77 Years of Nakba

This week marks 77 years since the Nakba, the solemn anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. With another Nakba unfolding in Gaza, Palestinians around the world are calling for mass mobilizations to make Nakba Day this year a Global Day of Action.

Below we share some reflections on “a Nakba that never ended” by Mohammed El-Kurd, excerpted from an article in The Nation written in 2023, on the occasion of the Nakba at 75.

If you’re driving across the length of our bruised geography, you will at various points encounter rubble. Sometimes it is the rubble of a house in Jerusalem, demolished once, or more than once, in the past few decades. Other times, it is the ruins of a village, depopulated in 1948, now poorly concealed under a forest of pine trees planted by the Jewish National Fund. Sometimes it is the rubble of a bullet-strafed home in the occupied Syrian Golan, which came to its knees during the 1967 invasion. Other times, it is the rubble of a residential building bombed during one of the assaults on the besieged Gaza Strip—in 2008, ’09, ’12, ’14, ’19, or ’21. Or, if you are reading this a few years from now, it may well be the wreckage of Silwan, Masafer Yatta, and the Naqab, towns that are still bustling but threatened.

As you breeze through this landscape, you will likely come across towns and refugee camps with posters of our martyrs pinned all over the walls. The dates on some of the posters may be difficult to decipher, but you can guess when they were first plastered by looking at their condition: If they are pristine and vibrant, they’re fresh off the press; if brittle and faded, damaged by rain, dirt, or stray bullets, and peeling off the walls, they might be from some time ago—the Second Intifada or one of the intifadas that came after. Many, likely most, of the faces will be unfamiliar to you, for they have been killed outside the international news cycle—their deaths marked only by fleeting local headlines. If you slow down to read, you might find portraits of a father and a son sharing the same wall, an uncle and a niece, sometimes from the same year, sometimes generations apart.

For Palestinians, the Nakba is relentless and recurring. It happens in the present tense—and it happens everywhere on the map. Not a corner of our geography is spared, not a generation since the 1940s. For my own family, the Nakba was my grandmother’s experience of expulsion from Haifa by the Haganah in 1948—but it was also her cautionary tales warning me of what would inevitably be my fate when army-backed settlers with Brooklyn accents took over half of my home in Sheikh Jarrah in 2009, declaring my house their own by divine decree. For other families, the Nakba began when a beloved grandfather was expelled from Jaffa and sought refuge in Gaza—where it continues in the rumble of the warplanes dropping bombs on overcrowded refugee camps, introducing his grandchildren to their first (or perhaps third or sixth) war. It is their faces on the posters that are yet to be printed.

Although this ongoing catastrophe often feels relentless, it is important to point out that it is not inevitable. It has a culprit, Zionism, and to talk about the Nakba, one must talk about Zionism…. Zionism, as defined by those who have lived under its rule for the past 75 years, is as an ideology of dispossession, an expansionist and racist settler-colonial enterprise. And on multiple occasions, early pioneers of the Zionist movement did not shy away from this framing—be it, to cite just two brief examples, David Ben Gurion, who wrote of how “we must expel the Arabs and take their place,” or Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose famous “Iron Wall” essay was a blunt meditation on “the colonization of Palestine” and the likely response of “the native population,” who, he wrote, “feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and their Sioux for their rolling Prairies.”

When I first began writing this article, an armed Israeli settler had killed 19-year-old Diyar Omari, in the village of Sandalah, in broad daylight on May 6; his murder brought to mind the 1957 Sandalah massacre, when an Israeli explosive device took the lives of 15 schoolgirls and boys in their village, and I thought I would center this essay on the overlapping histories. But the thought of the schoolchildren reminded me of the leftover Israeli bombs that continue to kill or maim schoolchildren in Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills, which has been declared an off-limits “firing zone” for the sole purpose of expelling its residents. And I thought I should write of that impending expulsion, and then another one, and another execution, another demolition, another arbitrary arrest, another siege written out of the headlines, another murder reported in passive voice, and another and another…

And then Israeli bombs began dropping on Gaza.

It is tempting to end the essay there—to anticipate, passively, even more wreckage. To declare Palestine a broken condition, a “cycle of violence” in which bombardment is as banal as breakfast. But the reason we keep printing more posters is because people here have not yet accepted subjugation as their status quo, they can still conjure a reality in which they are free. Palestinians are still resisting the shackles of Zionism. They have never stopped.

Palestine Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival

The Palestine Pavilion returns to the 78th Festival de Cannes between 13-24 May to shed light on Palestinian images, narratives and voices that refuse to be extinguished. Curated and organized by the Palestine Film Institute, the Palestine Pavilion at Cannes celebrates Palestine’s cinema and its place in the struggle for liberation and return.

The Pavilion program is designed to serve as both a public gathering space and an industry platform — a home for Palestine film professionals and a site for meaningful dialogue, partnerships, and resistance through film. This year’s programming includes daily press briefings, strategic co-production meetings, curated showcases of works-in-progress at Cannes Docs, a Palestinian delegation to the Producer’s Network and the inaugural launch of the PFI Film Fund.

For more, including a full program for the Pavilion, visit the Palestine Film Institute.

London: PalArt Festival, 26 May–1 June

PalArt Collective has partnered with Shubbak Festival - the UK's premier festival of contemporary Arab Culture - to present the PalArt Festival, a week of Palestinian theatre, comedy, and dance that celebrates resilience, creativity, and culture.

From political satire imagining Gaza's Olympic future to powerful storytelling from Jenin, from revolutionary humor to poetic movement, the program showcases the resilient dark humor and unique storytelling abilities emerging from Palestine and its diaspora.

