Eleanor Roosevelt on the "Nakba"

We have history.

They have narrative.

Eleanor Roosevelt was  more than the wife of Franklin- she was one of  the most articulate champions for human rights of her generation.

Her archives are digitized and are available online

In her March 23, 1956 column  "My Day", read what she has to say about the Arab refugees who fled Israel (In 1956, they were not yet called "Palestinians")

NEW YORK—I have an anonymous letter which asks me what is being done by the United Nations about the plight of the nearly one million Arab refugees of Israel aggression.

Isn't it astonishing how many mistakes can creep into one sentence.

There are 800,000 refugees who are being cared for by the U.N. and have been cared for since, during the war, their own Moslem mufti in Jerusalem called upon the Arabs in Israel to leave.

Israel was not the aggressor in this war. The Arabs were the aggressors. The partition of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel was the result of U.N. action.

The Arabs did not accept the new state. So Israel fought and gained more land, holding it by defeating her Arab attackers.

The Arabs who did not heed the call of the Mufti and leave Israel during the war are still living there. As a minority, they have certain grievances. But, by and large, with eight representatives in the Knesset (the parliament), they have a voice, as citizens of Israel, to demand redress for their wrongs.

No one can blame the poor people who left Israel. They were told that in a few weeks they would be back and would receive not only their own land and belongings but that of the Israelis, who would be driven into the sea.

Unfortunately for the Arabs, this did not come to pass. Israel remained a state and those poor refugees were the saddest and most miserable people I have seen in any refugee camps.

The worst of their plight was that, being in Arab countries where they didn't want to feel they were permanently settled, they were not even allowed to find jobs to keep up their skills, to set up work within the refugee camps for this purpose or to train young people...

Its been nearly 68 years, and nothing has changed.

That is the real "Nakba"