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Nakba Denial COMMENT 05

or that they had used their forces to terrorize and evict civilians from their homes. and when all else failed, they countered that the arabs fled because their leaders ordered them to, so as to clear the path for the “invading arab armies” coming to defeat Israel. Denied, lied, and then obfuscated.

In 1971, I experienced my first immersion into the Nakba reality. I traveled to Lebanon and Jordan on a university grant to collect the stories of Palestinian refugees. It was only 23 years after the expulsions and many of those whom I interviewed had vivid memories of the horrors they experienced. They were personal, detailed, and compelling. shortly thereafter I had my first experience of Nakba denial. On my return to the Usa, I wrote a series of three articles on what I had learned in the camps, calling the series “Three Days in Palestine.” a dean at my university wrote a letter to the paper’s editor, using bizarrely excessive language, denouncing my work as an example of “neo-Nazi, neo-Bolshevik, antisemitism.” and when I was invited to speak about the articles, some in the audience responded with violent rejection.

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One of the representatives of the group that had invited me explained the hostile reaction, saying, “They are in denial, having been conditioned to see Palestinians as objects and not human. By making them see Palestinians as real people, you threatened that denial that protects them from acknowledging Israeli culpability.”

This same dynamic of denial is still at work today. It was in evidence in recent weeks in response to Pales-

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