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The Meaning of Disaster
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 7, 2023
For a book as influential as this one (this was where the term "al-Nakba" was coined) I'm surprised that there are literally no reviews or ratings. As this was written contemporaneously to the Nakba it obviously has a lot of holes in it, but I do think this is still valuable to read in order to understand how it shook the intelligentsia of the Arab world, and you can definitely see the seeds of secular Arab nationalism all over. Sadly, there is a fair bit of legitimately antisemitic rhetoric (like "there's a reason why Jewish people were kicked out of so many places," not just opposition to israel) but this is a historic document and it should be taken with a big grain of salt. It is a shame that a few Zionists have capitalized on this to paint anyone referring to the genocidal actions by the israeli forces & zionist militias by the term "nakba" as anti-semitic, especially since the term has long been removed from the original author! Overall, Zuraiq has pithy prose and doesn't mince words, for better or worse, and it is definitely an interesting read, although not one I would recommend if someone doesn't already have some understanding of the occupation of Palestine.
tl;dr: important document where "al-nakba" was coined, but i don't recommend unless you want to understand the response of the arab world to the catastrophe more
tl;dr: important document where "al-nakba" was coined, but i don't recommend unless you want to understand the response of the arab world to the catastrophe more
January 2, 2024
Unvarnished Jew hatred.
On the one hand Zurayq talks about progress and enlightenment for the Arab world. But on the other he calls for a crusade—repeatedly—against the Jews in Israel. The tiny country populated by a small number of Jews somehow posed a mortal threat to the enormous Arab world. Brilliant people—and Zurayq was certainly an intellect—can be evil.
Importantly, Zurayq never refers to “Palestinians.” Instead, he refers repeatedly to “Arabs in Palestine.”
Additionally, Zurayq describes the Arabs fighting against the Jews as, “in general, the struggle of an effete dilettante and not the struggle of one ready to die—as though only lip service and not actual obligations were involved.”
Furthermore, Zurayq confirms, “It will also be said that the Arabs of Palestine proved themselves weak and impotent; that no sooner had the first bombs fallen than they fled in utter rout, evacuated their cities and their strongholds, and surrendered them to the enemy on a silver platter, that a large number of them had fled even before the battle and had taken refuge in the other Arab countries and in remote regions of Palestine.”
Moreover, Zurayq wrote, “I do not deny that cowardice and disintegration have appeared among the Arabs, in Palestine and elsewhere.”
This is the disaster, the nakba, as Zurayq saw it. Far from the tale that has taken hold in our time, the disaster was the failure of the Arabs in Palestine to fight. Likewise, the disaster was the defeat of the Arab Legion to the Zionists in the nascent State of Israel.
Contrary to Zurayq’s insistence, the British supported the Arab Legion on the ground while working against the Zionists in the United Nations. Contrary to Zurayq’s narrative, the Americans and the British had imposed naval blockades on the Jews, and they worked together to reverse the vote for partition.
These and other glaring factual contradictions ordinarily come at a cost, and the high price is one’s credibility.
Despite the repeated grandstanding, the crux of this concern over control of Palestine is buried in the book. But first, Zurayq recites the dreaded parade of horribles of Biblical proportions. “The state will open its doors to thousands of immigrants who will pour into it from Europe and to millions of dollars which will flood in from America. Thus it will become a human and financial force which will be difficult to contain in its own area and which will overflow into the remainder of the Arab countries by every possible means and thus constitute, during a situation of world disturbance, a great danger for those countries.” It is as if Zurayq read the first ten sentences of the Book of Exodus for xenophobic inspiration.
And here is the crux of the concern. “The danger is aggravated by the fact that it occupies the coast and the sea passages and is established in a vital area between Arab countries. For Palestine is the bridge between these countries, and if a foreign power conquers it [i.e. the Zionists], relations between them will be disrupted, and the chain of cooperation and unity will be broken.”
The time has come for the enlightenment and progress that Zurayq described to take hold without any further crusade against the Jews in Israel, the Disputed Territories, Gaza, or elsewhere.
On the one hand Zurayq talks about progress and enlightenment for the Arab world. But on the other he calls for a crusade—repeatedly—against the Jews in Israel. The tiny country populated by a small number of Jews somehow posed a mortal threat to the enormous Arab world. Brilliant people—and Zurayq was certainly an intellect—can be evil.
Importantly, Zurayq never refers to “Palestinians.” Instead, he refers repeatedly to “Arabs in Palestine.”
Additionally, Zurayq describes the Arabs fighting against the Jews as, “in general, the struggle of an effete dilettante and not the struggle of one ready to die—as though only lip service and not actual obligations were involved.”
