April 15, 2024
Dear Trustees,
On behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, we request that you support the Minster of Education’s call for the Peel District School Board to immediately remove the Nakba Day from your Calendar of Significant Days as it is inappropriate to consider adding a day that marks the defeat of 5 Arab armies that attacked the nascent state of Israel intent on its destruction.
Nakba means “catastrophe,” and as many Arab journalists noted at the time, the illegal attack was initiated by Arabs who inherited the mantel of Nazi Germany, led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Al-Husseini, a confirmed Nazi, and they failed. The “catastrophe” was the defeat of the Arabs. In Canada and across all democratic allies, we do not memorialize the failure of the Nazis to destroy our society; in teaching accurate history of the victorious Allies, we have never stop teaching the truth so as to avoid offending a student of German descent.
The campaign to teach the Nakba is fraudulently claiming some form of destruction of Arab society by Israel, a total lie. It is essential that schools teach truth not ideology and certainly not a bias that directly links to rising antisemitism in schools. There was No ethnic cleansing of Arabs in the re-constitution of Israel, hence 21% of the Israeli population is Arab. There was no genocide, but Arabs did slaughter thousands of Jews who wanted only to live peacefully with their Arab neighbors. There was no stealing of land, all of which was purchased from the absentee Ottoman Turks. Additionally, the creation of a displaced Arab population was generated by Arab leaders who ordered Arabs to flee so that they could wipe out the Jews, then have Arabs return. They didn’t succeed in this planned genocide, so the Arabs conveniently created a permanent refugee class, and have through the founding of UNRWA, perpetuated a refugee status rather than re-settle people. Tens of millions of other legitimate refugees have proven to be successfully re-settled.
The “Nabka” story is a narrative that serves to undermine historical and legal facts, to deny the reality of Israel and to “pretend” that the Jewish State has no right to exist. That is nonsense. Israel, the ancient home of one of the oldest people in earth, the indigenous people of the land, is a legal state, and the only democratic state in the Middle East. Teaching otherwise and having a Nabka day, will undermine the value of education, and will prove an educational failure in Peel’s history. The goal of education ought to be to help kids to use documentary evidence in learning in all subjects.
CAEF expects that the Peel District Board of Education will act responsibly and remove the inappropriate Nakba day from its Days of Significance Calendar and ensure that any and all associated discussions or lessons do NOT teach Lies and perpetuate Jew hatred in your schools.
Sincerely,
Andria Spindel, Executive Director