In the early 1920s, Haj Amin al Husseini, the newly appointed grand mufti of Jerusalem, crystallized the expectation that the nascent Zionist enterprise would be crushed. Jewish immigration, sparked by a spike in pogroms, mostly in Eastern European lands, had been rising since the 1880s, and Arab opposition was quick to follow. But al Husseini, who would later team with Germany to plan a “final solution” in Palestinian land, fanned the hate that continues to this day. The fact that those expectations of vanquishing the Jewish immigrants have continually been unmet for over 100 years provides a source of humiliation that has grown ever since.
Nobody suffers humiliation well. The Arab culture is proud of its hospitality, history, religion, and strength. A narrative of chronic humiliation has taken root and been fostered to maintain what is seemingly an unending thirst for revenge, as repeatedly seen in Palestinian and other nations’ rhetoric.
The seed of hate that al Husseini put into the Arab population took root, but it never fully blossomed into ridding the land of Jews. If the pre-1948 mantra was “We will not tolerate Jewish immigration,” the post-1948 establishment of the state of Israel might have read, “We will destroy the Zionist entity, no matter how long it takes.” Arab voices supporting Jewish immigration were few. Due to Israeli determination, brains, and luck (or divine intervention, depending on the point of view), the predictions never came true.
Leadership that cannot fulfill promises usually pays a price for non-delivery. Whether by design or good fortune, the narrative that al Husseini began later shunted responsibility from misguided Arab leadership to the Jews themselves.
Beginning in 1947, when the United Nations recommended the creation of both a Jewish and an additional Arab country (which was unanimously rejected by the Arab countries), the Arab response was war. Expectations of success were so high that in the summer of 1948, after only a few months of fighting against the Jews, Syrian academic Constantin Zureiq used the word “Nakba” to describe the war as a failure. Nakba, meaning tragedy, calamity, or disaster, captured the sense of humiliation he saw. The 1949 armistice concretized Israel’s victory, dashing Arab expectations. The definition of Nakba then veered toward describing Palestinian Arabs’ suffering and displacement, though some Arab intellectuals thought that doing so absolved Arab leadership from responsibility for the humiliating loss.
Arab national leadership continued to call for the destruction of “the Zionist entity.” Their hate was so blinding that they wouldn’t even use the word “Israel.” It was the country that could not be named. Despite the decades of rhetoric and aggression, Israeli society, culture, and peoplehood took root. It became financially successful, began contributing to the world’s quality of life, and, worst of all, could defend itself. Thus, Israeli countermeasures routinely reconfirmed the Nakba humiliation narrative.
The facts are that some 700,000 Arab Palestinians were displaced in the 1948–49 war. An estimated 5,000 to 8,000, including combatants, died. Common knowledge was that the suffering of the Jews in Europe during World War II resulted in international confirmation of Israeli statehood. Co-opting that suffering to create a narrative of the Jew as oppressor against the Palestinians became a strategy that would invert the narrative to vilify the Jews and lift up the Palestinians.
Of course, the death of thousands and the war-induced emigration of 700,000 are serious matters. They deserve proper and balanced consideration and reflection. They also deserve objectivity. Forced displacement of civilians occurred, which has long been a source of claims against Israel, while maintaining the humiliation narrative. In traditional Arab culture, humiliation could either be resolved by negotiation, which had long been rejected out of hand, or by revenge, which has ultimately remained a primary goal as is often broadcast throughout the Arab world.
What that narrative avoids is the denial of rights and privileges afforded to generations of Palestinian Arabs in the countries to which they fled. Neither Lebanon, Syria, nor Egypt provided citizenship to Palestinians displaced from the 1948–49 war. Jordan historically has treated Palestinians poorly, despite giving them citizenship: They are underrepresented in academic settings, in the military, and in government employment. Thus, while these countries parade concern about the plight of Palestinian refugees, they have further victimized the Palestinians for more than 70 years.
Further, Palestinian refugees are denied what most any other refugee population receives when displaced due to war: absorption into the receiving society. This is not only at the insistence of the Palestinians, Egypt, and friends, but also at the insistence of most of the international community. It’s hard to emphasize enough how bigoted that is when war refugees from 25 different countries have found safety in Europe since 1945, yet Gazans caught in a war are denied the same rights.
Compare this to Germany’s granting of citizenship in 2024 and 2025 to almost 150,000 Syrians who fled their recent civil war. Though they may always retain Syrian cultural identity and longings, they are now fully German citizens with all the rights and privileges thereof.
Another indicator as to what might influence Palestinian and Hamas decisions is money. Numerous articles from reputable sources (the IMF, French authorities, Time magazine, Foreign Policy, and others) indicate significant misappropriation of both internal Palestinian revenue and of aid intended for Palestinian welfare. Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority, diverted almost $1 billion just before the turn of the century. His wife received millions of dollars a year from unspecified sources, though their financial paper trail seems to have gone cold after the 2004 report. Hamas received about $1 billion per year from foreign aid and taxation, including tens of millions delivered monthly from Qatar, coordinated with Israel. Hamas also used large amounts of materiel for its terrorism infrastructure, materiel from which civilians could have benefited. Mahmoud Abbas, current head of the PA, and his family have past business revenues of many tens of millions, though the source of their holdings is unclear. Maintaining the chronic humiliation narrative and the never-ending resistance seems to be financially beneficial.
As negotiation with Israel was rejected, violence became the sole avenue to resolve the humiliation. The subsequent terrorism war waged against Israelis and global Jewry since 1948 has never distinguished between civilians and military. The Jewish nation endured the blows it received from the community of terrorism, which was supported — rarely denounced — across the Arab world. And with Israel’s every recovery and accomplishment, humiliation continued to accumulate in the Arab mindset.
The pattern continued for decades, building, one would imagine, anger and resentment. That might account for the escalation of the violence from shooting and bombing to the extreme barbarity of crimes committed on Oct. 7. That assault saw a shocking escalation in brutality: systematic rape, families burned alive, leaving only teeth by which they could be identified, and, of course, the taking of hundreds of hostages, including elderly and children in diapers. All proudly broadcast live.
OBAMA KNOWS BETTER. HE JUST SACRIFICED 4,000 YEARS OF JEWISH HISTORY
The Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, as with citizens in most of the neighboring Arab nations around Israel, have been taught for decades that Israelis and Jews are inferior “dogs, pigs, and apes.” Schoolchildren are taught intifada, uprising, as part of their culture. Videos in school plays of small Palestinian children dressed in faux suicide vests and toy guns, acting as martyrs, are easily seen online. They are taught that Jews must die, taught that being a martyr in the ongoing struggle is the highest form of self-actualization. The sources for such hate are found in U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East textbooks and taught by UNRWA teachers. Similar textbooks are not uncommon throughout the Arab world, though notably the United Arab Emirates, an Abraham Accords member, has made great strides in that area.
The narrative of chronic humiliation is clear, administered by extreme leadership that simultaneously denies Palestinian refugees the rights that are afforded to virtually any other refugee population. Literally and psychologically, this is what maintains the repetitive limbo of humiliation. Palestinian children are taught the values of martyrdom in the name of the resistance and are denied the basic right to dream of a future of growth. They are denied an environment encouraging them to strive to contribute to the global welfare. They are chained by their handlers to a life of subjugation, misery, and hate.
Moshe R. Manheim is a retired psychotherapist who practiced for more than 40 years in Atlanta and Israel. His essays have appeared in the Washington Examiner, the Jewish Journal, and JNS, among other publications, and have been syndicated. He is the author of Elsie’s Boys, a WWII historical novel.