Furthermore, Zurayq confirms, “It will also be said that the Arabs of Palestine proved themselves weak and impotent; that no sooner had the first bombs fallen than they fled in utter rout, evacuated their cities and their strongholds, and surrendered them to the enemy on a silver platter, that a large number of them had fled even before the battle and had taken refuge in the other Arab countries and in remote regions of Palestine.”
Moreover, Zurayq wrote, “I do not deny that cowardice and disintegration have appeared among the Arabs, in Palestine and elsewhere.”
This is the disaster, the nakba, as Zurayq saw it. Far from the tale that has taken hold in our time, the disaster was the failure of the Arabs in Palestine to fight. Likewise, the disaster was the defeat of the Arab Legion to the Zionists in the nascent State of Israel.
Contrary to Zurayq’s insistence, the British supported the Arab Legion on the ground while working against the Zionists in the United Nations. Contrary to Zurayq’s narrative, the Americans and the British had imposed naval blockades on the Jews, and they worked together to reverse the vote for partition.
These and other glaring factual contradictions ordinarily come at a cost, and the high price is one’s credibility.
Despite the repeated grandstanding, the crux of this concern over control of Palestine is buried in the book. But first, Zurayq recites the dreaded parade of horribles of Biblical proportions. “The state will open its doors to thousands of immigrants who will pour into it from Europe and to millions of dollars which will flood in from America. Thus it will become a human and financial force which will be difficult to contain in its own area and which will overflow into the remainder of the Arab countries by every possible means and thus constitute, during a situation of world disturbance, a great danger for those countries.” It is as if Zurayq read the first ten sentences of the Book of Exodus for xenophobic inspiration.
And here is the crux of the concern. “The danger is aggravated by the fact that it occupies the coast and the sea passages and is established in a vital area between Arab countries. For Palestine is the bridge between these countries, and if a foreign power conquers it [i.e. the Zionists], relations between them will be disrupted, and the chain of cooperation and unity will be broken.”
The time has come for the enlightenment and progress that Zurayq described to take hold without any further crusade against the Jews in Israel, the Disputed Territories, Gaza, or elsewhere.
May 11, 2023
Being one of the first books to be published soon after the Nakba in 1948—and I believe, the first author to refer to the tragedy as Nakba or the Catastrophe — this work is an essential reading if you want to understand the general feelings and the prevailing sentiments of the (moderate?) Arabs at that time.
In this book, Constantine Zurayq - a staunch believer of universal humanity - succintly summarized the root causes of the catastrophe that befall upon the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs as a whole: 1) the Arabs' disunity and 2) the evilness of the Zionist project.
But as the translator R. Bayly puts it, "he neither indulge in self-pity nor advocate extremism". Instead, in a critical manner, he urged the Arab nations to band together in order to fight against Zionism, which he rightly categorized as their biggest enemy.
More importantly, this fight, he added, must be fought not on the basis of racial superiority, religious bigotry or revenge, but instead must be based on human rights, freedom and high principles.
In this book, Constantine Zurayq - a staunch believer of universal humanity - succintly summarized the root causes of the catastrophe that befall upon the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs as a whole: 1) the Arabs' disunity and 2) the evilness of the Zionist project.
But as the translator R. Bayly puts it, "he neither indulge in self-pity nor advocate extremism". Instead, in a critical manner, he urged the Arab nations to band together in order to fight against Zionism, which he rightly categorized as their biggest enemy.
More importantly, this fight, he added, must be fought not on the basis of racial superiority, religious bigotry or revenge, but instead must be based on human rights, freedom and high principles.
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December 14, 2024A stupid book written by a stupid man.
June 29, 2026
This book would be a good guideline for fostering peace, unity, and progressivism if it wasn’t for the fact it is bogged down by antisemitic and general vitriol. The hatred of the author is so evident that I can tell he doesn’t want peace. If he wanted peace, he wouldn’t be touting the ‘Nakba’ as being about the loss of the fight to the Jews rather than the devastation that was the people displaced from their homes during wartime. It is perfectly fine to be upset about the lost land and horror that was the displacement of innocents; that being said, if he was someone who wanted peace, would he really take an issue with Jewish people being given refuge from a regime that so desperately wanted to destroy them, prior to the creation of a Jewish state? If he wanted peace, would he be posing this as an ‘us versus them’ scenario, where the Jews are direct threats to Arab existence as a whole?
I find it quite hypocritical of Zurayk to criticize Jewish people for their “only common bonds [being] religion and suffering” when the entire history of Arab imperialism and colonialism demonstrates that being the tying factor for every other majority Muslim country. Places like Iran, for example, are not indigenously Muslim or Arab. They are Persian. They have an entire culture completely removed from that of Saudis, save for their religion. Their languages are not even the same and come from completely different origins.
