Responding to 'No genocide in our name'

To The Editor:

I think it is very important to respond to Mr. Nagel's screed in the Feb. 20 issue.

The one thing that he wrote that is correct is that "Most of us are too young to remember what the Arabs call the 'Nakba'" or the era of 1948. Thus, you may believe what he has to say instead of knowing the facts.

There is the truth and background of that era that is the antithesis of what he has said.

During WWII, the Mufti of Jerusalem spent those war years in Germany as Hitler's guest. The Arabs were on the losing side. In its efforts to solve the question of Palestine, the United Nations and the promised "Homeland for the Jews," what was left of the Palestine Mandate -- after the British creation of Jordan -- was divided into two areas, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

In May 1948, the Jews created their state of Israel and the very next day, five Arab armies attacked the nascent state of Israel. Not the other way around.

Many Arabs fled what was designated as Israeli land in the face of that war, but what Mr. Nagel does not tell you is that a larger number of Jews were exiled and forced out of the surrounding Arab countries. Those Jews were not put into refugee camps but were absorbed into Israel itself or went to other countries. 

Arabs did not call themselves Palestinians until 1964 after 19 years of control by Lebanon and Egypt. Why didn't they create their state then? (1948-1967)

The Israelis did not control the West Bank or Gaza -- what was stopping them?

The Arabs of Gaza elected Hamas to be their leaders and one tenet of the Hamas charter is the destruction of Israel. They broke the rules of "cease fire" and brutally attacked, raped and killed Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. I think you all do know about the women and children they took as hostages.

What you may not know is that those very Israelis who were killed or taken hostage lived closest to Gaza and were the Israeli "Peacenics," the very people who hired Arabs from across the border to give them employment and took their sick to Israeli hospitals to be treated. This fact shook the entire nation of Israel and that provoked the response. 

 The Arabs had to know that the Israelis would not sit idly by as they used materials for housing and turned it into air-conditioned! tunnels for constant smuggling and terror attacks. What they didn't count on was the anger at Hamas' butchering of innocent Israelis who only wanted peace with their Arab neighbors.

When the Israelis retaliated, they screamed, "cease fire." The Arabs provoked a sleeping giant. Instead of building a viable country with factories and farms, they built a terror force. 

What did they expect?

Rhoda Alben-Aronson