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Yossef Weitz,
Head of the settlement department of the Jewish National Fund, 1940:
“Transfer does not serve only one aim – to reduce the Arab population
– it also serves a second purpose by no means less important, which is
to evict land now cultivated by Arabs and to free it for Jewish
settlement... The solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to
neighbouring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be
let off”. |
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Saadat Hassouneh,
Nakba Survivor:
"The Zionists
shelled the town with mortar fire for three days and nights straight.
Then they went house to house and forced people out at gunpoint, men,
women, children, everyone... They made two columns of soldiers and
forced the people, at gunpoint, to go between them out of
town... They started shooting at us from a village along the way. One
fellow next to me, a boy just like me, got hit. He saved me from that
bullet." |
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REMEMBERING THE NAKBA
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As Israel and many throughout the world celebrate the Birth of Israel,
we believe it is important to reflect upon the circumstances under which
Israel became a nation. We must remember the 700,000 Palestinians who
lost their homes, and the thousands who lost their lives, as Zionists
expelled much of the indigenous population of Palestine to create a
state of Jewish exclusivity. Palestinians remember this occasion as the
Nakba or the catastrophe. This page offers you links to articles,
websites, and videos so you may learn more about the Nakba and its
impact on Palestinians, the Middle East, and the entire world. |
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REMEMBERING THE
NAKBA THROUGH ART
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Return
of the Soul:
A video
featuring a Nakba art installation in occupied Jerusalem. The
Scottish artist Jane Frere, traveled to Palestinian refugee
camps, teaching residents to make the 3,000 suspended wax
figures, which represent the fleeing Palestinians of the 1948
expulsion. |
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Expressions of
Nakba:
The US Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation sponsored the 2008 Expressions of Nakba Competition.
Competition categories included visual arts, poster design,
audio, digital media, and written word. This gallery
features the more than 300 entries received from 16 different
countries. |
RECOMMENDED READING
The Untold Stories
- The Institute
for Middle East Understanding recounts 12 moving stories of Nakba
survivors.
We Jews Will
Not Be Celebrating -
A
statement first crafted by Harold Pinter and other British Jews, this
document asserts that the signatories will not celebrate Israel and its
numerous historical and current human rights abuses. They will
only celebrate "when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle
East."
State of
Denial: Israel, 1948-2008
-
Ilan Pappe discusses how the Nakba chapter of Israeli history that have
been "erased" from the social collective conscience.
al-Nakba - the
Catastrophe: The War of 1948
- A
brief description of the many human rights violations committed in the
1948 Nakba.
A Muslim Spiritual Progressive Perspective on Palestine/Israel (with a
dash of Obama)
- Written by Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies
at University of North Carolina, this article discusses the need for a
Truth and Reconciliation exercise to allow those involved in the
conflict to move on from a past of violence to a future of co-existence.
The Nakba - an event that did not occur (although it had to occur) -
Eitan Bronstein describes the denial of the Nakba in Israel, which
is strangely accompanied by an acceptance that it had to happen.
RECOMMENDED
VIEWING
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Women's Testimonies of Nakba (2006)
This ten minute video features
interviews with numerous women who experienced the Nakba.
They recount memories of life before the Nakba and what happened
when they were expelled. |
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An
interview with Dr Ilan Pappé
Produced and edited by Joseph Cooper, this 45 minute video
features an interview of Dr. Pappe by Greg Dropkin, interspersed
with footage of a lecture at Manchester University. The
video focuses on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the
modern denial of that event.
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