The Nakba of 1948

[Watermelonpower]

Hello everyone
I’m creating this thread because I feel there is not enough awareness about the Nakba of 1948 and the impact this had on the Palestinian people, community and the diaspora that was created as a result. Anyone seeking to understand current events in the Middle East needs to understand The Nakba, what it meant to Palestinians and how the consequences and generational trauma impacts Palestinians to this day. For those who are unaware, 70% of Gaza’s population are Nakba refugees/their descendants.

At the outset I would like to say this thread is about understanding and awareness. Above all, it is about the Palestinian experience and perspective. I would therefore appreciate it if people would keep this in mind and be respectful in their posting, ensuring MN Talk Guidelines are adhered to. I will be also be sharing some personal stories and
suggesting some additional resources and media for those who wish to learn more.

https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/

Not only can Palestinians not return but what land they do have is being steadily and violently and illegally taken by Israeli settlers, with the full consent of the Israeli government.

Israel is an ultranationalist state. I just found this term today when I was reading about the assassination of Rabin. Call me ignorant - I’m not a historian - but I never knew it was an actual thing. Reading about it was like a lightbulb switching on in my head. It explains all of Netanyahu’s actions and also explains so many of the strange responses I see on these threads where the posters genuinely seem to view the Palestinians as dirt under their feet and seem utterly incredulous that anyone would try to defend them.

The analogy definitely does not work. @ER2 There were refugees from the north to Ireland in the 70s and they actually were put up in refugee camps
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/northern-ireland-s-refugees-50-years-on-i-can-still-see-him-standing-there-waving-1.4632825

OP thank you for your thread I am learning a lot from it and truly horrified with how Palestinians have been treated over the past 70 or so years and their continued suffering is heartbreaking. It never ceases to amaze how people continually dehumanise the Palestinians

I'd previously seen videos of people who were raised in Zionist communities (but have different views themselves as adults) talking about being taught about "a land without a people for a people without a land" and the general dehumanisation and erasure of Palestinians but it's something else to see someone making these arguments in real time.

Thanks for the thread OP. Some of the links and stories are very interesting and informative.

I agree. It’s astounding that in 2024 there are people who are willing (and very comfortable), to completely deny the historical existence of the Palestinian people and their culture. It’s not just astounding actually, it’s depressing.

Likud refers to the WB as 'the wasteland', and thinks the settlers are cultivating it. Which is odd, because it looks like a rather hauntingly beautiful place, with low impact living that blended with the environment. Well, it did, before the explosion of concrete, fast settler roads and ugly sprawling settlements with pools.

I will respond to all your points but in the meantime I would encourage you to watch this video and visit the below website.

Regardless of what you think you believe, I can assure you there was such a thing as Palestine and Palestinians have, and always had, a unique culture and identity. They are the people of Knafeh, olive harvests and Nabulsi soap. The people of Tatreez. They are the people who gave the world Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani.

https://www.makan.org.uk/historical_overview/

<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/791862090?h=0afdd77ce9" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

@ER2 I would also suggest watching this documentary. You might find it insightful.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cxa9lynRKGN/?igsh=YnR2c2x6b2EyajZt

Just saw that Germany's foreign minister visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories today with Israeli human rights group BT'selem
She spoke to some of the Palestinians about the state backed settler violence that they have been enduring

'This violence isn't an expression of individual criminality, but rather a systematic, major informal tool that Israel uses to fulfil its goal of forcibly transferring Palestinian communities from their land, in order to take it over.'

First of all Unionists want to maintain the union of the relevant 6 counties with Britain- the opposite of what you think they want, so you clearly are not familiar with NI.
if the island of Ireland was united , the people of the 6 counties would still be Northern Irish . Under the Good Friday Agreement (gfa)they can only unite with the republic if a referendum takes place and both NI and ROI agree. What they would loose is probably devolved government but they’re not that bothered it seems about that atm😂
Gfa “Recognised that it was the right of all persons born in Northern Ireland to ident as Irish or British, or both, and to hold both Irish and British citizenship if they so choose. This right is to continue regardless of any change in the status of Northern Ireland.”
And they really wouldn’t loose their cultural identity because the Good Friday agreement guarantees parity of esteem and equality of opportunity. Their identity would be an equal part of the national identity- the Irish flag 🇮🇪 represents equality for both green ( republican) and orange (unionist or “orangemen”) traditions united in peace.
And of course there wasn’t Palestine back in the day so there couldn’t be “Palestinians”- it was all the Holy Land/ Ottoman Empire/ the Levant and they had to go back to the time of the Phillistiines to think what they’d call the place and came up with Palestine .Israel wasn’t called Israel either so no Israelis then either, were there- just Jewish people living side by side with Muslims and Christians.

Just because something wasn’t named by the West on a map produced by a Western power doesn’t mean it never existed 🙄

@ER2 your ignorance is staggering. Even within Haifa and Beirut (just to mention two of the cities you use as examples) different Arab identities have existed side by side for hundreds of years.
Stop trying to perpetuate this genocidal narrative that “there was no Palestinian / Arab / Lebanese / whatever is inconvenient for Israel today” culture or identity.
Most of the cultural identity in Israel today when it comes to things like food for example is borrowed or stolen from these other cultures whose existence, particularities, and idiosyncrasies you seem to want to deny.
Ugh. The overt racism is so disgusting.

