These quotes are from that article in New Yorker on Ha’aretz that I remain obsessed with. They seem Yom Ha’atzmaut appropriate.
Amos Schocken, Publisher/Owner, Ha’aretz

“Hasn’t the time come to recognize that the establishment of Israel is not just the story of the Jewish people, of Zionism, of the heroism of the Israel Defense Forces and of bereavement? That it is also the story of the reflection of Zionism and the heroism of IDF soldiers in the lives of the Arabs: the Nakba—the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe,’ as the Arabs call the events of 1948—the loss, the families that were split up, the disruption of lives, the property that was taken away, the life under military government and other elements of the history shared by Jews and Arabs, which are presented on Independence Day, and now only on that day, in an entirely one-sided way.”
Amos Elon, Israeli Journalist
“Whatever the fate of the occupied territories in our hands at the moment may be—we can already do something with respect to the problem of the refugees who have remained in the areas under the control of the state of Israel. We have a moral obligation to do this. For on the backs of these people Israel’s independence was plowed and they paid with their bodies, their property and their future for the pogroms in Ukraine and the Nazi gas chambers. We owe a huge debt to these forlorn people, even if they were knowingly led astray, even if they, or their parents, blindly followed irresponsible leaders. They are victims of our independence.”