By Humairaa Mayet
Edited by Imaan Moosa
The systematic dispossession of land by the settler-colonial state of Israel has plagued Palestine for years, beginning with al-Nakba (النكبة) in 1948 and continuing well into the twenty-first century with forced evictions being carried out in neighbourhoods across occupied Palestine; most recently seen in Sheikh Jarrah.
Palestinians gathered their possessions and were forced to leave their villages for neighbouring countries. Many were separated from their families during this time.
Photo: IMEU
The Nakba, meaning catastrophe in Arabic, occurred on 15 May 1948 and saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being forcibly removed from their homeland within the span of a day. Today, they have not been granted the right to return and expulsions continue, with aparthied Israel continuously illegally evicting Palestinians from their homes.
The end of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of the Zionist movement, a movement that claimed to be representative of the entire Jewish population and called for the establishment of an ethnically Jewish state. This was spurred on as a result of the persecution faced by Jewish people in Europe, and predominantly in Eastern Europe by the Nazis, who sought to escape the violence inflicted upon them.
At this time, historic Palestine was under the colonial control of Great Britain in the form of a colonial mandate. This, however, did not negate the fact that the land was Palestinian in its entirety and brimming with ethnically Palestinian families. Britain, however, did not acknowledge the right of Palestinians to their own state and signed a declaration — the Balfour Declaration — which effectively handed over Palestinian land to the Zionist movement, all this without any permission from the Palestinian people, and without even informing them.
Copy of the original Balfour Declaration.
Photo: Foreign Affairs
Al-Jazeera reports: “[The Balfour Declaration] was made during World War I (1914-1918) and was included in the terms of the British Mandate for Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The so-called mandate system, set up by the Allied powers, was a thinly veiled form of colonialism and occupation.
“The system transferred rule from the territories that were previously controlled by the powers defeated in the war – Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria – to the victors. The declared aim of the mandate system was to allow the winners of the war to administer the newly emerging states until they could become independent.”
Britain, which colonised and subsequently occupied historic Palestine proceeded to hand it over, without any qualms, to new colonisers and occupiers — the Zionists.
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Arthur James Balfour, 1920.
Photo: Wall Street Journal
Zionism was, and still is, a colonial project. It was founded on ideals of the forced removal of Palestinians from their homeland and the repossession of this land by Jewish settlers. This dehumanising process rendered Palestinians stateless refugees.
Propelled forth by Zionist ideologies, — “supporting the establishment by any means necessary of a national state for Jews in historic Palestine. Zionists argued that Israel would provide a safe national home for Jews, allowing any Jewish person from anywhere in the world to immigrate there and claim citizenship” — thousands of Jewish individuals flocked to Palestine in the early twentieth century, culminating in the dissolution of the British Mandate and the declaration of Israeli independence in 1948, which coincided with the Nakba.
Between 1992 and 1935, the Jewish population rose from nine per cent to nearly 27 per cent of the total population. While declaring sovereignty and control, Israel was simultaneously ethnically cleansing historic Palestine of the indigenous Palestinian population who had resided there for centuries.
The case of Palestine, however, was unique. Unlike the rest of the post-war mandates, the main goal of the British Mandate there was to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” – where Jews constituted less than 10 percent of the population at the time.
In the years leading up to the Nakba, hundreds of Palestinians began to leave their homes for neighbouring states with the intention of returning home as soon as the strife underway came to an end. They were never granted the right of return, despite having left their homeland voluntarily with the intention of it being temporary.
Those who revolted suffered greatly and were forced to endure violence from Israeli troops and thousands of Palestinians were seriously injured and murdered over the course of the revolt. According to Al-Jazeera, approximately 10% of the Palestinian male population was killed in the revolts.
Palestinians were forced to grab what little belongings they could and make their way out of their country with the threat of Israeli violence looming.
Photo: Al Jazeera
In 1948, approximately 750,000 Palestinians across approximately 500 villages were given less than a day to gather their possessions and vacate their homes with no clarification as to what the future would hold for them. Palestinians had no choice but to obey the thousands of soldiers who were deployed, armed and prepared to use force, and leave their country with no promise of return.
Not only was the creation of the settler-colonial state of Israel accompanied by forced evictions, but massacres were also carried out against the Palestinian populace. Hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children were slaughtered by Israeli troops in the massacres of Baldat al-Shaikh and Deir Yassin.
The Nakba inflicted unparalleled trauma upon generations of Palestinians and its effects are still visible today, both across the Middle East and in Palestinian diaspora communities around the world.