🙄
Trying to say all Arabs are the same is like trying to say all Europeans are the same, or all Africans.
Being from Alexandria or Hebron vs Beirut is like being Spanish vs French or German.
There are cultural and ethnic differences, a different history and lived experiences.
The gulf Arabs vs the North African Arabs vs the Levantines, the Lebanese vs the Palestinians … speak different dialects of Arabic, have different food cultures, different musical traditions, folk dances, poets, writers, histories, folklore taught in their schools.
You’ve clearly never lived in the region. You seem to know nothing about it.

Thanks for clarifying.
Can you quantify what a significant proportion is? A significant proportion isn’t the same as majority.
My understanding is that those who left were told that it was just short term.
Also, equal rights is not the same as parity of esteem and equality of opportunity. Why do Arab Israeli children have such terrible Pisa educational scores for instance? What about income disparity. Access to housing within Israel- human rights watch says unequal access to land to avcommodate natural population growth while those who make Aaliyah are accommodated

Hmm, I wonder what those equal rights look like for Israeli Arabs living in an ethnocracy, a Jewish state, that systemically favours and supports its own people who make up approximately 75% of the population (as opposed to the 21% Arab Israeli population- and remember, many of those Israeli Arabs don’t have skin in the game because, well… they’re not Palestinian. Not their circus. Not their monkeys. They’re too busy trying to keep their own heads up inside in the European Colonial Settlement they call home).

Are the security checks and racial profiling Israeli Arabs constantly endure also an issue for Israeli Jews?

inside in the European Colonial Settlement they call home

That's hilarious

Jews are indigenous people so can't colonise themselves.

hi @Watermelonpower I'm a bit dismayed that the focus of your thread has been somewhat pushed off track.

I found this article which is really interesting and details some of the events of the massacres in 1948 in Lebanon (not Palestine I know but perpetrated by Israeli forces at the time and so related to what happened).

I'll copy a couple in my subsequent posts as I think they are so important.

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/palestine-declassified-documents-reveal-details-of-israeli-1948-massacres-52933

Meron

Disclosed meeting minutes show that member of the Knesset Shmuel Mikunis demanded clarification from David Ben-Gurion, primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister, about actions Mikunis said were carried out in the Palestinian village of Meiron (today Meron) by the Zionist paramilitary organisation, Irgun militia, which operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948.

“A. They annihilated with a machine gun 35 Arabs who had surrendered to that company with a white flag in their hands.

B. They took as captives peaceful residents, among them women and children, ordered them to dig a pit, pushed them into it with long French bayonets and shot the unfortunates until they were all murdered. There was even a woman with an infant in her arms.

C. Arab children of about 13-14 who were playing with grenades were all shot.

D. A girl of about 19-20 was raped by men from Altalena [an Irgun unit];
afterward she was stabbed with a bayonet and a wooden stick was thrust into her body,” Mikunis had said.

Al-Burj

The small village of Al-Burj (today Modi’in) was conquered before Operation Hiram in July 1948.

According to the Government of Palestine’s Department of Statistics, about 480 Palestinians lived in the village prior to 1948.

Adam Raz’s report references a document from the Yad Yaari Archive which states that only four elders remained in the village after its capture.

“Hajj Ibrahim, who helped out in the military kitchen, a sick elderly woman and another elderly man and [elderly] woman.”

The latter three residents of the village were taken to an isolated house.
“Afterward an anti tank shell (‘Fiat’) was fired. When the shell missed the target, six hand grenades were thrown into the house.”

One of the two elderly women was put to death with a firearm and the house was then torched and the three bodies burned. Hajj Ibrahim was killed a few hours later with four bullets.

Reineh

The village of Reineh was also conquered in July 1948. A few months later, Aharon Haim Cohen, from Israel’s national trade union centre Histadrut, demanded that a representative of the left-wing party Mapam clarify why 14 Palestinians were murdered in the village at the beginning of September.
^^
“They were seized next to the village, accused of smuggling, taken to the village and murdered.”

Hula, Lebanon

Israeli forces, extending their reach into villages in southern Lebanon, conquered Hula under the command of Shmuel Lahis.

According to Raz’s research, the majority of the village’s population fled, but about 60 people remained and surrendered without resistance.

The remaining villagers were massacred over two successive days. On the first day, October 31, 1948, 18 villagers were killed, and on the following day, 15 more fell victim to the violence.

Commander Lahis was the only combatant who was tried on murder charges in Operation Hiram. His verdict was assigned to the law archive of Tel Aviv University and a short excerpt from the ruling on his appeal was published in Raz’s report for the first time.

The verdict said that Lahis ordered the removal “of those 15 Arabs from the house they were in and led them to an isolated house which was some distance from the village’s Muslim cemetery. When they got there, the appellant [Lahis] ordered the Arabs to be taken into one of the rooms and there he commanded them to stand in a line with their faces to the wall…

The appellant then shot the Arabs with the Sten [gun] he held and emptied two clips on them. After the people fell, the appellant checked the bodies and observed whether there was life in them. Some of them still showed signs of life and the appellant then fired additional shots into them.”

Lahis was sentenced to seven years in prison, but on appeal the prison term was reduced to one year.