Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

This tweet arrived on my screen over and over again, retweeted many times since it was sent by Ali Abunimah, who writes the popular Electronic Intifada blog.

What could he mean? There was nothing in Honolulu’s daily newspaper about any Nakba.

What is Nakba? From the Wikipedia:

Nakba Day (Arabic: يوم النكبة Yawm an-Nakbah, meaning "day of the catastrophe") is an annual day of commemoration for the Palestinian people of the displacement that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.^[1] It is generally commemorated on May 15, the day after the Gregorian calendar date for Israeli independence day

Ok, let’s first check out the mainstream press on this and find out what kind of catastrophe could have occurred in Hawaii on July 4.

The following New York Times article came via the steamship Rio de Janeiro, arriving from the Orient. So please excuse the delay. Blogging wasn’t even invented at the time the ship left, and there was no Twitter at all, if you can imagine... 

(click images for a possibly larger image, at least one that you can save to your desktop).

Ok, but who trusts the Mainstream press these days. There must have been something local.

Searching… searching … searching …

Ah, yes. No trouble finding local accounts. Here’s a snip from the Daily Bulletin, July 3, 1894 .

Continued on Page 4:

The Hawaiian Gazette for July 3, 1894 attempts to present two points of view. Note the admission that annexation to the USA was sought by force:

“A year and a half ago we shouldered our guns to gain annexation. We have not got it yet, but it will come soon.”

Here is the "pro" position followed by the protest position:

Continued on Page 5:

So there’s the local news from Hawaii for July 4, 1894.

(Did you see the product placement for Chamberlain’s Pain Balm?  Apparently, nothing’s changed over the years. An infomercial from 1894.)

Permalink posted by Larry @ 7/04/2011 12:47:00 PM