A Palestinian survivor reacts during a memorial ceremony at the original site of her former village of Deir Yassin in Jerusalem, on 07 April 2005.
Photo: ATTA HUSSEIN/AFP via Getty Images
The aftermath of the Nakba saw Palestinians being flung across the Middle East, many seeking refuge in the neighbouring states of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. Palestinians who remained within the borders of apartheid Israel were forced from their villages and into either Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, or the West Bank, where they were subjected to Israeli brutality on a daily basis.
Today, Palestinians in their occupied homeland are forced to submit to Israeli laws which govern their existence in its entirety. Apartheid laws determine what they can and cannot do and where they can and cannot go. Palestinians are required to carry permits on their person which they must show to Israeli soldiers and police officers as they attempt to move around the land which was stolen from them.
How Israeli Apartheid works depending on who you are and where you were born.
Graphics: @visualizing_palestine and @humanrightswatch
Apartheid Israel has denigrated Palestinians to second-class citizens, who are afforded a fraction of the rights afforded to Israeli nationals. Israel determines the free travel of Palestinians, from what roads they can use and the areas they are allowed to enter into.
Over and above the limitations on the movement of Palestinians, they are not granted an array of basic human rights. Palestinians do not have the right to self-determination. Effectively, this means that they do not have a say in the cultural, economic, political, and social issues which affect THEM.
These maps illustrate the theft of land by Israel in real-time. An ongoing Nakba is, indeed, taking place at the expense of the Palestinians.
Photo: Al-Jazeera
The Nakba is yet to come to an end. Not only are Palestinians forced to grapple with its tormenting and terrifying traumatic aftermath, but they are also subjected to an ongoing Nakba.
The Naksa, meaning setback in Arabic, took place in 1967 and resulted in the military occupation of the West Bank by Israeli settlers. Israelis continuously seized land from the Palestinian population, forcibly erecting settlements on Palestinian land.
Ever since 1967, encroachments on Palestinian land by Israeli settlers have been commonplace. Day after day, Israel systemically seeks to carve up Palestinian land and redistribute it to Israeli settlers, many of whom arrive from the United States, despite Palestinian families having resided in those territories for years.
The Middle East Peace Plan, proposed by the Trump administration, sought to further annex the West Bank and apportion the East of Jerusalem — Palestinian territory — to the settler-colonial state of Israel. This is undoubtedly a continuation of the Nakba of 1948.
1948 was not the end of the Nakba. It is evident that the sustained occupation of Palestine by Israel is a result of the catastrophe, and that the continuous annexation of Palestinian land is simply a Nakba by another name.
Presently, Israel is in the process of evicting Palestinian families from their homes in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to make room for more settlers. Israeli settlers were harassing Palestinians in Jerusalem, marching through the streets chanting “Death to Arabs!”
Photo: @muna.kurd15
In retaliation, Palestinians began organising peaceful protests in Jerusalem from Sheikh Jarrah to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Thousands of Palestinians picketed peacefully in order to raise awareness about the land theft underway but were met by violence from Israeli soldiers and police officers.
Palestinians took to the streets of Jerusalem calling for an end to the forced removal of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah.
Photo: Arab News
The reaction by Israel to peaceful protests from Palestinians was incredibly brutal and Israeli soldiers and police officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protestors, as well as at worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israeli settlers also set fire to trees in the Al-Aqsa compound and celebrated the blows dealt against the Palestinians.
Palestinians sustained serious injuries as a result of the deployment of rubber-coated steel bullets by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and many were arrested. Jerusalem was plagued by unrest for several days after the outbreak of violence by Apartheid Israel against peacefully protesting Palestinians.
It is evident that violence underway is not a ‘conflict’ — Israel is in possession of one of the most sophisticated weapon arsenals in the world whereas Palestinians hurl rocks at tanks occupying their land and are vilified for such a simple act of resistance.
The ongoing Nakba is unlikely to cease anytime soon as Palestinians suffer grave injustices at the hands of Israel and are forced to vacate their homes, just as they were in 1948. It is imperative that awareness around this issue be raised to provide solidarity to the people of Palestine.
Awareness-raising often has a chain reaction. Constantly speaking about the sustained occupation of Palestine by Israel occasionally results in condemnation of the settler-colonial state by international organisations and governments.
Photo: @MariamBarghouti
Helpful Resources:
Films and Documentaries:
● The Present - Farah Nablusi
● Gaza Fights For Freedom - The Empire Files
● The Question of Palestine - Edward Said
● The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
● The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
● Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement - Angela Davis
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