| THE LIE Jews expelled over 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. |
| THE TRUTH Israel did not “expel 700,000 Palestinians.” When Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, thousands of local Arabs left at the urging of their own Arab leaders, who promised they could return to Israel after the Jews were exterminated. |
| BACKGROUND On May 16, 2026, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani officially commemorated “Nakba Day” on social media.“Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe,” refers to the claim that more than 700,000 Arabs were expelled by Jewish forces during Israel’s founding in 1948.To drive the point home, Mamdani attached a video of a so-called “Nakba survivor” named Inea Bushnaq, who gave a dramatic account of her alleged expulsion from British-Mandated Palestine in 1948. In 1947, the UN offered both Jews and Arabs living in the Holy Land their own states. Jews said yes. Arabs said no and immediately increased their attacks against Jews. (Britannica) The day after Israel declared independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded. Their leaders openly declared war of extermination against a newly born Jewish state. Israel defended itself and won. (U.S. State Department), (Britannica) |
| TRUTH EXPLAINED Bushnaq never experienced any “Nakba.” Mamdani’s “Nakba” poster child is a British citizen whose family left Tulkarm in 1948 — a city in Samaria that remained under Jordanian control until 1967. Her family couldn’t have been expelled by Israel because Israel didn’t control Tulkarm in 1948. (X) There were no “Palestinians” in 1948. Arabs in the region identified themselves by tribe, clan, religion, village, or as part of the broader Arab nation. The concept of a distinct Palestinian national identity was invented by the Soviet Union in the 1960s as part of Operation SIG in an attempt to weaken American influence in the region. (Honest Reporting) The word “Nakba” itself is a lie. Syrian intellectual Constantin Zurayq coined the term in 1948 to lament the catastrophe of Arab armies failing to destroy Israel, not the so-called displacement of Arabs. (X), (Grokipedia) Most Arabs were not expelled by Jews; they left after Arab leaders urged them to evacuate. Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, urged Arabs to temporarily vacate to clear the battlefield for the coming “war of annihilation.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said told civilians to get out while his artillery leveled Jewish positions. Jordan’s King Abdullah blamed the mass displacement on Arab leaders who had falsely promised a swift victory over the Jews. (City Journal), (Grokipedia) Zionists asked Arabs to stay. In Haifa, Israeli Mayor Shabtai Levy wept as he pleaded with Arab community leaders to tell their people to remain, personally guaranteeing their safety. Arab leaders refused. They had orders from Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini to evacuate. (City Journal) Even some Palestinians admit Arabs were told to leave by their own leaders. This isn’t contested only by Western scholars. Palestinian historians themselves have acknowledged that large numbers of Arabs fled based on instructions and promises from Arab authorities — promises of a victorious return that never came. (Jewish Virtual Library) Jews, not Arabs, were ethnically cleansed in 1948. In response to Israel’s founding, Arab states drove out 850,000 Jews through pogroms, asset seizures, and state persecution. Israel absorbed them with no UN agency, no “right of return,” no international outcry. Their property was stolen and the world looked away. At the same time, Jordan ethnically cleansed Judea and Samaria by expelling and killing every last Jew and renaming it the “West Bank.” Yet the thousands of displaced Jews received no international aid or “right of return.” After Israel liberated the territory in 1967, Jews who returned to these historic communities were labeled “illegal settlers,” exposing a glaring double standard. If there is an ethnic cleansing story from 1948, this is it. (World Jewish Congress) |
| QUOTES “The displacement of the 700,000 Arabs who became ‘refugees’—and I put the term in inverted commas, as two-thirds of them were displaced from one part of Palestine to another and not from their country (which is the usual definition of a refugee)—was not a ‘racist crime ‘. . . but the result of a national conflict and a war, with religious overtones, from the Muslim perspective, launched by the Arabs themselves.” — Historian Benny Morris“How can you be refugees for 70 years? By definition, you’re not a refugee after two generations. You’re not fleeing anything.” — Charlie Kirk |
| TAKEAWAY The “Nakba” narrative pushed by people like Mamdani is dishonest propaganda. It erases Arab aggression and the fact that this was a defensive war Israel had to fight for survival — a war that created refugees on both sides, including 850,000 Jews brutally expelled from Arab countries. While Mamdani peddles his selective “catastrophe” myth to demonize Israel, the truth is simple: 1948 was a victory for the Jews against an attempted genocide, and real peace can only come when everyone admits this full history instead of swallowing Mamdani’s distorted, anti-Jewish fairy tale. |
