The Real Meaning of ‘Naksa’ Day

Don’t be confused when you are told that yesterday’s ‘Naksa’ marches in the Golan Heights were an example of peaceful pro-Palestinian rights demonstration, as the BBC would have you believe. This was a direct action by one state, Syria, against another state, Israel with the purpose of fomenting violence and distracting from its own problems. Sadly it seems to have succeeded, with the world reporting somewhere between 18-23 deaths, along with scores of injuries.

The BBC, in its report of the incident, ‘helpfully’ explained that “Naksa” means “setback,” without giving any of the context of the events of 1967 that were being commemorated. The Syrian protestors were celebrating or lamenting the Six Day War, the third of four joint attempts by many Arab nations, this time led by Nasser’s Egypt, to destroy Israel.  But as the forces assembled in the Sinai desert to attack Israel, the Israeli military struck first to attack the forces and decidedly routed them.

The questions is why would anyone want to re-live this event?  Possibly the Israelis would want to celebrate the fact that, once again, they managed to save their country from forces that wanted to annihilate them.  But the Israelis seem content to leave it in the past and focus on the future. So why would people in Syria, one of the many Arab countries on the losing side of this conflict, want to remember it?

The only real reason to commemorate one of the many wars started to destroy Israel would be to deflect attention away from the Syria’s own internal problems.   The government was trying to incite anger and violence by goading past rivalries, wanting to rally their people around the cause of hating the outsider; an attempt paper over the huge cracks in Bashar Assad’s under-pressure regime. But how can we tell?  Well, the Reform Party of Syria, the opposition party to Assad’s regime, has reported that Naksa marchers were actually poor farmers who were paid $1,000 each to participate by the Syrian government, which is the equivalent of six months’ salary. If they were killed in the action, the Syrian government promised $10,000 to be given to their families, encouraging the marchers to take reckless actions.

And unfortunately, many of these poor farmers did take drastic actions, attempting to cross the ceasefire line into Israeli territory, leading to Israeli Defense Force’s response. Before firing, however, the Israeli army made announcements in Arabic to warn the marchers about attempting to cross and firing warning shots in the air to discourage them, before firing at the feet of armed protestors who would not stop the infiltration. It is hard to say what else Israel could have done to prevent the violence, which were exactly what Syria wanted.

Oh, and by the way, we have no confirmation over any deaths at the border, as only Syrian TV reported the deaths.  Why not?  Because Syria has expelled all foreign journalists, as they do not want them to report on their brutal crackdown of their anti-dictatorship protests.  It certainly could be that they are accurate on the number of deaths, if Syria offered the protestors ten times their original fee to became a ‘martyr’ for the cause, but I wouldn’t be the first to take the Syrian government’s word on anything until it allows journalists back into the country.

Once again, the Palestinian people are being used as political pawns by Arab dictators who not only don’t care about them, but are happy to encourage them to die.  These states have no vested interest in long-term peace, because it doesn’t allow them to continue to continue play the anti-Israel card, both with their own people and in the international court of opinion. This will only build resentment and make a future peace agreement more difficult.

Sadly, this is not the only concern for a peaceful solution for the Middle East. I’ve been to the Golan Heights and have seen on the United Nations force whose mission is to help protect the ceasefire lines between Syria and Israel.  Unfortunately, we have just seen another example of the premise that ‘when the going gets tough, the UN is nowhere to be found.’  No wonder Israel is distrustful of being adequately protected by a UN force in a future peace agreement, or concerns for a future de-militarised Palestinian state having to worry about its borders. The world community must also recognise its responsibility for helping to diffuse violence while looking for more long-term solutions for peace.