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This Week in Palestine

Issue No. 121
May 2008

Al-Nakba of 1948: Older than sixty, for sure; but how long will it persist?

By Dr. Khalil Nakhleh
The need to re-focus our understanding of al-Nakba

I am not really certain when we started to label what happened to our people and our country, following the establishment of the state of Israel, as al-Nakba. But this is not really the important point. What is important, from my perspective as a Palestinian, is that there is a need to understand what happened to us in the late 1940s, why it happened the way it did, and what we should do to circumvent al-Nakba from persisting into our future.

 
As it has been characterised officially, al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” is a shorthand euphemism for the disaster that befell the Palestinian people and society in historical Palestine in and around 1948, when Israel declared itself to be an independent country. Thus we started equating and associating the “independence” of Israel, or the 15th of May of every year since 1948, with our “catastrophe.” By doing so, we reduced the evil that was wilfully perpetrated against us, as a people and a society, to a commemorative date on our annual calendar; where our enemies celebrate and we mourn. [. . .]

complete article: http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2456&ed=153&edid=153#<...