Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about villages and cities, and killed about 15, Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres. Though May 15, , became the official day for commemorating the Nakba, armed Zionist groups had launched the process of displacement of Palestinians much earlier. In fact, by May 15, half of the total number of Palestinian refugees had already been forcefully expelled from their country.
Israel continues to oppress and dispossess Palestinians to this day, albeit in a less explicit way than that during the Nakba. The roots of the Nakba stem from the emergence of Zionism as a political ideology in late 19th-century Eastern Europe.
The ideology is based on the belief that Jews are a nation or a race that deserve their own state. From onwards, thousands of Eastern European and Russian Jews began settling in Palestine ; pushed by the anti-Semitic persecution and pogroms they were facing in the Russian Empire, and the appeal of Zionism.
Herzl concluded that the remedy to centuries-old anti-Semitic sentiments and attacks in Europe was the creation of a Jewish state. In the s, the community of Palestinian Jews, known as the Yishuv, amounted to three percent of the total population. In contrast to the Zionist Jews who would arrive in Palestine later, the original Yishuv did not aspire to build a modern Jewish state in Palestine. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire , the British occupied Palestine as part of the secret Sykes-Picot treaty of between Britain and France to divvy up the Middle East for imperial interests.
Central to the pledge was Chaim Weizmann, a Britain-based Russian Zionist leader and chemist whose contributions to the British war effort during World War I made him well-connected to the upper echelons of the British government.
They also believed the Balfour Declaration would secure their control over Palestine after the war. From onwards, Zionist immigration to Palestine, facilitated by the British, increased dramatically.
Between and , the Jewish population rose from nine percent to nearly 27 percent of the total population, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian tenants from their lands as Zionists bought land from absentee landlords. Leading Arab and Palestinian intellectuals openly warned against the motifs of the Zionist movement in the press as early as With the Nazi seizure of power in Germany between and , 30, to 60, European Jews arrived on the shores of Palestine.
In , Palestinian Arabs launched a large-scale uprising against the British and their support for Zionist settler-colonialism, known as the Arab Revolt. The British authorities crushed the revolt, which lasted until , violently; they destroyed at least 2, Palestinian homes, put 9, Palestinians in concentration camps and subjected them to violent interrogation, including torture, and deported Palestinian nationalist leaders.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. What is the Nakba? Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Israel says it cannot allow five million refugees to return because this would overwhelm the country of 8. Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to tackle the issue of refugees in the end stages of negotiations - but even peace talks themselves remain a long way off.
Why Jerusalem matters. Two-state solution 'alternatives'. Can settlement issue be solved? Image source, AFP. Palestinians insist on the right to return to their former homes.
Khaled Elgindy. Organizing office:. In partnership with:. Monday, May 10, - pm - pm. Event Theme:. Popular Action.
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