyse the contents of communications. In order to detect known depictions of sexual violence against children, an automated comparison of sent media files with a reference database may be sufficient. To detect unknown depictions of sexual violence and grooming, machine learning must be used to analyse the semantic content of chats. These methods are particularly prone to error: they only make an assumption about the meaning of the content based on patterns in the analysed communication - without actually understanding the content or the context of the conversation. In its case law on data retention, the European Court of Justice has indicated that indiscriminate mass surveillance of the contents of communications would violate the essence of the right to privacy.

Indiscriminate mass surveillance is incompatible with the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection under the EU Charter, whether it involves encrypted or unencrypted communications. At the centre of public criticism of chat control, however, is the fact that the draft regulation does not exempt end-to-end encrypted communication services from detection orders. These services ensure that only the people involved in a private conversation can read the communication content – neither the service provider nor third parties can decrypt it. More and more people are specifically choosing end-to-end encrypted messengers to protect themselves.

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If the provider of such a messenger receives a detection order, it cannot reject it on the grounds that the service provider cannot access the contents of its users’ communications. The EU Commission's draft pays lip service to the importance of end-to-end encryption. However, service providers may only choose between technologies that allow them to detect illegal content in private communications, it states. In other words, service providers who offer end-to-end encryption without backdoors will not be able to implement any detection orders they may receive from authorities and thus come into conflict with the law. This attack on end-to-end encryption increases the intensity of the restriction of fundamental rights caused by indiscriminate mass surveillance.

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Threat of chilling effects for communication freedoms

The European Court of Justice has already warned on several occasions that indiscriminate mass surveillance has an indirect negative impact on freedom of expression (Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): communication participants are prevented from freely expressing their opinions if they cannot be sure of the confidentiality of their communications. This particularly affects professional secrecy holders, such as journalists communicating with their sources, whistleblowers and opposition activists. This danger will be exacerbated if the Chat Control Regulation, as proposed by the EU Commission, attacks the end-to-end encryption of messenger services. The aforementioned groups of people use such messengers for good reason. If this possibility is taken away from them because service providers have to weaken end-to-end encryption, considerable "chilling effects", i.e. a deterrent effect for the exercise of the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information, can be expected.

This effect occurs regardless of whether service providers monitor the contents of private communications through a backdoor in the encryption technology or by scanning the content on the user's device before it is encrypted (client-side scanning). The communication participants expect their communication to remain confidential from the moment when they enter a message into the chat programme on their mobile phone – not only at the moment when this message is delivered to its addressee. The decisive factor is that the expectation of confidentiality and integrity of the communication process is shaken to such an extent that those affected feel compelled to restrict the exercise of their freedom of communication themselves.

Age verification endangers freedom of communication

The draft regulation stipulates that all providers of messenger and email services that are at risk of being used for grooming must verify the age of their users. The risk identified does not have to be significant – the obligation to implement age verification would therefore apply in principle to all email and messaging services that enable communication between minors and adults. In addition, the age verification obligation also applies to all app store providers. They must also prevent underage users from downloading apps that pose a significant risk of being used for grooming.

Service providers may choose between age assessment methods (for example, AI-based facial analysis, as already used by Instagram) and age verification methods (using an identity document or digital proof of identity). Both procedures are extremely intrusive for users. Age verification via identity documents comes close to banning anonymous internet use. AI-supported facial analysis, on the other hand, is often outsourced by service providers to external companies, leaving users with little control over the handling of this particularly sensitive personal data. If the technology makes a wrong assessment, young-looking adults can also be excluded from using certain apps. Those who do not possess identification documents or do not want to entrust their biometric data to a company are excluded from crucial communication technologies. Using a modern smartphone without an app store is hardly possible. Doing without messenger services is also unreasonable, especially for people who, for good reason, attach particular importance to anonymous internet use (whistleblowers, victims of stalking, politically persecuted people). In contrast to service providers, users cannot always choose between different age verification procedures.

For underage users (especially teenagers), their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and information are severely restricted if app stores categorically refuse to allow them to install certain apps without weighing these rights against the risk the app poses to underage users. Due to the strong market concentration in this area, the possibilities to switch to an alternative app store are limited.