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The Nakba

Israel’s Roots In European Colonialism Explain Its Genocidal Ideology

Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. This is precisely what numerous United Nations experts have determined. Several countries have joined South Africa in a case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and judges at the Hague have stated that it is “plausible” that Tel Aviv is violating the Genocide Convention. Top Israeli officials have made genocidal calls for the elimination of the Palestinian people, whom they demonize as “human animals”. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that it would be “justified and moral” to starve to death all 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

In The Shade Of An Olive Tree

This was the brutality from which the people Samia saw from the shade of her olive tree that summer day were fleeing.  The cleansing of Lydda and Ramleh was one of the largest expulsions of Palestinian civilians at one time. From 50,000 to 70,000 people were forced to flee. Many people died from heat exhaustion on the forced march, which is also known as the Lydda Death March. Jews who immigrated to the new state of Israel settled in the homes left behind, a policy intended to ensure that Palestinian would never return.  Lydda and Ramleh were well within the territory designated by international agreement for the Arab state of Palestine.

Resistance Is What Liberates Us: Palestine And Internationalism

I want to focus on a pivotal period for every single national liberation struggle that is represented in this panel by the organizations here today. And that period is the end of World War II. This is the beginning of the ongoing Nakba in Palestine. This is the beginning of the system of apartheid in South Africa. This is the heat of the Hukbalahap war in the Philippines, a brutal campaign of state terrorism against that very nation’s independence fighters, which was backed, financed and directed by the United States in the name of anti-communism. And in Korea, this was the time of the dawn of national division and the beginning of what the United States calls the Korean War. But what we Korean patriots call the Great Fatherland Liberation War.

‘We Must Fight’; Who Will Write The Last Chapter Of Our Nakba?

"Thank you, a thousand times over! Our sadness has now grown up and become a man. And now, we must fight.” That was the closing verse of a short but influential poem by iconic Palestinian poet, Samih Al-Qasim. It is entitled, "Rafah's Children." Al-Qasim’s poem was published in 1971, over half a century before Israel began its invasion of Rafah, the apex of its supposed military achievement – read genocide – in Gaza, which started in October 2023. The poem identified two major characters in Palestine's ongoing tragedy, starting with the Nakba in 1948: The Israeli, as a representation of war, and the Palestinian people, as a symbol of sumud - steadfastness.

Israel’s War On Palestine And The Global Upsurge Against It

Hundreds of millions of people across the world have been deeply moved by the atrocity of the Israeli war on Palestine. Millions have attended marches and protests, many of them participating in such demonstrations for the first time in their lives. Social media, in almost all the world’s languages, is saturated with memes and posts about this or that terrible action. Some people focus on the Israeli attack on Palestinian children, others on the illegal targeting of Gaza’s health infrastructure, and yet others point to the annihilation of at least four hundred families (more than ten people in each family killed).

Second Nakba; Same Israeli Lies; Same Western Narrative

History is repeating itself — and every politician and establishment journalist is pretending they cannot see what is staring them in the face. There is a collective and wilful refusal to join the dots in Gaza, even when they point in one direction only. There has been a consistent pattern to Israel’s behaviour since its creation 75 years ago — just as there has been a consistent pattern to the “see no evil, hear no evil” response of western powers. In 1948, in events the Palestinians call their “Nakba,” or Catastrophe, 80 percent of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands in what became the self-declared Jewish state of Israel.

Israel Expels Palestinian Family From Their Jerusalem Home

Israeli police expelled a Palestinian family from their home of more than 70 years in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday. The Ghaith-Sub Laban family’s apartment is now occupied by Jewish settlers after an Israeli court order. The court ruling ended the protected tenancy of Nora Ghaith, 68, and Mustafa Sub Laban, 72. Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN human rights office in the West Bank and Gaza, said that the eviction of the couple “may amount to forcible transfer … a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime.” The human rights office added that “international humanitarian law prohibits Israel from imposing its own laws in occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, which includes the use of Israeli laws to evict Palestinians from their homes.”

