Izzat Darwazeh
The 15th of May 1948, the Palestine Nakba Day, is an evocative day for all Palestinians. It has been commemorated, I’d say, by every Palestinian, everywhere, every year for the past 76 years. We say our Nakba (and I’d better say what it means as UCL seems to object to Palestinian and Arabic words – Nakba means catastrophe) is not just a day, but a continuing process for all these years.
It started towards the end of 1947 when Zionist military and paramilitary groups started terrorist attacks on hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns with the aim of moving the population or ethnic cleansing. The aim was to cleanse Palestine of its indigenous Arab Christian and Muslim population majority, to inverse the population and create a Jewish majority, leading to the creation of the Jewish state, and Palestine becoming Israel, on this day, 15 May, 76 years ago.
This was done through a process of documented killing and massacres, indiscriminate bombing, rape of Palestinian women, and theft of goods and possessions. A key outcome was the forced migration of 85% of the Arab population from what became the state of Israel, that is 750,000 out of the 900,000 Palestinians including my own relatives, and the destruction of over 500 villages (almost 95% of all villages). Another outcome was the creation of both the state of Israel and the Palestinian refugee problem, a problem which is now 7.5 million refugees strong. This carried on throughout 1948 to the middle of 1949, when the ethnic cleansing was completed. Israel sealed its borders, and the Palestinians were never allowed to return.
I was one of the Palestinians who was only allowed to see Palestine once I got my British Passport. My father died dreaming of seeing Palestine and my mother will die without seeing Palestine again. But the 1947 and 1948 Nakba was only the start of a process, a process of continuous killing, dispossession, theft of land, racism and apartheid in Israel, attacks and pogroms in the Westbank, assassinations of Palestinians everywhere and indeed genocidal practices as we have been witnessing for the past 222 days mainly (but not exclusively) in Gaza.
Gaza, this small beautiful densely populated enclave on the Mediterranean, with a population of 2.3 million people, is the place where forced migration is integral to its history and now is the norm of its present. Guess where 1.9 million of these people come from. They are refugees from the 1948 Nakba.
The horrific, unprecedented, non-stop killing over the past 7 months has resulted in 80% of the houses destroyed, every single university razed to the ground, every single school destroyed, every hospital bombed, every church and mosque bombed and of course, as we know, at least 35,000 people have been killed, close to half of whom are children under the age of 18. More than 70,000 people injured and maimed, thousands are thought to be dead under the rubble, and tens of thousands of people are facing death by starvation. Nearly 1 in 15 Gazans have been killed or injured.
This is done by a ruthless criminal Israeli army and a semi-fascistic Israeli government, aided and encouraged not only by political support from western governments, establishment figures and politicians. (Remember our own prime minister, a man not known for his intelligence, told Netanyahu, ‘I want you to succeed.’ Then Kier Starmer, the human rights lawyer, who seems to know little about humanity and rights, continuously supported Israel’s attacks including refusing to condemn Israel’s siege and starvation policies, stopping food and water going into Gaza. But it is not only politicians but importantly by death machines created mainly in the USA, replenished on daily basis and supported by other arms and hi-tech industries from this country, Germany, France, Italy and some others. They are all supporting our genocide and our ongoing Nakba.
But, a big but, coupled with the Nakba there is Palestinian resistance in all shapes and forms. This includes resistance inside Israel to racism and to being considered a lesser citizen or a demographic threat; resistance in the Westbank by standing up to Israeli settlers protected by the 4th largest army in the world; resistance in Gaza by refusing to die and disappear; and resistance everywhere by gaining support of people saying: ‘We can no longer stand and watch other humans being treated as sub-humans!’ This BDS campaign, including at UCL, is an important act of solidarity and resistance.
When it all looks like too much and one has despair, well we are only humans, I look at history. I take heart from Algeria, which was occupied by France, and was actually considered part of France for 132 years. France killed over 2 million Algerians, nearly 1/3rd of the population. They still discover mass graves in Algeria. Yet the Algerians kept hope alive and gained independence, ending one of the most horrific chapters of European colonialism in Africa. I take heart from the South Africans, who are now free from apartheid, of the Vietnamese who defeated the strongest country in the world. I look at these examples and many others and realise that although our Nakba is continuous, it is not forever.
When we say Palestine will be free, it will be: free from dehumanization of the other, free from Zionist supremacist ideology, and free from inequality and apartheid. This day will come. Palestinians need all the support we can get, and this BDS campaign is a brilliant step on this path.
I will finish by removing my Palestinian hat and putting on my professor’s hat. saying to all colleagues and students here at UCL: ‘Please, please, note that this BDS campaign and the students’ activities and encampment are bound to upset some students and colleagues here. Despite that we stick to our principles. We support the Palestinians and their rights. But we have to be mindful of others and try to look at the world from other people’s perspective. This is what being at university means. And, in all cases, stay strong but be collegiate, be considerate and be kind.’
See further coverage in the London Review of Books: Black Outs by Selma Dabbagh.
