The Arab world’s refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty, combined with a failed war of annihilation, led to the tragic displacement of Palestinians and decades of regional suffering. The refusal to resolve this conflict—not by Israel but by Arab leaders—has perpetuated this self-inflicted tragedy.
By Dr. Tim Orr
The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” is often presented as a narrative of victimhood, blaming Israel for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. However, this interpretation is a distortion of history. The reality is far more complex: the Nakba was the direct result of Arab rejectionism, ideological intolerance, and military aggression. The Arab world’s refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty, combined with a failed war of annihilation, led to the tragic displacement of Palestinians and decades of regional suffering. The refusal to resolve this conflict—not by Israel but by Arab leaders—has perpetuated this self-inflicted tragedy.
The historical roots of the Jewish people’s claim to the land of Israel stretch back over 3,000 years. The land of Israel—Eretz Yisrael—was the cradle of Jewish civilization, home to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. These kingdoms fell to foreign conquerors: the Assyrians (722 BCE) and Babylonians (586 BCE). However, Jewish identity and connection to the land persisted despite centuries of conquests by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans.
The Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE led to the exile of much of the Jewish population. Yet Jews remained connected to the land through scripture, liturgy, and tradition. Their prayers consistently expressed a yearning to return to Zion:
By the late 19th century, violent antisemitism in Europe—manifesting in pogroms, expulsions, and institutional persecution—culminated in the rise of modern Zionism. Zionism was not an imperial project but a movement for self-determination rooted in historical and religious ties to the land.
Modern Zionism saw waves of Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine, beginning in the late 1800s. Jewish pioneers purchased land legally from absentee Ottoman landlords, often revitalizing barren, swampy, and undeveloped areas. This process triggered economic growth that benefited both Jews and Arabs. Far from displacing local Arab populations, the Jewish presence improved living conditions:
Despite these benefits, Arab hostility grew. Arab leaders began framing Jewish immigration as a threat to their cultural and political dominance, often inciting violence. Inflammatory religious rhetoric portrayed Jews as dhimmis—humiliated minorities under Islamic rule—who had no right to sovereignty.
After World War I, Britain assumed control of Palestine under the League of Nations Mandate, tasked with facilitating the creation of a Jewish homeland. However, this responsibility clashed with rising Arab nationalism and resistance. Arab leaders, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, orchestrated violent opposition:
In response, Britain pursued policies of appeasement, most notably the 1939 White Paper. This policy severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine at the very moment when European Jews faced the horrors of the Holocaust. Arab opposition thus contributed to the deaths of countless Jews who a sanctuary in their ancestral homeland could have saved.
By 1947, Britain, unable to control the escalating violence, handed the issue to the United Nations. The UN proposed a partition plan that offered both Jews and Arabs their states:
Despite receiving fragmented and less desirable territory, the Jewish leadership accepted the plan with gratitude. For them, even a small portion of sovereignty represented a historic triumph after centuries of persecution and exile.
The Arab world, however, flatly rejected the plan. This rejection was not due to the specifics of the partition but because of the idea of Jewish sovereignty. Islamic theology taught that lands once conquered by Muslims—Dar al-Islam—could never revert to non-Muslim rule. Allowing a Jewish state was seen as an unforgivable humiliation, undermining Arab cultural and religious supremacy.
Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, made the Arab intent clear:
“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.”
On May 15, 1948, the day after Israel declared independence, five Arab armies—Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon—invaded the newly established state. This was not a defensive war but an offensive campaign to annihilate Israel.
Arab leaders were confident of victory. They vastly outnumbered Jewish forces, boasting superior weapons, tanks, and aircraft. In contrast, Israel had no formal army, few resources, and poorly armed militias. Yet, against overwhelming odds, Israel repelled the invasion and survived.
The Palestinian refugee crisis arose as a direct result of Arab aggression:
Arab states, while demanding the return of Palestinian refugees, simultaneously expelled over 800,000 Jews from Arab lands. These Jewish refugees were absorbed into Israel and integrated into society. By contrast, Palestinians were deliberately kept in refugee camps by Arab states and denied citizenship, employment, and dignity.
Rather than resettling Palestinian refugees, Arab leaders exploited their plight for political gain. Refugee camps became tools of propaganda designed to delegitimize Israel while deflecting blame from Arab failures. Ralph Galloway, a UN official, lamented:
“The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against Israel.”
