In a world often tangled in conflicting narratives, Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein, the Vice Chair of Communications for the Hudson County Republican Party, shares his strong opinions on a recent Jersey City flag-raising ceremony. He believes the event, and the way it was reported, unfortunately echoes a biased, and in his view, extreme perspective – one that frames any moment the Jewish people weren’t “thrown into the sea” as a disaster for Arabs. It’s a sentiment he feels glosses over the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and, in doing so, perpetuates misinformation.
He takes issue with the idea expressed in the coverage that Palestinians are “under Israeli occupation.” He wonders aloud who exactly the author is referring to. Is it the over a million Israeli-Arabs who actively participate in Israel’s democratic process, casting their votes and shaping their nation? Or perhaps the countless Muslims who live in Israeli towns, managing their own communities and even their own Islamic civil courts, funded by the Israeli government? He ponders whether the author might be thinking of the Arab communities in Judea and Samaria, often called the West Bank – people who, for nearly four decades until 1988, were citizens of Jordan and who have had their own self-governing bodies since the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. For Sotomayor-Einstein, this framing of “occupation” seems to ignore the nuanced realities of self-governance and citizenship that many Arab communities experience within or alongside Israel.
Sotomayor-Einstein then turns his attention to the term “Nakba,” which the article defines as the “Arabic word for ‘catastrophe’ that refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians beginning during the 1948 war with Israel.” He argues that this portrayal subtly suggests the 1948 Israeli War of Independence was an act of aggression by Israel, rather than the defensive struggle he believes it to have been. He reminds us that in 1948, the nascent Jewish community was attacked by a coalition of armies from neighboring Arab nations – Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq – bolstered by volunteers from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and local Arab militias. Sotomayor-Einstein believes it’s crucial to remember that the Jewish community had, at various points, accepted peace plans involving partition, while, in his view, the Arab leadership consistently rejected them. More significantly, he points out that the stated goal of the Arab forces was to “push the Jews into the sea.” He asserts that many of the ancestors of today’s Arab refugees were told to evacuate the war zones by Arab authorities themselves, during what he describes as an attempted ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population.
He feels that this one-sided narrative, which he connects to “Hamas talking points,” deliberately omits another crucial piece of history. Starting in the late 1940s, approximately 800,000 Jews from various Arab nations were expelled from their homes. These individuals, he emphasizes, didn’t end up in refugee camps; they moved to Israel and became integrated citizens of the Jewish state, where they and their descendants live to this day. This historical reality, he argues, offers a stark contrast to the dominant narrative of Palestinian displacement and highlights a dual history of migration and resettlement that is often overlooked. For Sotomayor-Einstein, ignoring this exodus of Jewish people from Arab lands creates an incomplete and therefore misleading picture of the region’s complex history.
Finally, Sotomayor-Einstein takes strong exception to the article’s characterization of Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack as “genocide.” He highlights that despite the ongoing conflict, the population identifying as Palestinian across Israel, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza, has actually grown since before the war. He forcefully reminds readers of the horrific events of October 7th, when over 1,100 Israelis – both Jewish and Arab – were brutally murdered by Hamas, and more than 240 individuals were taken hostage. He argues that Israel’s response, which targeted Hamas and, he emphasizes, could have ceased if Hamas had disarmed and released the hostages, is being unfairly framed as genocide. For him, while it might be understandable for supporters of Hamas to raise a flag – even one representing a country that, in his view, never existed – it is entirely unacceptable for a supposedly objective news article to present “Hamas talking points” as factual information without critical examination.
Despite these deeply entrenched disagreements, Sotomayor-Einstein concludes with a glimmer of hope. He observes that many key players in the Arab-Muslim world have begun to move past the destructive ambition of “pushing the Jews into the sea.” He points to the overt and covert relations that nations like the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, and Somaliland now maintain with Israel. These relationships, he believes, demonstrate a growing recognition among these nations that “Israel is there to stay,” a development he views as positive for all peace-loving people around the globe. This shift, in his view, suggests a more pragmatic and cooperative future for the region, moving away from the historical narratives of conflict and toward a new era of understanding.