Please consider reading the above article printed on masarbadil.org by Khaled Barakat, member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, was originally published inArabic at Al-Akhbar:
Every year, as the fifteenth of May approaches, Palestine returns to the forefront of global memory as an open wound since 1948. Images of displacement, massacres, the destruction of Palestinian villages, and the uprooting of the people from their land are revived under a name and a slogan that has become firmly entrenched in political and media discourse: the “Nakba.”
The difference between the two expressions is not superficial. “Nakba” refers to catastrophe and defeat, while “Day of Palestinian Struggle” refers to resistance, continuity, and popular will. The first focuses on what colonialism did to the Palestinian people, while the second focuses on what Palestinians do to confront and uproot colonialism. Between the two discourses lies a profound difference in the construction of political consciousness, especially among the new generations in Palestine and the diaspora. – Khaled Barakat
Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid of Palestine by Zionist militias to make the land clear for the creation of Israel in 1948.
This premeditated military campaign resulted in the murder of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of hundreds of villages and the displacement of nearly 80 per cent of Palestinians from their homeland.
The violence went on for more than a year, and the result was the creations of the State of Israel taking over 78 percent of historic Palestine.
West Bank and Gaza made up the remaining 22 percent. This too fell into Israeli hands later and remains under Israeli military rule today.
What is also disgusting is that Britain had a hand, still has a hand, in all of this, due to the “Balfour Declaration”.
For 100s of years Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, Palestine was captured but the British. The League of Nations then gave Palestine to the British to mandate. Not taking into account the wishes of the Palestine people, the British were given control of the land, making decisions for the native population until it was decided they were deemed capable of being an independent state. How colonialist is that?
Great Britain, didn’t care about what was right. Didn’t care about the Palestinians who have lived within their homeland for centuries. Nope.
The British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration” that pledged to establish “in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people”, who made up less than 10 percent of the population at the time.
So all the time Palestine as under the mandate, 1923- 1947, the British were working with Zionists to suppress and eradicate Palestinians, through whatever means necessary, to create a homeland for Jews. Facilitating the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, providing weapons for Zionist’s and training them to kill, all increased the occupation of Palestine by Jews and suppressed the native people, Palestinians.
Once Britain announced its plan to end the mandate in 1947, they left it up to the UN to decide the fate of Palestine. The United Nations decided to partition Palestine into two : 55 percent to a Jewish state, and 45 to an Arab state, while keeping Jerusalem under international control.
It sickens and angers me that other states play god over other states. What right do they have to take away the land and home of the Palestinians?
Palestinians were not consulted over the proposal which never materialised. Because once Britain announced its withdrawal, Zionist groups began their attacks on Palestinians to have complete control over all of Palestine for the return of the Jews.
Nakba was the result.
I do not declare to know the full history. I’ve probably butchered the history as I’ve tried to share it here. Please go and read up on it yourself as it wouldn’t be the first time that histories are shared as ‘facts’ and are really just ‘lies’, manufactured to make the oppressors the victims and heroes.
One thing I am sure about as fact is that the Palestinian people have been brutalised and persecuted from time, kicked and killed out of their own country to make way for ‘the promised land’ of a another people, and that somehow makes it all okay?
Zionists called it a ‘transfer’ of people to other places. I call it genocide. Innocent people killed indiscriminately to create the State of Israel, was wrong then and continues to be wrong today.
Living Wild Studios 