Two concepts of the Nakba of Palestine in 1948

There are two concepts of the Nakba of Palestine in 1948, and the second of them has two parts. The first applies to, and falls under, those horrific events during the period after the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to partition Palestine in November 1947 and prior to the signing of the armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan in April 1949. The second concept is the concept of the Nakba. Continuing, it has two parts or two aspects: according to the first of them, the Palestinian Nakba continues as long as its effects are continuing and its wound is open, while according to the second, the Nakba continues as long as its wound is open, and that Israel is still committing crimes against the Palestinians, crimes similar in their kind and horror to those they committed during a year 1948:

The first concept: A lot of horrific and horrific things happened during the period between the Partition Resolution of 1947 and the aforementioned armistice agreements of 1949. During this stormy period, more than two-thirds of the Palestinian people were uprooted and deported, Palestinian cities were emptied of their residents, and dozens of massacres were committed (primarily the Deir massacre). Yassin), demolishing hundreds of villages after emptying them of the population, and seizing Palestinian property, both movable and immovable. This concept of the Palestinian Nakba applies to all these and other atrocities during this specific period.

The second concept, the continuous Nakba (a): The Nakba continues in this sense because the wound is still open, and ends, accordingly, when the wound heals. The medicine/healing requires a historical reconciliation that ends the conflict and removes as much as possible and what is necessary from its effects, and in a manner that does justice to its victims, the old and the young, the living and the dead.

The second concept, the continuous Nakba (b): The Nakba continues in this sense because similar horrific crimes committed against the Palestinian people have not stopped. Finally, new to these crimes was the burning of houses in the town of Hawara, south of Nablus, last March. This crime was followed by a call by a fascist minister in the current Israeli government to erase that town.

Hence, when we refer to the Nakba, talk about it, or recall it, we must not confuse the concepts. In particular, we must be well aware of the great difference between the two parts of the concept of the Nakba. Mixing concepts does not benefit us in anything, and it may be harmful at the theoretical and political/educational levels.

In my opinion, the Palestinian Nakba is what it is and not anything else: it is that series of horrific events that followed the partition decision and ended with the aforementioned armistice agreements. According to this understanding, the continuation of the Nakba does not mean more than the continuation of its visible consequences and effects. According to this understanding, too, the concept of the Nakba is "closed," meaning that it applies to specific events that took place in a specific period. And if this is the case, then the events that followed that period, despite their horror, horror, and abundance, do not fall under the concept of the Palestinian Nakba. I say this without minimizing the ugliness of those subsequent events.

Definition of the Palestinian Nakba: Each of the following conditions is necessary, and when met within a specified period, is sufficient to define the Nakba of Palestine in 1948. These four necessary conditions: Depriving the Palestinian people of exercising their right to self-determination on their land after the end of the 30-year British Mandate era . Emptying the Palestinian cities (Jaffa, Haifa, Lod, Ramla, Acre, Safed, and Tiberias) and hundreds of villages (more than 500) of their original inhabitants, and displacing no less than two-thirds of the Palestinians, most of them outside the borders of Mandatory Palestine, without allowing them to return and receive compensation. The Jewish state's seizure of public, private and endowment lands and buildings (which were not demolished), in addition to the theft of many movable properties. In short, displacing two-thirds of a people and stealing what they left and owned. Inventing a Jewish majority in the new state, by displacing the original population from it and bringing Jews into it, and imposing a system of Jewish supremacy for the artificial majority in the state, with what that means of comprehensive racial discrimination against the remaining Palestinian population within its new and sticky borders.

As for killing, intimidation, massacres, arbitrary arrests, unjust legislation, and abhorrent military rule, they are tools and means to serve these necessary conditions, some or all of them. As I indicated earlier, the concept of the continuation of the Nakba (a) corresponds to all of this. This consensus is due to the absence of a just and healing solution, which removes as much as possible and what is necessary from the effects of the catastrophe. As for the concept of the continuation of the Nakba (b), it does not comply with these necessary conditions if they meet.

The Nakba: a founding period and founding events (By breaking the Seine): The closed concept of the Nakba, that concept that this article defends, applies only to a specific period that extends, as I said, from the partition decision or soon after that and ends with the aforementioned armistice agreements or before that, and what interspersed with it. From horrific and shocking events (to say the least). This period and those events created a new reality, from the political, geographical, demographic and legal aspects, radically different from the previous reality, a new reality that I want it to be permanent. In this new reality, the country has changed, by force of arms and intrigue, its owners, identity, language, land owners, the majority of its population, and the holders of sovereignty over it and over it. The Nakba, in this closed concept, is a period that has its beginning and its end. As for the horrific events that followed, such as wars, uprisings, massacres, arrests, and other crimes, it is not part of it, even if it was loaded with similar or reminiscent events. I repeat in this regard that the concept of the continuous Nakba (a) does not contradict this closed concept of the Nakba and the events that fall under it, or what applies to it.

To summarize, I say: It is not true what some Palestinian and Arab intellectuals are promoting that the Palestinian Nakba (b) is still going on, on the pretext that its effects are still present, and that similar crimes are still being committed and reminded of. Just as it is not true that the Second World War, for example, is still going on (b) because its effects are still there, and because similar events are still being committed and remembered. Just as it is not true that the Battle of Siffin nearly 14 centuries ago is still going on (b) because the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis is still present and raging. There is, in my opinion, a theoretical importance to separate one era from another that follows or precedes it, because the contexts differ, and the goals, interests, conflicting forces, and motives of each differ. During the period of the Palestinian Nakba and the horrific events that permeated it, the situation of the Palestinian national movement was different, and the Arab world and the wider world were different from the world after it.

Finally, in addition to the theoretical importance of the closed concept of the Nakba, there is also a practical, political and educational importance, not to confuse the period of the Palestinian Nakba with the subsequent period or periods, despite the "family resemblance" between the events that permeated these periods. Educationally, and when the Nakba is commemorated, for example, it is not a coincidence or random that it is said, "Their Independence Day, Our Nakba Day." On their independence day, they rejoiced and danced in the streets of Tel Aviv, while a stone or two away from the joyful and dancing people, sad Jaffa was emptied of its people, and the corpses of the dead Palestinians were lying in its streets and alleys, an intense symbolic image of the political, legal and demographic coup that was happening to the people and the country during those days. From that sad spring. As for the political importance of the closed concept of the Nakba, its meaning is as follows: A new reality has become visible since the first week of April 1949, a reality that is terrifying in its cruelty, imposed itself on us, and imposed on us, the Palestinian Arabs, a political / moral duty to change it or overcome it through struggle. This duty is still present and pressing despite the passage of 75 years since the Day of Remembrance of the Nakba. About "The New Arab"