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Nakba

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Nakba
Part of Palestinian-Israeli conflict

The Palestinian Catastrophe, the calamity that happened to the Palestinians in 1948
Date1948
Location
Palestine
Result 750K Palestinians are expelled and 15K are killed
Nakba in Haifa, residents leaving at gun point as Jewish forces enter the city
Palestine refugees (British Mandate of Palestine - 1948). "Making their way from Galilee in October-November 1948"

Nakba or Al Nakba (Arabic: النكبة) (meaning “disaster ” or “catastrophe” in Arabic, and called the Palestinian Catastrophe in English) happened in 1948, during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, in the newly founded State of Israel.

During the Nakba, Jewish militia forces (who later became the Israeli army) depopulated over 500 Arab-majority towns and villages. Around 750,000 people - half of Palestine's previous Arab population - fled from their homes or were forced by Zionists out of mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel.[1] In addition, thousands of Palestinians were killed and injured during the Nakba.[2]

Palestinians who were displaced now live in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighbouring Arab states.

Historical context

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During the early decades of the 20th century, there were major changes in the Middle East. A massive immigration of Jews occurred after the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which was drafted by Great Britain during World War I. They wanted to settle in Palestine and found a Jewish state in the ancient Land of Israel.

The surrounding countries and the indigenous Arab populations of Palestine resisted this mass immigration. This resulted in a heavy dispute between the Zionists and Arabs in Palestine.

After years of conflict, the British government demanded that the United Nations formulate a solution for the situation in Palestine. The plan to divide Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states was rejected by Arab leaders, who refused to compromise.

Throughout the negotiations, the Palestinian Arabs lacked effective leadership. Additionally, the disorder intensified when David Ben-Gurion announced Israel's independence on May 14, 1948. The British ended their mandate over Palestine on May 15, 1948.[3]

Palestinian vs Israeli point of view

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Up to the present day, Palestinian and Israeli people have differing perspectives about the Nakba. Both sides have experienced the historical events differently, which continues to cause conflict.

Palestinian perspective

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Palestinians often see the Nakba as a terrible event in the history of the state of Palestine. From their point of view, Palestinians view themselves as the victims of Israeli aggression in their country. They accuse Israel of forcing the 1948 refugees out of Palestine based on their ethnicity.[4]

Many Palestinians think they have been made to suffer because of the Holocaust, even though they were not involved in this genocide.[5]

Israeli perspective

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The state of Israel and its supporters mostly reject the description of the events of 1948 as a "catastrophe" (the Arabic meaning of the word Nakba). They often view these events as part of a "fight for independence"

Supporters of Israel argue that Palestinians chose to flee the country and that they were not victims of ethnic cleansing by Zionists.[5][6] They do not acknowledge that Arab villages and Palestinian homes were depopulated. They use terms like "abandoned" property and "population exchange" rather than "confiscated" or "expelled."[7][8]

Aftermath

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The Nakba resulted in a large number of Palestinian refugees inside Palestine & Israel. Many fled to neigbouring countries. There were 520,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948, according to UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East).[4]

The number of refugees from Palestine increased significantly, as shown in the table below.[9]

UNRWA Registered Refugees
West bank Gaza Strip Jordan Syria Lebanon Total
RRs 1950 - 198,227 506,200 82,194 127,600 914,221
RRs 1975 292,922 333,031 625,857 184,042 196,855 1,632,707
RRs 2003 665,246 922,674 1,740,170 413,827 394,532 4,136,449
Increase over 2002 4,0% 3,3% 2,5% 2,0% 1,4% 2,8%
% of total population 32,6 84,5 34,8 2,7 11,5 33,2
% of total RRs 16 22 42 10 10 100
No. of refugee camps 19 8 10 10 12 59
RR living in camps(in % of RR) 179,541 (27) 484,563 (53) 307,785 (18) 120,865 (29) 223,956 (57) 1,316,710 (32)
RR outside of camps 485,705 438,111 1,432,385 292,962 170,576 2,819,739
Average family size 4.56 4.66 5.42 4.31 4.06 4.82
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References

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  1. Abu-Laban, Yasmeen; Bakan, Abigail B. (2022). "Anti-Palestinian Racism and Racial Gaslighting". The Political Quarterly. 93 (3): 508–516. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13166. ISSN 0032-3179. Retrieved 26 February 2024.
  2. Ghanim, H (2011). Nakba. The Palestinians in Israel Readings in History, Politics and Society.
  3. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 209: Called with an undefined error condition: maint_publisher_location.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Masalha, Nur (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London & New York: Zed Books.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Golani, Motti; Manna, Adel (2011). Two Sides of the Coin. Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation.
  6. "PIJ.ORG: The Palestinian Refugee Problem and the Final Status Negotiations: A Review of Positions By Nazmi Ju'beh". PIJ.ORG. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  7. Mori, Mariko (July 2009). "Zionism and the Nakba: The Mainstream Narrative, the Oppressed Narratives, and the Israeli Collective Memory". イスラーム世界研究 [Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies]. 3 (1): 89–107. doi:10.14989/87465. hdl:2433/87465. S2CID 211515216.
  8. Partner, Nancy (2008). "The Linguistic Turn along Post-Postmodern Borders: Israeli/Palestinian Narrative Conflict". New Literary History. 39 (4): 823–845. doi:10.1353/nlh.0.0065. JSTOR 20533118. S2CID 144556954.
  9. "Annual Report of the Department of Health" (PDF). United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). 2003.