The Palestinian Nakba: The Resolve of Memory

[Purveyor]

by Ramzy Baroud / May 16th, 2012

Many Palestinians remember and reference al-Nakba, also known as the Catastrophe, on May 15 every year. The event marks the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians, while their villages were destroyed. The destruction of Palestine in 1947-48 ushered in the birth of Israel. Older generations relay the harsh and oppressive memory of their collective experience to younger Palestinians, many of whom live their own Nakbas today.

In covering al-Nakba, sympathetic Arab and other media play sad music and show black and white footage of displaced, frightened refugees. They rightly emphasize the concept of Sumud, steadfastness, as they show Palestinian of all ages holding unto the rusty keys of their homes and insisting on their right of return. Other, less sympathetic media discuss al-Nakba, if at all, as a side note – a nuisance in the Israeli narrative of a nation’s supposedly miraculous birth and its progression to an idyllic oasis of democracy. What such reductionist representations often fail to show is that while al-Nakba started, it never truly finished.

Those who underwent the pain, harm and loss of al-Nakba are yet to receive the justice that was promised to them by the international community. UN Resolution 194 states that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” (Article 11). Those who wrought this injustice are also yet to achieve their ultimate objectives in Palestine. After all, Israel doesn’t have defined boundaries by accident.

David Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel, once prophesized that “the old (refugees) will die and the young will forget.” He spoke with the harshness of a conqueror. Ben Gurion carried out his war plans to the furthest extent possible. Every region in Palestine that was meant to be taken was captured, its people were expelled or massacred in their homes and villages. Ben Guiron ‘cleansed’ the land, but he failed to cleanse Israel’s past. Memory persists.

MORE...

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/05/the-palestinian-nakba-the-resolve-of-memory/

[shira]

1. Nice whitewash of history. As though there was no effort by Israel's neighbors....

...to destroy Israel and massacre its Jewish inhabitants in 1948. For the sole purpose of not allowing a Jewish homeland to exist even on one square inch of land.

Nakba apologists. Gotta love them.

They mourn the defeat of those most committed to destroying Israel and massacring its Jewish inhabitants.

Classy.

[azurnoir]

2. well it becomes apparent you have no notion of nationality when it comes to teh Arabs

and hold the Palestinians responsible for any act committed against Israel by any Arab thanks I guess it's fine to speak of some in aggregate huh?

However that does not erase or nullify the Nakba in which 700,000 to 900,000 Palestinian Arabs lost their homes, but do go ahead and attempt to justify in any way you please

[shira]

3. It's not about Palestinian nationality. Had Israel's neighbors won resoundingly in 1948...

....there would be no Palestine in existence today. And that would suit everyone in the mideast, as well as their supporters on the anti-I Left. That area would have been divided between Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

It's not about Palestinian nationality for the anti-I Left and Right, since that could've happened ever since 1947, including both in 2000 and 2008. Not a peep from the cheerleaders about a lost opportunity for a national homeland.

The real Nakba has been going on for 64 years and perpetrated by both the Arab world and its Left/Right cheerleaders. Refugees and their descendants shouldn't still be in camps 64 years later. All other refugees from that time period have been absorbed by their host countries except for Palestinians. Not that you have a problem with that if you can blame Israel for it...

[azurnoir]

5. but by your very comments here you attempt to make it all about Arabs rather than Palestinians n/t

[shira]

6. Do you disagree WRT Jews being defeated in 1948; whether there would be a Palestinian state now?

Or a Palestinian people yearning for a state 60 years later?

It's not about nationality, now is it?

The conflict has from the very start been primarily between Israel and the Arab world, not Israel vs. the Palestinians. It was and still is the Arab/Israeli conflict. The only reason it's portrayed as an I/P conflict is to make the Palestinians out to be David vs. the Israeli Goliath, when in fact it's the Arab world Goliath vs. the Israeli David. See, the only reason the PLO and Hamas still think they will win in the end by eventually destroying Israel is b/c they know fully well they're backed by the rest of the Arab world in their hatred of Israel.

Check out a map of the mideast and see how tiny Israel stacks up against the rest of the Arab world. The PLO and Hamas know the maps quite well and believe very much that eventually they (and the rest of the Arab world) will win their war vs. the Jews. The map shows just how irresistible it is for Israel's neighbors to attack Israel.

[Scurrilous]

4. K & R