The season features four groundbreaking productions: Application 39 by celebrated Gazan playwright Ahmed Massoud, Return to Palestine from Jenin's acclaimed Freedom Theatre, Peace de Resistance by comedian Sami Abu Wardeh, and Manjal an experimental Dabke and poetry performance by Tarweedeh Collective's Nabad Troupe.

The program extends beyond live performances to include an online post-show talk with The Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp, speaking directly from the occupied territories. A parallel online event — The Narrative of Tomorrow: Palestine after the Liberation — will bring together four Palestinian and Middle Eastern writers to imagine Palestine's future.

For more on the program, and to reserve tickets, visit the PalArt Collective.

OTO Award x Dar Jacir: Open Call for Palestinian Sound Artists

Dar Jacir for Art and Research and Oto Sound Museum come together to launch the first Palestinian Art Prize dedicated to sound and listening and to foster the amplification of artistic voices beyond borders. This opportunity is offered to both emerging and established artists working with sound, creating space for their work to resonate with diverse audiences.

The OTO Award is an annual contemporary art prize that honors exceptional Palestinian artists exploring and experimenting within the field of sound— artists whose work is conceptually relevant and pushes the boundaries of artistic practices and creative processes.

Contemporary sonic productions are eligible for submission, including pieces that combine sound with other media, computer-based compositions ranging from electroacoustic to experimental music, and sound installations. In addition to aesthetics, originality, and conceptual strength, the jury will pay close attention to technical and experiential innovation in both form and presentation, as well as the social impact of the work.

The winner will be selected by a combined jury through an open-call application process and will receive 2,000 Swiss Francs, a digital exhibition at OTO Sound Museum, and technical support and mentorship during the production of their work leading up to the exhibition.

Palestinian artists, regardless of their place of residence, are eligible to apply. If the selected artist is based in Palestine, they will also have the opportunity to participate in Dar Jacir’s Sound Studio Residency program. In 2019, Dar Jacir launched the first residency program in Palestine dedicated solely to sound.

Applications are open until June 15, 2025. The winner will be announced in July 2025.

For full application instructions, guidelines, and conditions of participation, visit the OTO Portal here.

Book of the Week

Vivid, compassionate, captivating, Sabrin’s writing is both deeply rooted in place and culture, and transcending borders in its universality and humanity.

– Elif Shafak

A beautiful and compelling family memoir, Crossing retraces the love story between Sabrin Hasbun’s Palestinian father and Italian mother, and the life of her half-Italian, half-Palestinian family from the 1960s to 2020.

After the loss of her mother, Sabrin tries to renegotiate her mixed identity and understand her mother’s choices which led her from an oppressive childhood in a village in Tuscany to finding love and community activism in Palestine.

Crossing is a story about overcoming grief and what it means to lose not only loved ones, but also a place in the world and a sense of belonging.

Winner of the Footnote x Counterpoints Writing Prize, Crossing was just published last week, and is available from Footnote Press.

Media Roundup

We Were Conscripted into the Zionist Project – A new episode of the podcast Makdisi Street, in which they speak with Avi Shlaim about the role that Israel played in actively destroying Arab Jewish life in Iraq and across the region, and about what he sees as Zionism’s inward implosions in the current moment.

Arrested and Rearrested – Lynzy Billing reports on the dramatic increase in the use of administrative detention to imprison Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, showing how women in particular often have to bear the abuses and excesses of the Israeli prison system.

Momodou Taal, a Persecuted Pro-Palestine Activist at Cornell, on Black and Palestinian Solidarity – Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò interviews Momodou Taal on locating Palestine within his broader scholarly research on pan-Africanism and global anticolonial struggles.

Strangers at Home: Young Palestinians in Israel – Sophia Didinova speaks to young Palestinian citizens of Israel who describe life under a legal and cultural system of Jewish supremacy.

The Ship Trying to Get Aid to Gaza Won’t Let a Drone Strike End Its Mission – Saliha Bayrak reports on the Israeli strikes on the Freedom Flotilla last week, describing the attack as Israel “pushing the limit” of its impunity in order to escalate further.

Exterminating Gaza Was Always Israel’s Plan, But Now It’s Official – Qassam Muaddi documents the evolution of the Israeli plan to indefinitely occupy Gaza, highlighting the ways in which similar efforts are underway in the West Bank and other parts of historic Palestine.

Hamas on the Record: An Exclusive Interview With Senior Hamas Official Osama Hamdan – Jeremy Scahill interviews Osama Hamdan about Hamas’ path to a long-term truce, its refusal to give up arms, and its perspective on the PA’s collaborationism in the West Bank.

Why the Israeli Left's 'Peace Summit' Is In Denial about the Gaza Genocide – Abed Abou Shhadeh reports on a recent ‘peace summit’ convened by Israeli organizations, where organizers centered the hostages, refused to use the word ‘genocide,’ and ultimately used rhetorics of ‘peace’ and ‘dialogue’ that normalize the occupation.

I Hid in the Bushes – A new poem from Edward Salem on being detained by the Palestinian Authority for documenting their collaborationism.

Blood, Oil, and Silence: Saudi Arabia’s Role in War Crimes From Yemen to Gaza– Saher reports on the ways in which Saudi Arabia posits itself as a defender of Arab and Muslim causes even as its oil and its investments in weapons sustain the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

Consider subscribing to the PalFest Bookshelf to receive a curated selection of the finest new and classic books by Palestinian writers.

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