Greg Bouwer
IINZ
When the slogans fly, the history they erase is profound. To understand the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we must start with the facts: not myths, not selective memory, but documented history.
The Mandate and Partition
In 1922, under the British Mandate for Palestine, the territory was already divided. Britain allocated 77 per cent of the mandate to create Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) for Arab governance, leaving just 23 per cent west of the Jordan River for Jews. This small sliver of land became the focus of Jewish settlement and aspiration.
After the Holocaust, the urgency for a Jewish homeland intensified. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted on Resolution 181 (on November 29), proposing to partition this tiny territory into separate Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, despite its limitations and the profound sacrifices it demanded. The Arab leadership rejected it outright.
War and Exodus
When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, five Arab armies (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq) invaded immediately, intending to destroy the nascent state. Arab leaders encouraged local Arabs to leave their homes temporarily, promising they could return once the Jews were ‘expelled’ and the land ‘cleansed’.
The plan failed. Israel survived against overwhelming odds. Roughly 160,000 Arabs who stayed became full Israeli citizens, today numbering over two million, enjoying the right to vote, participate in parliament, and live in a vibrant democracy. Meanwhile, approximately 700,000 Arabs who had left became the world’s only ‘permanent refugees’. In their narrative, the catastrophe – the Nakba – was not displacement caused by war, but the survival of the Jewish state and their inability to return.
The Forgotten Jewish Exodus
What is rarely acknowledged is that Israel’s victory unleashed a simultaneous crisis for Jews across the Middle East. From Baghdad to Cairo, Tripoli to Sana’a, Jewish communities that had lived for centuries in the region were persecuted. Citizenship was revoked, property seized, synagogues torched, and families attacked. Around 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled, many arriving in Israel, where they were absorbed into the fledgling state and became part of its national rebirth.
For Jews, this was a refugee crisis of extraordinary magnitude. Yet, it is scarcely remembered in global discourse, eclipsed by the focus on Palestinian displacement.
A Refugee Problem Turned Weapon
Meanwhile, Arab states refused to grant citizenship or rights to the Palestinian refugees and their descendants – now more than five million people. Generation after generation has grown up in camps, often without education, jobs, or political representation. This deliberate limbo has been maintained for 77 years, not as an accident, but as a geopolitical strategy: the continued existence of a refugee population to challenge Israel’s legitimacy and territorial integrity.
Lessons and Misconceptions
It is often said that Israel was established as a colonial settler state. History tells a different story. This is the story of an indigenous people, returning to a land with deep historical and religious roots, seeking compromise, and surviving existential threats. It is the story of resilience in the face of coordinated attacks, of a democracy built amidst hostility, and of a region that systematically expelled Jews while perpetuating Palestinian suffering.
Understanding this history is essential. It reframes the “Nakba” not as the tragedy of Arab displacement alone, but as a conflict defined by rejection of compromise, survival against annihilation, and the ongoing weaponisation of refugee status.
Conclusion
For 77 years, the surrounding Arab regimes have opted to preserve Palestinian misery rather than integrate displaced populations. Meanwhile, Israel has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, built democratic institutions, and offered citizenship to those who stayed. The real tragedy, the true Nakba, is not the existence of Israel, but the deliberate perpetuation of displacement, the manipulation of refugee narratives, and the refusal to accept a Jewish state on any part of the historic homeland.
History, when fully remembered, tells a story very different from slogans. It is a story of survival, compromise, and the ongoing struggle between reality and ideology in the heart of the Middle East.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
