The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing
of Palestinian Arabs by Zionists through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war, during which Zionists depopulated territories in Mandatory Palestine and declared the establishment of the State of Israel, as well as to describe Israel's ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians. As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the longstanding rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.; ;
During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, about half of Palestine's predominantly Arab populationaround 750,000 peoplewere expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by the IDF. Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs, and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighborhoods were depopulated. Many of the settlements were either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. Israel employed biological warfare against Palestinians by poisoning village wells. By the end of the war, Israel controlled 78% of the land area of the former Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinian national narrative views the Nakba as a collective trauma that defines Palestinians' national identity and political aspirations. The Israeli national narrative views the Nakba as a component of the War of Independence that established Israel's statehood and sovereignty. Israel negates or denies the atrocities it committed, claiming that many of the expelled Palestinians left willingly or that their expulsion was necessary and unavoidable. Nakba denial has been increasingly challenged since the 1970s in Israeli society, particularly by the New Historians, but the official narrative has not changed.Khalidi, Walid (1961)
Palestinians observe Nakba Day on 15 May, the day after the anniversary of the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, which Israel celebrates as its Independence Day. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, another series of Palestinian exodus occurred; this came to be known as the Naksa ( ), and also has its own day, 5 June. The Nakba has greatly influenced Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of Palestinian national identity, together with the political cartoon character Handala, the Palestinian keffiyeh, and the Palestinian 1948 keys. Many books, songs, and poems have been written about the Nakba.
Terminology The word (), meaning "misfortune, calamity; disaster, catastrophe", is an Arabic verbal noun (, ) of (, ) of the verb (), meaning "to make unhappy, miserable, afflict, distress".
The first usage of for the Zionist conquest of Palestine is attributed to the Syrian intellectual Constantin Zureiq, a professor of history at the American University of Beirut, in his 1948 book Ma'na an-Nakba ( [The Meaning of the Disaster]). Zureiq wrote, "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." Until 1948, the "Year of the Catastrophe" among Arabs referred to 1920, when European colonial powers partitioned the Ottoman Empire into a series of separate states along lines of their own choosing.
In 1949, the Palestinian poet Burhan al-Deen al-Abushi used the word again. In a six-volume encyclopedia ( [The Catastrophe: The Catastrophe of Jerusalem and the Lost Paradise]) published between 1958 and 1960, 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 [were] expelled from our country, and we lost many of our beloved sons." Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari also used the term in the title of his book ( [The Secret behind the Disaster]), written in 1955.
The use of the term has evolved over time. Initially, its use among Palestinians was not universal. For example, for many years after 1948, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon avoided and even actively resisted using the term, because it lent permanence to a situation they viewed as temporary, and they often insisted on being called "returnees". In the 1950s and 1960s, terms they used to describe the events of 1948 included ( the 'forcible, illegal seizure or usurpation; violation; rape'), or were more euphemistic, such as ( 'the events'), ( 'the exodus'), and lammā sharnā wa-tla'nā ("when we blackened our faces and left"). In the 1970s, Nakba narratives were avoided by the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in favor of a narrative of revolution and renewal. Interest in the Nakba by organizations representing refugees in Lebanon surged in the 1990s due to the perception that the refugees' right of return might be negotiated away in exchange for Palestinian statehood, and the desire was to send a clear message to the international community that this right was non-negotiable.
Ottoman and British Mandate periods (prior to 1948)
The roots of the Nakba are traced to the arrival of Zionists and their purchase of land in Ottoman Palestine in the late 19th century.;
; Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. By the time the British announced their official support for Zionism in the 1917 Balfour Declaration during World War I,;
; Palestine's population was about 750,000, approximately 94% Arab and 6% Jewish.
