On March 8, 2023, Saltwire published a letter to the editor by CJPME’s Policy Analyst Reem Majid rebutting claims in an op-ed by Gwyn Dyer that a “cycle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians “stretches back” to 1967.
Here is an excerpt of the letter:
It is factually incorrect to claim that Israeli violence against Palestinians stretches back to 1967 when the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 necessitated Palestinian dispossession and death. The Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, describes the mass forced displacement and exodus of over 750,000 Palestinians from their lands and the destruction of over 530 Palestinian villages before, during and after the creation of the state of Israel in 1947-49. This violence also took the form of massacres carried out by Jewish paramilitary groups to facilitate Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing which led to an ongoing problem of stateless Palestinian refugees. Much of the violence that continues today has its roots in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights since 1948.