Palestine National Museum on the anniversary of the Nakba

The aim of this article is to draw attention to the importance of the power of the novel and its embodiment and transmission to the whole world in the available ways. The United Nations has adopted the twenty-seventh of January as the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance, so that we do not forget! This year, the United Nations adopted the fifteenth of May to commemorate the Nakba for the first time.

Countries, even the most moderate and supportive of the Palestinian people, celebrate the memory of the Holocaust and say, "We will not forget and we will not allow the massacre and Holocaust of the Jews to be repeated." The date of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Peckenbao torture camps has become an International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust; The world has different ways of remembering the victims. In addition to official speeches, reports, and press releases issued by officials on Remembrance Day, you will find statues, museums, parks, and memorials commemorating the Jewish victims in Budapest, Paris, Berlin, New Orleans, Vienna, Miami, Minsk, and more. In Jerusalem, the Israelis make sure that every official visitor visits the Yad Vashem Museum, which reflects the lives of the Holocaust victims. There is a room designed in a cylindrical shape, 10 meters high, and its walls cover 600 pictures of men, women and children of the victims of the Holocaust.

Imagine with me the area of the room that the Palestine National Museum needs to cover the pictures of the martyred children, women and men who were executed in Palestine since the Nakba. Since its inception in 2023 alone, 150 martyrs have fallen. Imagine with me the showroom of the massacres carried out by the occupation through a systematic chronology. Imagine with me the pavilion of culture, traditional dress, Palestinian dresses, popular dishes, plants, herbs, olives, birds, symbols, music, dance, Dabkeh, writers, poets and writers, a huge pavilion that simulates all identity-building factors. Palestinian. Imagine with me the Nakba pavilion, which contains forms and stories of displacement and confiscation of lands, properties and keys. There we hear the voices of those who have become refugees in the records of nations so that we can comprehend the scene of displacement and asylum and the depth of the right to return. The phrase we will not forget and we will not allow the occupation to repeat the images of massacres, displacement, persecution, injustice and racism that befell the Palestinians.

Diplomatically, we must take advantage of the opportunity for the United Nations to adopt a day to commemorate the Nakba and turn it into a point of strength by inviting the countries attending the Nakba commemoration to announce their support for the Palestinian people, rejecting recurrence of displacement and injustice, ending the occupation, and devoting the people's right to self-determination.

The narrative that nations can promote and engrave in the minds of the world is what remains for history, for history depends on the historian. That is why I wonder today, what is the narrative that we as the Palestinian people want to remain for history and what are the methods we adopt to consolidate this message, how do we tell the world our story and how do we make From our narrative is a well-established truth in the eyes and minds of nations?

Netanyahu's statements and policies to change the facts on the ground will not serve peace or the security of the occupying state in the long run, with regard to Jerusalem. The famous Holocaust Museum in Washington testifies that it is Palestinian, as you find the name Palestine next to the city of Jerusalem on the map hanging on the wall of the museum with a clear reference to the Palestinianness of Jerusalem.

Palestine will participate in the commemoration of the Nakba by the General Assembly for the first time. On this occasion, the time has come to adopt and implement the idea of the Nakba Museum or the National Museum, which presents the full Palestinian narrative exactly as we want to convey it to the world. Al-Kubra, which is usually the first place visited by any expatriate to witness and learn visually, audio-visually and tactilely the novel, history, civilization, identity and culture of the country in its best form as it wants to leave an impact on the hearts and minds of everyone who visits it. It is time to work on the Palestine National Museum, to be the first address for every visitor to Palestine. After adopting this national project, it is necessary to involve all specialists, artists and creators in order to produce a deep, well-studied, artistic, scientific, national, elaborate and sustainable work in a way that befits the Palestinian narrative. It deals with the historical sequence of Palestine, in which a section is devoted to the narration of the Nakba.

Palestinian participation in the United Nations is an important opportunity, in which we hope that the Palestinian diplomatic work will focus on many of the legal points that we touched upon in a previous article at the beginning of the month, in addition to adopting the Palestinian National Museum project in a way that befits and embodies the narrative of struggle and steadfastness since the Nakba.

- Dr. Dalal Erekat: Professor of Diplomacy and Strategic Planning, Faculty of Graduate Studies, Arab American University.