Surviving The Nakba, A One State Solution And Being Cancelled

It is often better to talk about solutions rather than problems. And today, on “The Watchdog,” Lowkey talks to British-Palestinian intellectual Ghada Karmi about her new book, “One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.” In “One State,” Karmi envisages uniting the land, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, under one secular, democratic nation, allowing refugees to return to their homeland in safety and enjoy the same rights and securities that those currently living there have. She insists that this is the only way to end the anti-democratic nature of the Israeli state. Lowkey and Karmi have previously teamed up to debate at the Oxford Union together.

Activists Demand Better Scrutiny Of Israeli Occupation’s Impact On Health

As the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrated its 75th anniversary, the world also commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, which resulted in the forceful displacement of close to 800,00 Palestinians. The 76th World Health Assembly, held in Geneva from May 21-30, saw WHO members adopt a decision urging the Director-General to continue monitoring and reporting on the health conditions in Palestine. The decision received 76 votes in favor, 13 votes against, and 35 abstentions, which was similar to the voting patterns of previous years. Countries such as Zimbabwe, Cuba, Lebanon, Venezuela, and Sudan expressed concern about the health conditions in Palestine and stressed the importance of monitoring the health situation in the occupied territories.

A Dark History: Nakba’s Tragedy Continues Unabated After 75 Years

Even with all the protests and mentions of Nakba Day on social media, commemorating this horrific, sad event is nowhere near where it ought to be. Arguably one of the darkest and most awful chapters in the long history of Palestine, the Nakba needs to be fully commemorated in every capital in the world. The politicization of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the consequent installment of an apartheid regime to govern it is such that few countries dare even to mention these crimes against humanity. The full scope of the Nakba, a combination of several crimes against humanity, is yet to be understood.

Nakba Anniversary: Global Protests Show Solidarity With Palestine

To mark the 75th anniversary of Nakba (The Disaster), global protests took place this past weekend. The actions commemorate the day, when on May 15, 1948, the new Zionist state of Israel began its brutal removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people from their rightful lands. This genocide continues today with beatings, murders and jailings of Palestinians — with U.S. backing in the billions of dollars. An estimated 4 million Palestinians have been relegated to refugee status. At least 78% of their lands have been confiscated by a racist occupation, reminiscent of apartheid South Africa and the wholesale theft of the Indigenous Americas.

75 Years Of Israeli Violence Against Palestinians

Over the last week, Israel has launched yet another round of bombings on Gaza. The attacks have destroyed civilian infrastructure and killed at least 31 Palestinians, many of them women and children. This terror is not the exception, but the rule of Israel’s history. 75 years ago, the apartheid state of Israel began its decades-long history of oppressing, occupying, and killing the Palestinian people. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes at gunpoint, and to this day are fighting for the right to return. Israel has only taken more Palestinian land since the original expulsion in 1948.

UN To Observe Nakba Day In Series Of Approved Resolutions On Palestine

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a slate of resolutions on Palestine and the West Asia region during the 41st and 42nd meetings of its 77th session held this week. The assembly voted to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba by organizing a high-level event at the UNGA on May 15, 2023. To this end, “L.24” titled “Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat” was adopted with a recorded 90 votes in favor, 30 against, and 47 abstentions. The Nakba, or “The Catastrophe”, refers to the series of mass atrocities committed by Zionist forces that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. At least 15,000 Palestinians were killed and over 750,000 were forcibly expelled from their homes, as over 500 villages were completely destroyed.

The Right Of Return Is Once Again A Palestinian Priority

The Nakba is back on the Palestinian agenda. For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba – or Catastrophe – is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any ‘pragmatic’ political discourse. They were urged to move on. The consequences of that shift in narrative were dire. Disowning the Nakba, the single most important event that shaped modern Palestinian history, has resulted in more than political division between the so-called radicals and the supposedly peace-loving pragmatists, the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian protesters march in the West Bank village of Salem on 15 May 2021 to denounce violence by Israeli forces in recent days (AFP)

Heavy Israeli Crackdown On Palestinians Marking Nakba Anniversary

Palestinians across the West Bank gathered in large numbers on Saturday to mark the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba, or "the Catastrophe," which has come to define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent history. The protests commemorate the event in which some 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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