Today we remember the tragic events that crystallized Zionist practices of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine from their land and symbolized the beginning of an ongoing strategy of colonization, mass expulsion, oppression, and containment of Palestinians, either in the historical land or scattered either in the historical land or around refugee camps and host countries around the world.
The 15th of May 1948 marked the culmination of an unjust, oppressive project of settler colonialism that led to the establishment of Israel and the forced, violent, expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people from its land. It also marked a turning point, a new phase of the ongoing attempt of usurpation and cancellation of Palestinian identity and rights, first and foremost the rights to self-determination for Palestinians and the rights of return for all refugees.
75 years into the Nakba and five generations of Palestinians have been living in exile, often subject to ‘containment’ and ‘encampment’ in Jordan, Lebanon, occupied Palestine, and Syria. Many Palestinian refugees were also forced to move on again due to oppression, violence, and deportation: statelessness and displacement have been an ongoing feature of the injustice imposed on the Palestinian people by Zionist colonialism, with the silent complicity of the international community.
However, today, while remembering the Nakba, we honor the ongoing resistance, and the never-ending steadfastness of Palestinian people in all their geographies and reaffirm our support for the struggle to achieve justice, liberation, and return.
Over the past 75 years the Nakba has continued taking the new and more articulated form of colonial oppression and control: not only forced exile and containment into camps in neighboring countries but also forced displacement, dispossession, and home destruction in Jerusalem and the West Bank, an inhuman embargo on Gaza, a sophisticate apartheid system, deprivation of all basic rights in historical Palestine, arbitrary and criminal mass incarceration and administrative detention, the creation of a complex, internationally-sustained system of political and economic dependence as well as political fragmentation, have been imposed on Palestinians.
Yet, the Zionist complex system of repression has not defeated the Palestinian people, 5 generations into exile and Palestinian youth keep claiming their right to return and raise to support the struggle for the liberation of the homeland everywhere. Geographic and political fragmentation has not managed to crush Palestinian steadfastness and collective ambition for justice: Palestinians remain united and resist any attempt to annihilate them. Resistance has taken on new forms – ranging from grassroots movements, civil disobedience, human rights mechanisms, and calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions- that attests to the unity of intent of the Palestinian people and denounces the failure of past strategies and misleading discourses on security, land for peace, state-building, regional economic and political normalization, that ultimately entrenched Zionism’s settler-colonialism and apartheid regime.
75 years into the Nakba, five generations into proud resistance, we reaffirm today our support for the dignified struggle of the Palestinian people. We mourn the martyrs who have courageously faced the violence of the oppressor without giving up: they remain a statement for future generations, in the journey to achieve freedom and return.
ARDD reaffirms the support for the inalienable right to self-determination and returns for all Palestinians through a month-long commemoration and ongoing commitment to the just cause of Palestine. Details on events and the framework that inspires them can be found here.
Today we insist that youth do not forget in cooperation with Radio Al Balad we broadcast the thought of young Palestinians in Jordanian refugee camps reflecting on the Nakba and reclaiming return.
Furthermore, ARDD visits the camps in Zarqa and meets grassroots associations to reaffirm the support to Palestinians, and their memories of their homeland as they are narrated and kept alive, 75 years into the ongoing Nakba, for all generations still longing to return.
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