Al Nakba Day
The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was to have been accompanied by the creation of an independent Arab Palestinian state. Instead, a war broke out, and at the end of the war many Arab Palestinians had left their homes and were refugees. This 1948 war perpetuated by a supposed Zionist conspiracy to “ethnically cleanse” Palestine uprooted more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating a refugee crisis that is still not resolved. Palestinians call this mass eviction the “Nakba” — Arabic for “catastrophe” and its legacy remains one of the most intractable issues in ongoing peace negotiations.
A core Palestinian demand in the peace negotiations is justice for these refugees, in the form of the “right of return” to the homes their families abandoned in 1948. Palestinians and Israelis remember the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis very differently; Palestinians often see a year’s long, premeditated Jewish campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs. Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees around the world, defined as people displaced in 1948 and their descendants.
This year is more than a memorial occasion, since the Nakba is continuing until today. We do not mourn the catastrophe of 1948 in Palestine, but to celebrate the resistance as well. The Nakba continues, and so too must the resistance. The resistance against the expulsion and displacement from Palestine against the colonization is not only the resistance of a rock against a tank but also the resistance against the narrative in the historical books by the alleged victors, a narrative that is dominant in classrooms, in Newspapers and everywhere. The Palestinian struggle and the solidarity with it also mean breaking this narrative.
On the 70th memorial of the catastrophe, our hearts turn to the many Palestinians who lost their relatives and loved ones in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of 1948 and those who up to this day have been deprived of their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination and statehood.
The embassy of the State of Palestine and the Zimbabwe Institute of Diplomacy are co-hosting the commemorations.
Freedom for Palestine! Long live the International solidarity!