Real Zionists recognize the Nakba

Israel was not born by immaculate conception. Like all nations, it was born in blood, as bodies crossed borders to safety amongst their kind. Some moved to seek security. Others were forced to take long marches with nothing but bundles on their backs.

Like tens of millions of Muslims expelled to Pakistan, Hindus to India, Germans forced out of Central Europe, Greeks transferred out of Turkey, Turks pushed out of Greece, Armenians chased from Nagorno-Karabakh, 750,000 non-Jewish Arabs, whose families lived for centuries in the land of Abraham, marched under fire to the other side of a border that did not exist before May 1948.

Real Zionists recognize the pain they felt, and take responsibility for causing it.

Which is why on this Nakba Day, commemorated on May 15, 2026, the Zionist response should be to have empathy for the pain of those who mourn. Who better than us understands the pain of losing one’s home? Of being driven out of the land of our ancestors, of sitting and weeping by the rivers of Babylon? There is a story of Napoleon Bonaparte passing by a synagogue on Tisha b’Av and, upon hearing weeping, asked, “Why are they crying?” His guide told him: “They weep for Jerusalem.” He famously answered: “A nation that continues to mourn for so long will surely rebuild their capital.”

Real Zionists take responsibility for Palestinian weeping, recognizing that it was the result of our actions. Recognize that human beings were dispossessed, acknowledge the tragedy of children born in a land foreign to their parents.

Real Palestinian Nationalists, too, recognize the Nakba – and acknowledge that the term Nakba was coined by Constantin Zureiq, a professor at the American University of Beirut, to lament the failure of the seven Arab armies to genocide the Jews. Because that was, after all, their stated intention.

Real Palestinian Nationalists remember the fear that gripped Jews living amongst them when the Mufti of Jerusalem declared the conflict to be a holy war and that it was a religious commandment to “kill the Jews wherever you find them.” Remember the vows of Arab leaders such as Assam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, to “sweep the Jews into the sea,” and conduct a “war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre or the Crusader wars.”

Which is why on this Nakba Day, the pro-Palestinian response should be to have empathy for the Israeli fear of extermination, the lack of trust many Israelis still feel towards the Palestinian national cause when it does not foreswear chants such as “From the River to the Sea.” True pro-Palestinians understand why Jews are so wary when antizionists embrace Hamas and its genocidal charter.

Those who wish for an independent Palestine should understand better than most the desire for Jewish self-determination. Because who better than a people that wants to govern itself to understand the urge to self-determination? Who could better understand the distinction between a government’s terrible decisions and the rights of a people, whose own leaders launched a war of extermination against the Jews and lived through the consequences?

Importantly, in both cases, responsibility does not require capitulation. Taking responsibility for the circumstances that continue to hold our peoples locked in mutual recrimination does not require one to forfeit aspirations to self-determination. The State of Israel exists because it is the right of Jews to have a state of their own. The State of Palestine should exist because no people should be denied the right to govern themselves if they so choose.

It is entirely consistent to lament the choices made by political and military leaders while asserting one’s own right to independence and sovereignty. As I learned from the Israelis I interviewed for my new book about Israel’s responsibility for the destruction of Gaza, one can mourn the devastation of Palestinian families, cry because of the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinian children, and still fight for a Jewish State.

Moral self-immolation helps no one. Mistakes were made, horrible mistakes, painful mistakes, by Zionists and antizionists. Wallowing in them will not bring back the dead. Wallowing in them will not further self-determination. Wallowing in them will not bring the peace and security that both peoples deserve.

After the destruction of Gaza – a second Nakba, in its fullest sense of the word – we who celebrate life on both sides, we who reject the extremes, we who believe each human should be able to determine their political community, must learn to commemorate the Nakba, together.

True Zionists should use the day to share their condolences with the Palestinian people, for their suffering, for their dashed dreams, and express a vision for how we can live to see both of our national aspirations realized. True Palestinianists should use the day to acknowledge the genocidal impulses within their movement, to reject them, and, in the midst of their sorrow, imagine a future marred by no further catastrophes.