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Nakba

Nakba
Part of the Arab–Israeli conflict
A Palestinian watches over a school in a refugee camp, 1948.
LocationMandatory Palestine
TargetPalestinian Arabs
Attack type
Ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, dispossession, mass killing, biological warfare
Victims750,000+ Palestinian Arabs expelled
Perpetrators State of Israel
Motive
Part of a series on the
Nakba
Precipitating events
  • Background
1948 expulsion and flight
Discourse
Notable writers
Symbols and memory
Lists

The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة an-Nakba, lit. 'the catastrophe') was the ethnic cleansing[1] of Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Palestine war through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.[2] The term is also used to describe the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.[3] As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.[4][5]

During the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people,[6] were expelled from their homes or made to flee, at first by Zionist paramilitaries through various violent means, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by the Israel Defense Forces. This occurred in the wake of dozens of massacres targeting Palestinian Arabs and the depopulation of 500 Arab-majority towns and villages,[7] with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel and at least 15,000 Palestinian Arabs had been killed.[8][9]

The Palestinian national narrative views the Nakba as a collective trauma that defines their national identity and political aspirations. The Israeli national narrative views the Nakba as a component of the War of Independence that established Israel's statehood and sovereignty.[10][11] It portrays the events of 1948 as the culmination of Jewish and Palestinian aspirations, and as part of the military success against Arab armies,[10] whilst negating or denying the atrocities committed, claiming some Palestinians left willingly, or that it was necessary and unavoidable. Nakba denial has been increasingly challenged since the 1970s in Israeli society, particularly by the New Historians, although the official narrative has not changed.[12]

Palestinians observe 15 May as Nakba Day, commemorating the war's events one day after Israel's Independence Day.[13][14] In 1967 following the Six-Day War, another series of Palestinian exodus occurred; this came to be known as the Naksa (lit. 'Setback'), and also has its own day, 5 June. The Nakba has greatly influenced Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of the current Palestinian national identity, together with the political cartoon character Handala, the Palestinian keffiyeh, and the Palestinian 1948 keys. Many books, songs, and poems have been written about the Nakba.[15]

  1. ^ Sabbagh-Khoury 2023, pp. 30, 65, 71, 81, 182, 193–194; Abu-Laban & Bakan 2022, p. 511; Manna 2022; Pappe 2022, pp. 33, 120–122, 126–132, 137, 239; Hasian Jr. 2020, pp. 77–109; Khalidi 2020, pp. 12, 73, 76, 231; Slater 2020, pp. 81–85; Shenhav 2019, pp. 49–50, 54, and 61; Bashir & Goldberg 2018, pp. 20 and 32 n.2; Confino 2018, p. 138; Masalha 2018, pp. 44, 52–54, 64, 319, 324, 376, 383; Nashef 2018, pp. 5–6, 52, 76; Auron 2017; Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2017, p. 393; Al-Hardan 2016, pp. 47–48; Natour 2016, p. 82; Rashed, Short & Docker 2014, pp. 3–4, 8–18; Masalha 2012; Wolfe 2012, pp. 153–154, 160–161; Khoury 2012, pp. 258, 263–265; Knopf-Newman 2011, pp. 4–5, 25–32, 109, 180–182; Lentin 2010, ch. 2; Milshtein 2009, p. 50; Ram 2009, p. 388; Shlaim 2009, pp. 55, 288; Esmeir 2007, pp. 249–250; Sa'di 2007, pp. 291–293, 298, 308; Pappe 2006; Schulz 2003, pp. 24, 31–32
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference NakbaDef was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ongoing was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Masalha 2012, p. 3; Dajani 2005, p. 42: "The nakba is the experience that has perhaps most defined Palestinian history. For the Palestinian, it is not merely a political event — the establishment of the state of Israel on 78 percent of the territory of the Palestine Mandate, or even, primarily a humanitarian one — the creation of the modern world's most enduring refugee problem. The nakba is of existential significance to Palestinians, representing both the shattering of the Palestinian community in Palestine and the consolidation of a shared national consciousness."; Abu-Lughod & Sa'di 2007, p. 3: "For Palestinians, the 1948 War led indeed to a "catastrophe." A society disintegrated, a people dispersed, and a complex and historically changing but taken for granted communal life was ended violently. The Nakba has thus become, both in Palestinian memory and history, the demarcation line between two qualitatively opposing periods. After 1948, the lives of the Palestinians at the individual, community, and national level were dramatically and irreversibly changed."
  5. ^ Khalidi, Rashid I. (1992). "Observations on the Right of Return". Journal of Palestine Studies. 21 (2): 29–40. doi:10.2307/2537217. JSTOR 2537217. Only by understanding the centrality of the catastrophe of politicide and expulsion that befell the Palestinian people – al-nakba in Arabic – is it possible to understand the Palestinians' sense of the right of return
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference 750k was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference 500 villages was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948?". Al Jazeera. 15 May 2022.
  9. ^ "Nakba survivors in Gaza mark 75 years of ongoing refugeehood, settler-colonialism and apartheid amid Israel's renewed military assault on the Strip". Relief Web. 15 May 2023.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference partner was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Golani, Motti; Manna, Adel (2011). Two sides of the coin: independence and Nakba, 1948: two narratives of the 1948 War and its outcome. Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. p. 14. ISBN 978-90-8979-080-4. Retrieved 14 November 2023. The Palestinians regard the Nakba and its repercussions as a formative trauma defining their identity and their national, moral, and political aspirations. As a result of the 1948 war, the Palestinian people, which to a large degree lost their country to the establishment of a Jewish state for the survivors of the Holocaust, developed a victimized national identity. From their perspective, the Palestinians have been forced to pay for the Jewish Holocaust with their bodies, their property, and their freedom instead of those who were truly responsible. Jewish Israelis, in contrast, see the war and its outcome not merely as an act of historical justice that changed the historical course of the Jewish people, which until that point had been filled with suffering and hardship, but also as a birth – the birth of Israel as an independent Jewish state after two thousand years of exile. As such, it must be pure and untainted, because if a person, a nation, or a state is born in sin, its entire essence is tainted. In this sense, discourse on the war is not at all historical but rather current and extremely sensitive. Its power and intensity is directly influenced by present day events. In the Israeli and the Palestinian cases, therefore, the 1948 war plays a pivotal role in two simple, clear, unequivocal, and harmonious narratives, with both peoples continuing to see the war as a formative event in their respective histories.
  12. ^ Khalidi, Walid (1961)
  13. ^ Schmemann, Serge (15 May 1998). "MIDEAST TURMOIL: THE OVERVIEW; 9 Palestinians Die in Protests Marking Israel's Anniversary". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 7 April 2021. We are not asking for a lot. We are not asking for the moon. We are asking to close the chapter of nakba once and for all, for the refugees to return and to build an independent Palestinian state on our land, our land, our land, just like other peoples. We want to celebrate in our capital, holy Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem.
  14. ^ Gladstone, Rick (15 May 2021). "An annual day of Palestinian grievance comes amid the upheaval". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  15. ^ Masalha 2012, p. 11.

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