Nakba

Nakba
Part of Palestinian-Israeli conflict
The Palestinian Catastrophe, the calamity that happened to the Palestinians in 1948
Date 1948 Location Palestine Result See the Aftermath section

Part of a series on the
Nakba
Precipitating events Background Mandatory Palestine 1947 partition plan 1948 Palestine war Civil war in Palestine Plan Dalet Deir Yassin massacre Battle of Haifa Israeli Declaration of Independence Arab–Israeli War Timeline Expulsion from Lydda and Ramle Transfer Committee
1948 expulsion and flight Palestinian refugees Camps Palestinian return to Israel Right of return Present absentee UN Resolution 194 UNRWA Geographic erasure Paraguay plan
Discourse Causes New Historians Nakba denial Ongoing Nakba Palestinian genocide accusation
Notable writers Aref al-Aref Yoav Gelber Efraim Karsh Rashid Khalidi Walid Khalidi Nur Masalha Benny Morris Ilan Pappé Edward Said Tom Segev Avraham Sela Avi Shlaim Constantin Zureiq
Symbols and memory Key Handala Nakba Day
Lists List of depopulated towns and villages List of estimates

Nakba in Haifa, residents leaving at gun point as Jewish forces enter the city

Palestine refugees (British Mandate of Palestine - 1948). "Making their way from Galilee in October-November 1948"

Nakba or Al Nakba (Arabic: النكبة) (“disaster ” or “catastrophe” in Arabic) is the term commonly used for the Palestinian Catastrophe, an event in the then-recently founded State of Israel, that happened to the Palestinians in 1948. Jewish militia forces that later became the Israeli army, conducted a major operation affecting the local Palestinian Arab population during the1947–1949 Palestine war. Over 500 Arab-majority towns and villages were depopulated, with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jewish residents and given new Hebrew names. Approximately, Half of Palestine's previous Arab population, 750,000 people, fled from their homes or were removed forcefully by Zionists. The actions resulted in the massacres, fleeing, or driving out of a majority of Palestinian Arabs from historic Palestine and subsequently the State of Israel. Those who were displaced now live in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and neighbouring Arab states. In addition, thousands of Palestinians were killed and injured during this period of conflict.

Historical context

The early decades of the 20th century brought a profound change in the Middle East. A massive immigration of Zionists occurred after the Balfour Declaration drafted by Great Britain during World War I. They wanted to settle in Palestine with the intention of founding a Jewish State. Both the surrounding countries and the Arab indigenous populations of Palestine resisted the mass immigration that was arising in their area. This resulted in a heavy dispute between the Zionists and the Arab folks in Palestine. After years of conflict the British government demanded the United Nations to formulate a solution for the situation that took place in Palestine. The plan to divide Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states was rejected by Arab leaders, they denied any compromise.

Throughout the negotiations the Palestinian Arabs lacked effective leadership. On top of that the disorder intensified when the independence of the state of Israel was announced by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948. The British ended the mandate over Palestine on May 15, 1948.

Palestinian vs Israeli point of view

Up to the present day, Palestinian and Israeli people have a contrasting perspective on the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba. Both sides have experienced the historical events differently, which caused a dispute till the 21st century.

Palestinian perspective

The Palestinians often see the Nakba as a dramatic and sad event in the history of the state of Palestine. They see themselves as sufferers of Israeli aggression in their country. Many Palestinians think that they had to suffer because of the Holocaust, while they were not involved in this genocide.

In the Palestinian point of view, the fugitives in 1948 were expelled by jewish aggression based on ethnicity.

Israeli perspective

The state of Israel and its supporters mostly reject the description of the events of 1948 as a "catastrophe" (the Arabic meaning of the word Nakba). Many of them see it as a "fight for independence" and a legitimate response to the Holocaust during World War II. The Israelis see the Nakba as a development of a new state: Israel. Supporters of Israel often say that the Palestinians fled the country by their own decisions and not because of ethnic cleansing by Zionists. Unlike the the Palestinian viewpoint, the Israeli viewpoint does not recognize or denies the depopulation of Arab villages and destruction of Palestinian homes. Instead, supporters of Israel use terms such as "abandoned" property and "population exchange" rather than "confiscated" or "expelled."

Aftermath

The result of the Nakba was a wave of Palestinian fugitives inside Palestine & Israel, but also to neigbouring countries. The UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East) stated that there were 520.000 Palestinian refugees in 1948.

The amount of refugees from Palestine increased significantly as shown in the table below.

UNRWA Registered Refugees

	West bank	Gaza Strip	Jordan	Syria	Lebanon	Total
RRs 1950	-	198,227	506,200	82,194	127,600	914,221
RRs 1975	292,922	333,031	625,857	184,042	196,855	1,632,707
RRs 2003	665,246	922,674	1,740,170	413,827	394,532	4,136,449
Increase over 2002	4,0%	3,3%	2,5%	2,0%	1,4%	2,8%
% of total population	32,6	84,5	34,8	2,7	11,5	33,2
% of total RRs	16	22	42	10	10	100
No. of refugee camps	19	8	10	10	12	59
RR living in camps(in % of RR)	179,541 (27)	484,563 (53)	307,785 (18)	120,865 (29)	223,956 (57)	1,316,710 (32)
RR outside of camps	485,705	438,111	1,432,385	292,962	170,576	2,819,739
Average family size	4.56	4.66	5.42	4.31	4.06	4.82

Nakba Media

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  Haganah Symbol

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  Irgun logo

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  Logo of the Lehi movement, a historic militant revisionist Zionist movement.

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  1948 expulsion of the Tantura women and children to Furaydis

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Related pages

• State of Palestine
• Arab–Israeli conflict
• Zionism
• Anti-Zionism