ON May 15th, Nakba Day, Palestinians commemorate their forced displacement and dispossession resulting from the establishment of the state of Israel.
By marking the Nakba Day the Palestinian people protest the dispossession of their land and the dispersion of their people in the Diaspora as a result of paving the way for establishing the state of Israel in 1948, based on the lie of “land without people for a people without land.”
The Nakba denial by Israel is found in the geography and the history taught in schools, on the maps of the country and in the signs marking places on its surface.
All of them ignore almost completely the event which made possible the establishment of the Jewish State as a state with a Jewish majority and a Palestinian minority, after the majority of the indigenous people of the country were evicted, their properties destroyed and/or confiscated for the benefit of the new state.
Israel was built from the beginning on a two-fold negation by the Zionist movement: It negates time and space of the Jews outside Palestine, a ‘negation of exile,’ which extends beyond the realm of religion, and it negates time and space of those indigenous to the territory of Palestine.
This is best defined by the well-known statement of the Zionist leader, Israel Zangvil, about, ‘a people without land returning to a land without people.’
Accordingly, if Palestinians do not ‘really’ exist, as opposed to the ‘reality’ of Zionist existence, then also their expulsion cannot occur. It is not possible to expel somebody who is not present.
According to this approach there was certainly no Nakba or tragedy for any other, because the other had never really existed on the land.
In 1948 the Zionist paramilitary gangs forced out more than 60 per cent of the total Palestinian population. More than 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed. To date, Israel has prevented the return of more than four million Palestinian refugees, who were either been expelled or displaced. More than 250,000 internally displaced Palestinian citizens of Israel are prevented from returning to their homes and villages.
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was established by United Nations General Assembly resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949 to carry out direct relief and works programs for the refugees from Palestine.
The Agency began operations on 1 May 1950. In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2008.
According to UNRWA, one-third of the registered Palestine refugees, about 1.3 million, live in 59 recognised refugee camps in the area of operations in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The other two-thirds of the registered refugees live in and around the cities and towns of the host countries, and in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, often in the environs of official camps.
Ten of the camps were established in the aftermath of the June 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to accommodate a new wave of displaced persons, both refugees and non-refugees.
The BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights said the Palestinians will commemorate the 2006 memorial of Nakba, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.
The Center said in a press release on Sunday: ‘Every year in May, Palestinians commemorate their forced displacement and dispossession (al-Nakba, the catastrophe) resulting from the establishment of the state of Israel 58 years ago and demand implementation of refugees’ right to return to their homes and properties in accordance with international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 194.’
The 2006 memorials will also address the ‘ongoing Nakba,’ i.e. continued forced displacement of Palestinians caused by land seizure and de facto annexation, in particular as a result of the Apartheid Wall Israel is building on the occupied West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem, BADIL said.
2006 memorial events also serve to launch a two-year long global campaign of awareness-raising and activation towards the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in May 2008.
A visit to the depopulated village of Miska will be organised, on May 3rd, by the Committee of Miska refugees. ‘After the visit, participants will join the Annual Return March to Um al-Zeinat.’
On May 4th, a series of screenings of pictures, films and testimonies of the Palestinian Nakba in Jerusalem neighbourhoods and villages will start in western Jerusalem.
In the West Bank, a series of live-studio debates, ‘The Palestinian Nakba at 58,’ organised by BADIL in cooperation with the MA’AN TV network in Tulkarem, will start on May 6, Nablus May 8, Kalandia/Ramallah May 10, Hebron May 12.
On May 15th, Nakba Memorial Rally, organised by the National Committee for the Commemoration of the 58th Anniversary of the Nakba, will take place in Al-Manara Square in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
In Beirut, some 150 representatives of civil society organisations from Arab countries, Europe, South Africa, North America and Palestine will convene in Beirut as part of a series of activities to commemorate the Nakba.
The ‘Arab-International Conference in Solidarity with the Rights of Return and Self-Determination of the Palestinian People’ is organised by the Coalition of Lebanese Civil Society Organisations in Support of the Palestinian Intifada and Resistance, in partnership with the Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition.
On May 13 in Vancouver, Canada, a march for Palestine will be organised by Al-Awda Vancouver and the Palestinian Arab Women’s Association (PAWA) to ‘Support the Palestinian Right of Return.’
In New York on May 14, a Nakba Commemoration March will be organised by Al-Awda-New York.
In the Netherlands, ‘Lifta, A Case for International Planning and Architecture,’ a public meeting on Reconstruction of Memory will be organised by FAST in De Balie, Amsterdam, with guests from Palestine and worldwide.
• 1.4 million Palestinians lived in historical Palestine before the 1948 Nakba.
• 605,000 Jews lived in Palestine during the same period and constituted 30 per cent of the total population.
• 90 per cent of land in Palestine was owned by Palestinians at early British mandate period.
• 7 per cent of historical Palestine was under Zionists’ rule before the partition resolution in October 1947.
• 56 per cent of historical Palestine was under Zionists’ rule as per the partition resolution in October 1947.
• 725,000 Arab Palestinian and 10,000 Jews constituted the population of the proposed ‘Arab state’ as per the partition resolution.
• 531 Palestinian villages were abandoned and destroyed during the Palestine Nakba.
• 85 per cent of the population of the land on which Israel was established (840,000) had to leave their land during the Nakba.
• 92 per cent of Israel is a land belonging to Palestinian refugees.
• 78 per cent of historical Palestine was occupied to establish Israel in 1948.
• 17,178,000 donums of Palestinian-owned land was confiscated by Israel in 1948.
• Only 150,000 Palestinians could remain in their land in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian land.
• 30,000-40,000 Palestinians were forced to go for internal forced migration during the Nakba.
• 400,000 Palestinians suffered forced migration during the 1948-Nakba.
• 199 Palestinian villages with a land of 3363964 donums were forcibly evacuated by Spring 1948.
• 15,000 Palestinians were killed during the Nakba
• More than 30 documented massacres were perpetrated against Palestinian victims in 1948.
• 700,000 donums of Palestinian-owned land were confiscated by Israel between 1948-1967
• 70 per cent of the Palestinian land became under Zionist control between 1948 and early 1950s.
• 50 per cent of the land belonging to the Palestinians remaining in Palestine was turned into the hands of Zionists between 1948-2000
• Almost 75 per cent of the Palestinians are refugees.
• 50 per cent of the Palestinians forcibly live outside historical Palestine.
• Almost only 10 per cent of the land of historical Palestine is in the hands of Palestinians.
