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What is the Nakba? Day of catastrophe for Palestinians, explained (Middle East Eye)
"The Nakba is one of the key events in modern Middle East history and one that has come to define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since. Also known as "The Catastrophe", it began during late 1947 and 1948, as the new Israeli state came into existence."
"The Nakba was the result of the partition of Mandatory Palestine in 1948 after World War Two ended, as the United Nations and world powers realigned the borders of the Middle East. But many argue that the plan did not take into account populations at the time."
"In the weeks and months that followed, thousands of Palestinians were killed or driven from their homes and communities uprooted by Jewish paramilitary groups. Jews were also killed by Palestinian groups, if not in the same numbers."
"Many of the Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes never returned to historic Palestine, much of which is now the modern-day state of Israel. More than 70 years later, millions of their descendants live in dozens of refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding countries."
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The elders can still smell their homeland; they can still smell Palestine (Middle East Monitor)
Cevdet Acu writes: "Palestinian refugees remain one of the largest and longest-suffering groups of displaced people in the world. The refugee issue originated in the 1948 declaration of independence by the state of Israel in occupied Palestine; it is still at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
"Millions of Palestinians are still in exile due to the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe). Most live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."
"The socio-economic conditions in these camps are mostly poor with high population density. A number of studies have been conducted to explain the precarious life of Palestinian refugees who have been in exile for almost four generations."
"We are people who have been forced to leave their homeland due to the Israel invasion. We have to improve our skills. If we are not educated people, this will not be good for the Palestinian cause. Education is our only power to create a better future." Jondiaa Awwad Al-Dheini.
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Don’t wait for Israeli archives to prove what Palestinians already know (+972 Magazine)
Amjad Iraqi writes: "Israeli authorities are deliberately concealing historical documents to undermine evidence of the state’s dark and violent origins. And the world is still falling for it."
"A Palestinian eyewitness account describes the day when Zionist forces conquered the village and rounded up its residents in October 1948:
"As we lined up, a few Jewish soldiers ordered four girls to accompany them to carry water for the soldiers. Instead, they took them to our empty houses and raped them. About seventy of our men were blindfolded and shot to death, one after the other, in front of us. The soldiers took their bodies and threw them on the cement covering of the village’s spring and dumped sand on them."
"The world should not have to constantly catch up to what Palestinians have always known about the Nakba...Like all settler-colonial states, Israel fears the ghosts of its dark and violent origins. Palestinians are those living ghosts. Listen to what they have to say."
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Palestinians can now see their stolen property in the database we've made public (Middle East Eye)
Nasser Qudwa writes: "A comprehensive database of private property belonging to Palestinian refugees in the territory occupied by Israel in 1948 has been opened to the public."
"For many years, the database was classified as secret, and copies of the work were distributed to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organization."
"Today, we have decided to open the records for every Palestinian to be able to check on their property and, in certain cases, obtain respective documents."
"Whoever accesses this database will realise not only the great injustices inflicted upon the Palestinian people, but also how much Israel has profited from Palestinian refugee property."
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The Palestine Nakba Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (Zed Books)
Nur Masalha, The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (London: Zed Books, 2012).
"This book explores new ways of remembering and commemorating the Nakba. In the context of Palestinian oral history, it explores 'social history from below', subaltern narratives of memory and the formation of collective identity."
"Masalha argues that to write more truthfully about the Nakba is not just to practise a professional historiography but an ethical imperative."
"The struggles of ordinary refugees to recover and publicly assert the truth about the Nakba is a vital way of protecting their rights and keeping the hope for peace with justice alive."
"This book is essential for understanding the place of the Palestine Nakba at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the vital role of memory in narratives of truth and reconciliation."
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (Palestine Chronicle)
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications, 2006).
"Pappe is also one of Israel’s "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State’s founding and those following it to this day."
Part 1 of a review by Stephen Lendman. Part 2 can be accessed here: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (Part II) - Palestine Chronicle
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"Anera provides humanitarian assistance and sustainable development to advance the well-being of refugees and other vulnerable communities in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan."
"Anera works on the ground with partners in Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), Lebanon and Jordan. They mobilize resources for immediate emergency relief and for sustainable, long-term health, education, and economic development."
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Al-Nakba, Al Jazeera series.
A series on the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of 1948 that led to dispossession and conflict that still endures.
Since first running on Al Jazeera Arabic in 2008, this series has won international awards and has been well received at festivals throughout the world.
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