After the partition of the Ottoman Empire, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine began in 1922. By then, Jews had become about 10% of the population. Both the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine called the 90% Arab population "existing non-Jewish communities".;
In February 1947, after World War II and the Holocaust, the British declared they would end the Mandate and submit Palestine's future to the newly created United Nations for resolution.;
; The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created, and in September, it submitted a report to the UN General Assembly recommending partition.;
; Palestinians and most of the Arab League opposed the partition.;
. But see: Zionists accepted it, but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what the UN allocated to it.;
. But see: In the autumn of 1947, Israel and Jordan, with British approval, secretly agreed to divide the land allocated to Palestine between them after the end of the British Mandate.;
On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 (II), the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.;
; At the time, Arabs made up about two-thirds of the population;
; and owned about 90% of the land,;
; while Jews made up between a quarter and a third of the population;
; and owned about 7% of the land.;
; The UN partition plan allocated to Israel about 55% of the land, where the population was about 500,000 Jews and 407,000–438,000 Arabs. Palestine was allocated the remaining 45% of the land, where the population was about 725,000–818,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were to be an internationally governed corpus separatum with a population of about 100,000 Arabs and 100,000 Jews.;
The partition plan's detractors considered it pro-Zionist, with 56% of the land allocated to the Jewish state although the Palestinian Arab population was twice the Jewish population. The plan was celebrated by most Jews in Palestine, with Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewing it as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.Sean F. McMahon, The Discourse of Palestinian-Israeli Relations, Routledge 2010 p. 40. "The Zionist movement also accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 tactically. Palumbo notes that "[t]he Zionists accepted this scheme [the UN partition plan] since they hoped to use their state as a base to conquer the whole country." Similarly, Flapan states that "[Zionist] acceptance of the resolution in no way diminished the belief of all the Zionist parties in their right to the whole of the country [Palestine]"; and that "acceptance of the UN Partition Resolution was an example of Zionist pragmatism par excellence. It was a tactical acceptance, a vital step in the right direction – a springboard for expansion when circumstances proved more judicious."Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, Pantheon, 1988, , Ch. 1 Myth One : Zionists Accepted the UN Partition and Planned for Peace, pages 13-53 "Every school child knows that there is no such thing in history as a final arrangementnot with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements. History, like nature, is full of alterations and change. David Ben-Gurion, War Diaries, Dec. 3, 1947" The Arab Higher Committee, the Arab League, and other Arab leaders and governments rejected it on the basis that the Arabs not only formed a two-thirds majority but owned a majority of the land. They also indicated unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter that grant people the right to decide their own destiny.Sami Hadawi, Bitter Harvest: A Modern History of Palestine, Olive Branch Press, (1989) 1991 p. 76. They announced their intention to take all necessary measures to prevent the resolution's implementation.Live by the Sword: Israel's Struggle for Existence in the Holy Land, James Rothrock, p. 14Lenczowski, G. (1962). The Middle East in World Affairs (3rd Edition). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 723
The 1948 Nakba The central facts of what happened in the Nakba during the 1948 Palestine war are well established, documented, and widely agreed upon by most Israeli, Palestinian, and other historians. About 750,000 Palestiniansover 80% of the population living in the territory of what became the State of Israelwere expelled or fled from their homes and became refugees.;
; Eleven Arab towns and cities, and over 500 villages were destroyed or depopulated.;
; Thousands of Palestinians were killed in dozens of massacres.;
; About a dozen rapes of Palestinians by regular and irregular Israeli military forces have been documented, and more are suspected.;
; Israelis used psychological warfare tactics to frighten Palestinians into flight, including targeted violence, whispering campaigns, radio broadcasts, and loudspeaker vans.;
; Looting by Israeli soldiers and civilians of Palestinian homes, business, farms, artwork, books, and archives was widespread.;
Nov 1947 – May 1948 Small-scale local skirmishes began on 30 November and gradually escalated until March 1948.;
; When the violence started, Palestinians had already begun fleeing, expecting to return after the war.; ; The massacre and expulsion of Palestinian Arabs and destruction of villages began in December,;
; including massacres at Al-Khisas (18 December 1947); ; ; and Balad al-Shaykh (31 December).;
; By March, between 70,000 and 100,000 Palestinians, mostly middle- and upper-class urban elites, were expelled or fled.;
In early April 1948, the Israelis launched Plan Dalet, a large-scale offensive to capture land and empty it of Palestinian Arabs.;
; During the offensive, Israel captured and cleared land that the UN partition resolution had allocated to the Palestinians.; Over 200 villages were destroyed during this period.;
; Massacres and expulsions continued,;
; including at Deir Yassin (9 April 1948).;