Well, I wasted a lot of time this morning on the NYT crossword puzzle. I also realized that I didn’t do the daily Wordle yesterday, which means (although I did it along with today’s today) that they have once again set me back to Zero. In addition to that, it is the president’s birthday, also known, in my mind, as the Nakba.

Of course, Nakba normally refers to the days when Israel won its war of independence, and Palestinians were displaced (sometimes violently, sometimes through deception, sometimes out of fear, and sometimes not at all) from their homes in what became the State of Israel.

Those of you with a good memory (I don’t think any of my readers – mostly elderly – have good memories any more) may recall that times that I have suggested that the term “Zionism” be dropped, that it has become both an incendiary term and an unnecessary one, and should be relegated to words of the past, words depicting history but not the present. If you not only have a good memory, but keep up with such things, you may notice that a number of people with larger audiences have said the same thing, such as Nadine Epstein, editor of Moment magazine.

Today, I want to go the other way with the word “Nakba”. I do not want it to be dropped from the vocabulary; I want it to be expanded and become part of the normal English vocabulary (even though it is an Arabic word). My reason is simple. The Palestinians use “Nakba” the way the Jews use “Holocaust”. They use it to connote a particular occurrence, a particular experience, and they claim that the use of the word for any other occurrence is both wrong and demeaning. But the fact is that, throughout history, as a result of wars (irrespective of who has started the wars, or whether the wars were necessary or wars of choice), people have been required to give up their homes and move elsewhere. Even in recent years, of course, in places such as Syria, there has been much displacement.

Historically, there have been many examples. Between 12 and 20 million were displaced when Britain left India and the Raj broke up into India, Pakistan, and (eventually) Bangladesh. In Turkey, after hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Kurds were displaced during World War I (not to mention the Armenians, who were killed in another genocide, another Holocaust), in 1923, there was a “peaceful” displacement and exchange of over a million Greeks living in Turkey and several hundred thousand Turks who were living in Greece.

And, of course, these are only examples. Many of those who are now being chased by ICE in the US and deported were themselves victims of displacement from their home countries, victims not of ethnic Nakbas, but political or personal Nakbas.

I think each of these forced displacements should be termed a Nakba. The forced removal of Jews during the Nazi years was a Nakba and showed that, in extreme circumstances, the result of, or a part of, a Nakba can be a Holocaust. The forced removal of Jews from so many countries in the Middle East and in North Africa after the formation of the State of Israel was a Nakba, if not a Holocaust.

The purpose of all of this would be, of course, to normalize the human experience. Jews are not the only people to have suffered through a Holocaust. Palestinians are not the only people to have suffered through a Nakba. Both words should be used more generally than they are; they should be used over and over. For after all, Holocausts and Nakbas are not unusual; they are with us all the time, all the times throughout human history.

Zionism is something different. There is no other people than the Jews who created a nation on the basis of a political (okay, more than political) philosophy like Zionism. But the purpose was to make the Jews no longer a people without an ethnic homeland, and to make them more like other peoples. That was the basic idea of political Zionism – to eliminate antisemitism in the lands were Jews were living, and to give them their own land where they could become like other peoples, no longer exceptional, no longer the outsider, no longer the hated.

Well, that worked and it didn’t work, as we know. And we don’t yet know how it will end (if it ever will). But if the idea was to make the Jews into a people like all other peoples, that is what we should be doing. And doing that means getting rid of the term “Zionism” and all that it connotes.

Of course, this won’t solve the entire problem. We still have two peoples wherein large segments of the population want exclusive control “from the river to the sea”. There is still much that has to be hashed out, unfortunately. But to use the terms “Zionism” as creating a special position (often deemed a God given position) for Jews, and “Nakba” as providing certain rights (also often deemed God given) for Palestinians, muddles and muddies that water. Zionism should be dropped, and Nakba should become a term to describe all peoples (and all individuals) who have been subject to forced displacement.

Being a victim of a Nakba does not give one eternal rights of return. But once you have been a beneficiary of the opportunity to return, you have returned. An additional Nakba is certainly not called for.

Finally, you ask if I knew that this is what I was going to write about when I sat down this morning after my struggle with the crossword puzzle. The answer is “no”. I had no idea what I was going to write about. And, although I was unable to complete the puzzle, I don’t call that a Nakba. The word needs to become universal. But not that universal.