The Israeli army’s latest invasion and bombardment of Jenin refugee camp was accompanied by typical hasbara — Israeli propaganda — seeking to justify the illegal occupation as a necessary response to terrorism. It has also sparked another round of bad-faith arguments about the Jenin camp’s very existence, with a spike in social media rhetoric asking why there are refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.
While Palestinian refugees have long been the target of such misinformation campaigns, these hasbara efforts have escalated in recent years with the rise of the extremist right in Israel and an anti-Palestinian drive from Republicans in the United States.
The undermining of Palestinians’ refugee status and rights goes hand-in-hand with the denial of the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the uprooting and expulsion of around three-quarters of the Palestinian population in 1948, at the hands of Zionist militias and the new Israeli state. Denying the Nakba makes it possible to depict Israel’s establishment as liberatory
— source 972mag.com | Anne Irfan | Jul 9, 2023