Unlike Israel’s integration of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, Palestinian refugees remain trapped in poverty and dependency, denied opportunities by the very states claiming to champion their cause.
The Nakba narrative has been transformed into one of the most potent political weapons in the Arab-Israeli conflict. While initially rooted in the displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 war, it has been strategically redefined to vilify Israel and perpetuate the conflict. Instead of acknowledging Arab leadership's responsibility for rejecting the United Nations Partition Plan and initiating a war of annihilation, the Nakba has been used to rewrite history—erasing Arab aggression, ignoring Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands, and portraying Israel’s survival as an act of colonial injustice. This narrative has fueled decades of incitement, violence, and global campaigns aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish state.
The Nakba is presented as an ongoing tragedy, framing Israel as an illegitimate “occupier” while obscuring the central truth: Palestinian displacement was caused by Arab aggression and decisions made by Arab leaders. This framing has served as a rallying cry for extremist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who use it to justify terrorism against Israel. By portraying violence as “resistance” against a perceived historical wrong, these groups have radicalized generations of Palestinians, encouraging martyrdom and perpetuating cycles of hatred. Schools, media, and religious institutions in Palestinian territories often indoctrinate youth with the belief that Israel’s destruction is the only path to justice, reinforcing an identity shaped by grievance rather than reconciliation.
Internationally, the Nakba narrative has been weaponized to shape public opinion and global discourse. Organizations like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement exploit Palestinian suffering to rally anti-Israel sentiment, equating Israel with apartheid regimes and colonial powers. This narrative, often uncritically echoed in academia, media, and international forums, has distorted the conflict’s history by reversing the roles of aggressors and defenders. Israel’s defensive actions in 1948—taken in the face of an existential war—are mischaracterized as acts of “ethnic cleansing,” while Arab leaders’ culpability for rejecting peace and perpetuating the refugee crisis is ignored.
Compounding this distortion is the role of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which has institutionalized the refugee problem. Unlike the UNHCR, which resettles refugees from other global conflicts, UNRWA uniquely passes refugee status down through generations, ensuring the number of Palestinian “refugees” grows exponentially. Today, over 5 million Palestinians—many of whom have never lived in Israel—are classified as refugees, perpetuating dependency and grievance. Arab states, rather than integrating Palestinians into their societies, have cynically maintained their statelessness to sustain the Nakba narrative as a political weapon against Israel.
The weaponization of the Nakba has not only deepened Palestinian suffering but has also obstructed every effort toward peace. By rejecting solutions that do not include a “right of return” to pre-1948 Israel—an untenable demand that would erase Israel’s Jewish character—Palestinian leadership ensures the conflict remains unresolved. This insistence, rooted in the denial of Jewish sovereignty, keeps Palestinians trapped in poverty, violence, and hopelessness. The Nakba, far from being a call for justice, has become a tool to perpetuate victimhood, radicalize minds, and sustain a conflict that could otherwise have been resolved decades ago.
The tragedy of the Nakba is not the creation of Israel but the Arab world’s refusal to accept it. The rejection of the UN Partition Plan and the subsequent war of annihilation caused immense suffering, not only for Palestinians but for the entire region. Arab leaders chose war over peace and, in doing so, betrayed their own people.
The Nakba is a self-inflicted catastrophe perpetuated by ideological hatred, theological intolerance, and the weaponization of suffering. The path to peace lies not in denying Israel’s existence but in embracing the truth of Jewish sovereignty and choosing coexistence over rejectionism. Only then can the cycle of grievance be broken, and the region begins to heal.
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United Nations General Assembly. (1947). Resolution 181: The future government of Palestine. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/ga/
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Galloway, R. (1952). Quoted in UNRWA: A weapon of propaganda. Middle Eastern Affairs Journal, 6(4), 12-15.
Pasha, A. (1948). “This will be a war of extermination…” [Speech]. Arab League Address, Cairo
Tim Orr is a scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant with over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six degrees, including a master’s in Islamic studies from the Islamic College in London. Tim taught Religious Studies for 15 years at Indiana University Columbus and is now a Congregations and Polarization Project research associate at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis. He has spoken at universities, including Oxford University, Imperial College London, the University of Tehran, Islamic College London, and mosques throughout the U.K. His research focuses on American Evangelicalism, Islamic antisemitism, and Islamic feminism, and he has published widely, including articles in Islamic peer-reviewed journals and three books.