Graphic by Aish Al Torah, a non-profit Jewish educational center with branches throughout the world.The 1947 UN Partition Plan was rejected by the Arabs, but Israel declared its independence on the evening of May 14, 1948. Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq--five of the seven countries of the Arab League--invaded, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israel defeated them and captured just over fifty per cent of the territory allocated by the UN as an Arab state. The remaining land was annexed by Transjordan or controlled by Egypt.
Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Independence Day for Israel, is celebrated on the 5th of Iyyar, and the government of Israel impemented a program of benefits this year urging citizens living abroad to repratriate on the 50th anniversary.
Nakba Day (Arabic: يوم النكبة meaning "day of the catastrophe" is an annual day of commemoration for the Palestinian people of the anniversary of the creation of Israel, inaugurated in 1998 by Yasser Arafat to draw attemtion to their displacement at the end of the 1948 war when the vast majority of Palestinian Arab refugees outside the 1949 armistice lines were barred from returning to their homes, many of which had been destroyed, or from reclaiming their property.
George Bush gave a speech today at the Knesset in celebration of Yom Ha'atzma'ut, which failed to mention the peace process and suggested Democrats favored "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way some Western leaders appeased Hitler in the run-up to World War II. In doing so, he mightily ticked off Larisa Alexandrovna, Managing Editor for investigative news at Raw Story.
Mr. Bush, the only thing this...lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On!It's an interesting read.
