The Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to a poignant period and the single most important occurrence in modern Palestinian history. Nakba was the process of dismantling Palestine and Palestinian society. The Nakba took place in 1948, a year marked by over 100 massacres, ethnic cleansing, rape of Palestinian women, displacement, loss, and a deep sense of injustice that has been carried in the hearts of Palestinians ever since. We remember this period as an upheaval that ripped apart our homeland, reshaping our collective identity and setting a course for our ongoing struggle for justice and self-determination. How does it feel to be made stateless, a refugee and an un-citizen in your homeland and a marked person across the globe!
Zionism and Israel did not stop by stealing and pillaging our homeland; rather they continue to torment and demonize Palestinians across Palestine and in the Diaspora.
The story of the Nakba begins with the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Western creation of the state of Israel. During the last days of the British Mandate, the Zionist terrorist gangs unleashed violence and massacres to force around 750,000 Palestinians out of their homes and land. This was not a mere side effect of war, but a systematic and intentional act of genocide planned by the Zionist leadership in Palestine with the intended goal of birthing a majority Zionist Jewish state. The Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed and their descendants, who now number over seven millions, remain refugees to this day, living in 58 refugee camps and scattered across the globe, prevented from returning to their ancestral homes. On the flip side, Israel allows any Jewish person from anywhere in the world to land in the country, receive immediate Israeli nationality and move into a town or a settlement in the West Bank while being subsidized for it by the government. The Nakba is not in the past, but a daily concretereality suffocating Palestinians and tormenting their future horizons.
Indeed, the Nakba was not and is not at present just a singular event that occurred in 1948; rather it continues to unfold daily. For Palestinians, it is an ongoing process of displacement in Jerusalem and the West Bank and the dispossession of land and resources across historical Palestine. The reality we face today in the occupied territories and in diaspora communities worldwide is a continuation of the Nakba. The Nakba is manifested in the illegal settlements that continue to encroach on Palestinian land, the separation wall that slices through communities and livelihoods, and the blockade of Gaza that has resulted in inhumane living conditions.
Every bomb dropped by Israel in the Gaza Strip is a reminder of the Nakba.Every home demolition in the West Bank is a reminder of the Nakba. Every prisoner that dies inside Israeli prisons is a reminder of the Nakba. Every time Zionist demonize and attack Palestinians on social media platforms and on college campuses is a reminder of the Nakba. The Nakba is the violent Zionist episode that continues to unleash torment on generations of Palestinians. Denial of the Nakba is an epistemic Zionist violence intended to transfigure history and victimize the Palestinians a new. For remembering and accounting the pain and suffering of the Nakba is part of reconstituting the obliterated and tortured Palestinian self, which for Zionist is a threat because it makes Palestine, as an idea, possible.
Our narrative, however, is not just about victimhood and suffering. It is also about beauty, joy, Palestinian debka, deep rooted food, resilience, resistance, and the unyielding belief in our rights to return. Despite decades of hardship, erasure and repeated assaults on our Palestinian identity, we have managed to preserve our culture, language, mode of dress and traditions. We have continued to assert Palestinian presence on the land and our rightful place in history despite Israel, Zionism and all the global machination to deny the existence of Palestine. Palestine was and will always be!
We Palestinians remember the Nakba every year on May 15, not to dwell on a dark past, difficult as it maybe but to shed light on an ongoing struggle and our collective work to return to Palestine. We remember to resist the erasure of Palestine, the erasure of our narrative and to assert our right to every aspect of Palestine and to return to our homes, villages, towns and farms. We remember to honor the resilience of our ancestors, the old that walked for miles under the sun to refugee camps but working to preserve their keys and memories of Palestine to inspire future generations. We remember because forgetting is not an option when the consequences of the Nakba are still so palpable in our daily lives. Palestine lives in Palestinian heart and is rooted deeply in our collective consciousness like the olive trees that form the landscape.
The Nakba is a wound that has not healed, it is still bleeding and it cannot heal until justice is achieved. This justice means recognizing the Nakba and addressing the wrongs committed in 1948 and those that continue today. It means acknowledging the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as stipulated by UN Resolution 194 and ending the global collective punishment visited upon the Palestinians. It means ending the occupation, dismantling the illegal settlements, stop the theft of water, tearing down the Apartheid Wall and lifting the blockade on Gaza.
As Palestinians, we dream of a future where our children can live in freedom, justice, dignity, and peace in their homeland. We yearn for the day when the word “Nakba” no longer encapsulates our present, but only a chapter of our history that we overcame. Until then, we will continue to remember, to resist, and to strive for the justice that has been long denied to us. We will continue to insist on recognizing the Nakba through public events, UN symposium and media centering of Palestinian suffering.
