Sa'ar, Tibi engage in Twitter row over Nakba Day
Arab MK and former Likud minister argue over events of 1948 war, after Sa'ar slammed former education minister Piron for backing inclusion of Nakba Day in Israeli schools.
Former Likud minister Gideon Sa'ar and Arab MK Ahmad Tibi engaged in a war of words on Twitter on Saturday night over a call to include "Nakba Day" in the Israeli school curriculum.
Sa'ar slammed former education minister Shai Piron of Yesh Atid on Saturday. over the latter's support for the addition of Nakba Day to the curriculum. Soon, his comments led to a lively Twitter debate with Tibi.
Nakba Day ("Day of Catastrophe") is commemorated on May 15 in the Palestinian territories and other countries, a day after the end of British mandate over Palestine and Israel's Declaration of Independence.
It is the annual day of commemoration of the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, and the displacement of Arabs that preceded and followed. An estimated 700,000 Arabs fled or were expelled and hundreds of Arab towns and villages were destroyed during the 1948-9 Independence War.
"Piron's position is erroneous at its core. A state cannot legitimize a perception that views its own formation as a catastrophe," Sa'ar, a former education minister himself, wrote on Twitter.
"67 years have passed and you still refuse to recognize the Arab side's responsibility for the war and its outcomes, which originates in the refusal to accept a Jewish state here," Sa'ar responded.
"500 destroyed villages, mass exile, killing, suffering and banishment. When will the students of Israel learn about that?" Tibi then replied.
"Both sides suffered. One won - the one which was attacked. This is what the students of Israel are learning," Sa'ar hit back.
"It's a tradition kept by all occupiers. The Australians, the Americans - who portrayed the Indians, who were robbed, as murderers in school books and Hollywood movies. The same applies to the Aboriginals," Tibi said.
Sa'ar had the last word: "The Jewish people are not occupiers in the land of Israel. This is an attempt to deny the land's past. 'There is one truth and not two. As there is one sun and as there are not two Jerusalems,'" he responded, quoting a poem by Uri Zvi Greenberg.
