Nakba
The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing by Israel of Palestinian Arabs 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 in Mandatory Palestine as well as 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.
Palestinians observe 15 May as Nakba Day, commemorating the war's events one day after Israel's 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.
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 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. Zionists accepted it, but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what the UN allocated to it. 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, 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. 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. They announced their intention to take all necessary measures to prevent the resolution's implementation.
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
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 and Balad al-Shaykh. 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. Major Palestinian cities were depopulated, including Tiberias, Haifa, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, and West Jerusalem's Palestinian Arab neighborhood. Israel began engaging in biological warfare in April and poisoned the water supplies of certain towns and villages. In May, one such operation caused a typhoid epidemic in Acre; the Egyptians foiled another attempt in Gaza.
Under intense public anger over Palestinian losses, and seeking to take Palestinian territory for themselves to counter the Israeli-Jordanian deal, the remaining Arab League states decided in late April and early May to enter the war after the British left. But the newly independent Arab League states' armies were still weak and unprepared for war, and none of the Arab League states were interested in establishing an independent Palestinian state with Amin al-Husseini at its head. Neither the expansionist King Abdullah I of Jordan nor the British wanted the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. On 14 May, the Mandate formally ended, the last British troops left, and Israel declared independence. By that time, Palestinian society was destroyed and over 300,000 Palestinians had been expelled or fled.
May 1948 – Oct 1948
On 15 May, Arab League armies entered the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the second half of the 1948 Palestine war. Most of the earlier violence had occurred in and around urban centers, in the Israeli portion of the partitioned land, while British troops were still present. After the Mandate ended, Israel seized more land allocated to the Palestinians by the UN partition plan, and expulsions, massacres, and the destruction of villages in rural areas increased. The Tantura massacre was committed on 22–23 May.The first truce between Israel and the Arab League nations was signed in early June and lasted about a month. In the summer of 1948, Israel began implementing anti-repatriation policies to prevent the return of Palestinians to their homes. A Transfer Committee coordinated and supervised efforts to prevent Palestinian return, including the destruction of villages, resettlement of Arab villages with Jewish immigrants, confiscation of land, and dissemination of propaganda discouraging return. During the ten days of renewed fighting between Israel and the Arab states after the first truce, over 50,000 Palestinians were expelled from Lydda and Ramle. A second truce was signed in mid-July and lasted until October. During the two truces, Palestinians who returned to their homes or crops, called "infiltrators" by the Israelis, were killed or expelled.