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An Nakba, commonly Nakba (Template:Lang-ar), refers to the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people. The term is also used to describe ongoing persecution, displacement, and occupation of the Palestinians, both in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the region.

The foundational events of the Nakba took place during and shortly after the 1947–1949 Palestine war, including 78% of the state then known as Palestine being declared as Israel, the exodus of 700,000 Palestinians, the related depopulation and destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages and subsequent geographical erasure, the denial of the Palestinian right of return, the creation of permanent Palestinian refugees and the “shattering of Palestinian society”.

The Nakba greatly influenced the Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of Palestinian identity, together with "Handala" and the symbolic key. Countless books, songs and poems have been written about the Nakba.

Terminology

The term "Nakba" was first applied to the events of 1948 by Constantin Zureiq, a professor of history at the American University of Beirut, in his 1948 book "Ma'na al-Nakba" (The Meaning of the Disaster). Zureiq wrote that "the tragic aspect of the Nakba is related to the fact that it is not a regular misfortune or a temporal evil, but a Disaster in the very essence of the word, one of the most difficult that Arabs have ever known over their long history." The word was used again one year later by the Palestinian poet Burhan al-Deen al-Abushi. Zureiq’s students subsequently founded the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1952, one of the first post-Nakba Palestinian political movements. In a six volume encyclopedia Al-Nakba: Nakbat Bayt al-Maqdis Wal-Firdaws al-Mafqud (The Catastrophe: The Catastrophe of Jerusalem and the Lost Paradise) published between 1958-60, Aref al-Aref wrote: "How Can I call it but Nakba? When we the Arab people generally and the Palestinians particularly, faced such a disaster (Nakba) that we never faced like it along the centuries, our homeland was sealed, we expelled from our country, and we lost many of our beloved sons." Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari also used the term Nakba in the title of his book "Sir al Nakba" (The Secret behind the Disaster) written in 1955.

Commemoration

In the Palestinian calendar, the day after Israel declared independence (15 May) is observed as Nakba Day.

Nakba denial and memoricide

In May 2009 the political party headed by Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman introduced a bill that would outlaw all Nakba commemorations, with a three-year prison sentence for such acts of remembrance. Following public criticism the bill draft was changed, the prison sentence dropped and instead the Minister of Finance would have the authority to reduce state funding for Israeli institutions that hold the commemorations. The new draft was approved by the Knesset in March 2011.

References

1. ^ Honaida Ghanim (2009). "Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, gender, and social change among Palestinian poets in Israel after Nakba". International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. Vol. 22. pp. 23–39.
2. Hanan Ashrawi, Address by Ms. Hanan Ashrawi, Durban (South Africa), 28 August 2001. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerances: "a nation in captivity held hostage to an ongoing Nakba, as the most intricate and pervasive expression of persistent colonialism, "apartheid, racism, and victimization" (original emphasis).
3. Masalha 2012, p. 3.
4. Dajani 2005, p. 42: “The nakba is the experience that has perhaps most defined Palestinian history. For the Palestinian, it is not merely a political event — the establishment of the state of Israel on 78 percent of the territory of the Palestine Mandate, or even, primarily a humanitarian one — the creation of the modern world’s most enduring refugee problem. The nakba is of existential significance to Palestinians, representing both the shattering of the Palestinian community in Palestine and the con- solidation of a shared national consciousness.”
5. Masalha 2012, p. 11.
6. Masalha 2012, p. 213-214.
7. Bowker, Robert (2003). Palestinian Refugees: Mythology, Identity, and the Search for Peace. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1-58826-202-2, p. 96.
8. Boudreaux, Richard. "Israeli legislation raises loyalty issue", Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2009.
9. "חוק הנכבה". Retrieved 24 April 2016.

Bibliography

• Vescovi, Thomas (15 January 2015). La mémoire de la Nakba en Israël: Le regard de la société israélienne sur la tragédie palestinienne. Editions L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-336-36805-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Baumgarten, Helga. “The Three Faces/Phases of Palestinian Nationalism, 1948–2005.” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 34, no. 4, 2005, pp. 25–48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2005.34.4.25. Accessed 2 Apr. 2021.
• Zurayq, Qusṭanṭīn (1956). The Meaning of the Disaster. Khayat's College Book Cooperative. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Original Arabic version: قسطنطين زريق (1948). وصف الكتاب. دار العلم للملايين.)
• Sa'di, Ahmad H.; Abu-Lughod, Lila (2007). Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13579-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nashef, Hania A.M. (30 October 2018). Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-38749-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Masalha, Nur (9 August 2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84813-973-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bashir, Bashir; Goldberg, Amos (13 November 2018). The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54448-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wermenbol, Grace (31 May 2021). A Tale of Two Narratives: The Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Israeli-Palestinian Battle of Memories. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-84028-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Neil Caplan. “Victimhood in Israeli and Palestinian National Narratives.” Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/187853012x633508. Accessed 2 Apr. 2021.
• Khoury, N. (2020). Postnational memory: Narrating the Holocaust and the Nakba. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 46(1), 91–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453719839448
• Sa’di, Ahmad H. “Catastrophe, Memory and Identity: Al-Nakbah as a Component of Palestinian Identity.” Israel Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 2002, pp. 175–198. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30245590. Accessed 2 Apr. 2021.
• Manna', Adel. “The Palestinian Nakba and Its Continuous Repercussions.” Israel Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 2013, pp. 86–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.18.2.86. Accessed 2 Apr. 2021.
• KOLDAS, U. (2011). The "Nakba" in Palestinian Memory in Israel. Middle Eastern Studies, 47(6), 947-959. Retrieved April 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23054253
• Sayigh, Rosemary. “On the Exclusion of the Palestinian Nakba from the ‘Trauma Genre.’” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 2013, pp. 51–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2013.43.1.51. Accessed 2 Apr. 2021.
• Lentin, Ronit (19 July 2013). Co-memory and melancholia: Israelis memorialising the Palestinian Nakba. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-84779-768-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Al-Hardan, Anaheed (5 April 2016). Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54122-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dajani, Omar (2005). "Surviving Opportunities". In Tamara Wittes Cofman (ed.). How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process. US Institute of Peace Press. ISBN 978-1-929223-64-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)