As Israelis look towards the future in their celebration of the nation’s 60th birthday, some Palestinians cling to the past by commemorating what they call the "Nakba" or "the catastrophe." A faculty panel discussion held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) last month and titled, "60 Years of Nakba—The Catastrophe of Palestine 1948-2008," was one of many similar lamentations held worldwide.

The tone from the outset was grim. Speakers acknowledged that another "Nakba" anniversary was confirmation that combined Palestinian and Arab attempts to eliminate the Jewish state have not succeeded.

Despite this, Columbia's controversial associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, Joseph Massad, was upbeat. According to Massad, the Israelis have won military victories, but the "Palestinian resistance" has successfully rebranded them. Through 60 years of tireless propaganda efforts, the Palestinian term, "Nakba," has replaced "Israel’s war of independence"; "apartheid" has replaced "Jewish sovereignty"; the "plight of the Palestinians" has replaced “the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland"; the "Palestinians" has replaced "the non-Jewish community of Palestine." And even in the culinary world, Massad claimed, "Palestinian Maftool" has replaced "Israeli couscous." (Like many of Massad’s claims, the couscous issue is debatable. A recent visit to Whole Foods Market proved that Israeli couscous is still the preferred nomenclature.)

Massad’s concept of victory reframed the event. It was no longer a dirge-like recitation of perpetual victimization, but rather a showcase—a preview of new trends in “resistance” propagandizing.

So what’s "in" this season? Using the "renaming" strategy to make the destruction of Israel more palatable to the West was the faculty panel’s primary theme. Portraying the only democratic state in the Middle East as a brutal, non-democratic "Jewish supremacist and racist state," as Massad once put it, was the secondary theme.