Zurayk states that a key piece of evidence proving the lack of Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel “is that the name by which it has been known throughout history is not derived from them but from their bitterest enemies, the Philistines.” It is quite ironic considering the name Israel is on every single coin, passport, and legal document of anyone who resided in the Palestinian mandate. Perhaps that is not enough, so I will delve deeper. The very origin of the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ is Judea. The word for Jew in Arabic is Yehudi, which comes from Judah, the historic kingdom of Judah (son of Jacob, later named Israel). The very Quran that many of these countries take to be the word of Allah talks about the People of the Book, the children of Israel, the ones whom Allah gave the Torah and promised the Holy Land to.
The science Zurayk cites towards the end about the Khazar tribes is completely ahistorical. There is no evidence of ANY mass conversion of these tribes. The Ashkenazi people trace their origins back to the Levant, coming from a very small group of original ancestors. It is verifiable. Zurayk is wrong.
Zurayk talks about the idea of ‘chosenness’ by comparing this Jewish thought to Nazism. The insanity of this claim is the fact that Jewish chosenness does very little actually to raise up the Jewish people. It does not place them on a pedestal. In fact, it gives them 613 MORE rules to follow compared to the 7 that ideally non-Jewish people would.
The Nazis used their idea of chosenness to kill those they deemed unworthy to live. They condemned them to death via some of the most torturous ways possible. Jews don’t even condemn gentiles to hell. Judaism doesn’t really even have a hell. It more so has a cleansing period that literally everyone has to go through, INCLUDING JEWS.
It is laughable that Zurayk claims the Arabs are innocent of the violence that has been inflicted upon the Jews, considering how buddy-buddy Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini were. Birds of a feather.
Ahistorical history book that is the source of the entire etymology of the word 'nakba' in relation to this entire conflict. Its impressive this slop had that big a legacy, but then again, it's about the Jews.
I find it quite hypocritical of Zurayk to criticize Jewish people for their “only common bonds [being] religion and suffering” when the entire history of Arab imperialism and colonialism demonstrates that being the tying factor for every other majority Muslim country. Places like Iran, for example, are not indigenously Muslim or Arab. They are Persian. They have an entire culture completely removed from that of Saudis, save for their religion. Their languages are not even the same and come from completely different origins.
Zurayk states that a key piece of evidence proving the lack of Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel “is that the name by which it has been known throughout history is not derived from them but from their bitterest enemies, the Philistines.” It is quite ironic considering the name Israel is on every single coin, passport, and legal document of anyone who resided in the Palestinian mandate. Perhaps that is not enough, so I will delve deeper. The very origin of the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ is Judea. The word for Jew in Arabic is Yehudi, which comes from Judah, the historic kingdom of Judah (son of Jacob, later named Israel). The very Quran that many of these countries take to be the word of Allah talks about the People of the Book, the children of Israel, the ones whom Allah gave the Torah and promised the Holy Land to.
The science Zurayk cites towards the end about the Khazar tribes is completely ahistorical. There is no evidence of ANY mass conversion of these tribes. The Ashkenazi people trace their origins back to the Levant, coming from a very small group of original ancestors. It is verifiable. Zurayk is wrong.
Zurayk talks about the idea of ‘chosenness’ by comparing this Jewish thought to Nazism. The insanity of this claim is the fact that Jewish chosenness does very little actually to raise up the Jewish people. It does not place them on a pedestal. In fact, it gives them 613 MORE rules to follow compared to the 7 that ideally non-Jewish people would.
The Nazis used their idea of chosenness to kill those they deemed unworthy to live. They condemned them to death via some of the most torturous ways possible. Jews don’t even condemn gentiles to hell. Judaism doesn’t really even have a hell. It more so has a cleansing period that literally everyone has to go through, INCLUDING JEWS.
It is laughable that Zurayk claims the Arabs are innocent of the violence that has been inflicted upon the Jews, considering how buddy-buddy Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini were. Birds of a feather.
Ahistorical history book that is the source of the entire etymology of the word 'nakba' in relation to this entire conflict. Its impressive this slop had that big a legacy, but then again, it's about the Jews.
January 18, 2026
A brief but scathing indictment of the failure of the Arab world successfully resist the loss of Palestine to Zionists. The core of Zurayk’s prescription is that Arabs have to set aside their petty differences, embrace maternity, and focus on the goal itself. Unfortunately, while there were numerous revolutions throughout the Arab world after he wrote this book, none of them came close to following his recommendations. The results speak for themselves.
Want to Read
May 21, 2024#39 in challenge
May 26, 2026
Fascinating primary source right after the Nakba. Interesting to see a lot of the arguments present in it are the same used today. A deeply misunderstood text as well.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews