The Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe)

Issued by the Diplomatic Mission of Palestine in Portugal

 Annually and for the past 67 years, the Palestinians commemorate, the 15th of May, the most calamitous day in their contemporary history.  In 1948, the Jewish Zionists widened their territorial control by using all kinds of force and massacres on every front and in the end commanded 78%, instead of the 56% allotted to them by the United Nations’ partition plan of Historic Palestine (Resolution 181).

In the same short period approximately 800,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes , at the hands of Zionist gangs, and thus found themselves until this date, homeless and stateless refugees, inside and outside Palestine. Meanwhile, the Zionist gangs wiped more than 531 of the Palestinian villages off the face of earth purposefully to make way for an expanded Jewish state in Historic Palestine.  Palestinian and Israeli historians, of them the Jewish historian Illan Pappe, now approve, the Zionist gangs conducted a campaign of terror and atrocities including massacres against the Palestinians; the indigenous population of Palestine.

The protection of human lives and the civilian infrastructure at times of war and under occupation are the core principles of the International Law and its bolsters; the International Humanitarian Law and the four Geneva Conventions. In contrast, the Palestinian civilian population has never received such protection, and were mercilessly slaughtered and maimed indiscriminately by the Israeli occupying forces, in their regular military assaults and incursions launched in densely populated Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israel, the occupying power has so far left no safe place for any civilian anywhere in Palestine particularly in Gaza.

 In 1988, Palestine unilaterally recognized Israel over 78% of Historic Palestine. Ironically, Israel the occupying power, met this historic Palestinian compromise with the creation and expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, as well as systematic violations of international law.

On the other hand   the international community continued failure to demand justice and accountability has provided tacit impunity to Israel in all of its violations in a manner that makes the Nakba an ongoing process.

Hikmat Ajjuri, the Palestinian Ambassador to Portugal says: “The Israelis succeeded in wiping off our villages but failed to do so with our memory.” DR. Ajjuri added by saying: “The only assurance that the Palestinian catastrophe becomes a frozen moments in history, exactly as the Jewish holocaust has become frozen moment in history, is by achieving peace based on justice and mutual respect by granting the Palestinians their inalienable right for self-determination and to celebrate their independence as their Israeli neighbours do”.