Wednesday, May 15 marks 65 years since the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”): the dispossession, forced exile, and ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians from their land before and during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
To commemorate the Nakba in Edmonton, the Canada Palestine Cultural Association is hosting a dinner and evening of Palestinian folk music:
Sixty-five years later, Palestinians still face an ongoing Nakba as Israel continues to deny the right of return of displaced Palestinians and to illegally colonize Palestinian lands. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have now lived under a brutal Israeli military occupation for nearly 46 years, and Palestinians in Israel live under a system of apartheid – more than 50 laws enshrine their status as second-class citizens based on their ethnic and religious identity.
Total number of Palestinians expelled during Israel’s creation (1947-49): Between 750,000 and 1 million.
Number of Palestinians expelled prior to Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and the ensuing war with neighboring Arab states: Between 250,000 and 350,000.
Total number of Palestinian population centers systematically destroyed during Israel’s creation (1947-49): More than 400.
Number of population centers ethnically cleansed of their Palestinian Arab inhabitants by Zionist forces prior to Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and the ensuing war with neighboring Arab states: More than 200.
Number of documented massacres of Palestinians by Zionist and Israeli forces during Israel’s creation: At least two dozen. The most notorious took place at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, when more than 100 Palestinian men, women, and children were murdered by Zionist paramilitaries belonging to the Stern Gang and Irgun (led by future Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, respectively). These atrocities spurred the mass flight of Palestinians, and were instrumental in facilitating the creation of a Jewish-majority state in a region in which Palestinian Arabs were the majority.
Number of Palestinians who survived the expulsions, remaining within the borders of the new Israeli state: Approximately 150,000. Although granted Israeli citizenship, they were governed by Israeli military rule until 1966, had most of their land taken from them, and continue to suffer widespread, systematic discrimination today as non-Jews living in a “Jewish state.”
The total monetary loss of Palestinians dispossessed during Israel’s creation has been estimated at between of $100 billion and $200 billion (US) in today’s dollars.
The expulsion of the majority of the Arab population of what became Israel during the state’s establishment was not an unintended consequence of war, but rather a preconceived strategy of “transfer” to ensure the creation of a Jewish majority state. (See here for more on “transfer” in early Zionist thinking.) The military blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was called Plan Dalet (or Plan D) and was formally approved by the Zionist leadership on March 10, 1948. It called for:
“Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously.
“Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”
In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which stated: “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
Successive U.S. administrations supported Resolution 194 and consistently voted to affirm it until 1993, when the administration of President Bill Clinton began to refer to Palestinian refugee rights as a matter to be negotiated between the two parties in a final peace agreement, following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Palestinian right of return has also been recognized by major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In 2001, Amnesty International issued a policy statement on the subject, which concluded: “Amnesty International calls for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel, the West Bank or Gaza Strip, along with those of their descendants who have maintained genuine links with the area, to be able to exercise their right to return.” (See here for more on the Palestinian right of return and international law.)
A survey released in 2010 by BADIL, the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, found the Palestinian refugee and displaced population to be approximately 7.1 million, made up of 6.6 million refugees and 427,000 internally displaced persons. Most of them live in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, or in neighboring countries, often only a few miles away from the homes and lands from which they were expelled.
LIBERATION and RETURN: The Conference of Palestinian Shatat in North America May 3-5, 2013 University of British Columbia Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories
As we approach our 65th year of exile from our homeland, the need for Palestinians in the shatat (diaspora) to reinvigorate, develop and carry out an effective strategy for our national movement for liberation and return is as urgent as ever. For too long our voices have been excluded and the majority of us have been unrepresented in the decision-making and direction of our movement.
We call on all Palestinian activists, organizers and community members in the shatat to join us in this historical gathering to re-examine our history and build together towards a free future for our people and land by putting an end to Zionist colonization and normalization everywhere throughout the Palestinian and Arab homeland.
Join us to plan, discuss and learn from each other about our homeland and how we can become active participants in reviving our movement. The conference will include facilitated workshops, plenary discussions, conversations, and presentations – it welcomes your participation, your voice, and your active involvement in reclaiming the voice of the shatat.
At a time when Zionist colonization continues its incessant destruction and exploitation of Palestine and our people, our body-politic remains fragmented, with empty, unrepresentative and often corrupt national institutions and leadership, and a clouded vision of how to move forward towards our national aspirations for return and liberation.
This conference aims to work towards: restoring our people’s morale and commitment to our national struggle for return and liberation, reviving our transnational unity and building our national liberation movement despite our geographical dispersion, and overcoming the current impasse of national fragmentation (socio-economic, political, geographic and ideological).
Humanserve International presents the 2nd Annual Palestinian Bazaar, a full-day festival that celebrates the cultural richness of the Palestinian People and the contributions that they make to society.
The 2nd Annual Palestinian Bazaar Saturday, March 30 TransAlta Arts Barns 10330 84 Avenue
Help spread the word! Invite your friends to the Facebook event.
We know the struggles. We know the politics. We know the pain. Do we really know the talent of the people?
It is time to celebrate the contributions Palestinians make to society through their art, film, food, products, knowledge, literature and their music. The evening concert will especially highlight their vibrant comic scene by featuring the amazing talents of Maysoon Zayid and Aron Kader.
Bazaar
12:00 – 6:30 pm
Featured Entertainment:
Film, Food, Music, Dance, Vendors, Art
Free – All ages welcome
Comedy With A Cause – Evening Event
Featuring Maysoon Zayid & Aron Kader with local Edmonton talent.
6:30 pm – 11:00 pm | Westbury Theatre, TransAlta Arts Barn
Age 15+
Advance Tickets: $25 | Students $20 (Incl G.S.T.)
At the Door: $35 | Students $30 (Incl G.S.T.)
Humanserve International aims to share the Palestinian heritage with Albertans and to inform the Canadian public about humanitarian aspects of Palestinians and Lebanese in the Middle East. We endeavor to develop mutual ties with all stakeholders interested in the humanitarian aspects of disadvantaged populations in this area. One of the ways we are able to achieve this goal is to organize public engagement activities such as The Palestinian Bazaar. Public engagement activities link international development activities with community awareness and education in Canada. By making these links, Humanserve works to facilitate a learning process that will enable Canadians to better understand the nature and importance of global issues while encouraging the appreciation of the culture and talent of the people affected by these issues.
Ten years ago today, on March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old human rights activist and observer volunteering in Palestine, was killed by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9R bulldozer in the Gaza Strip as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home. PSN joins with the Corrie family and all those around the world who today are remembering Rachel’s life, sacrifice, and legacy.
Rachel’s parents, Craig and Cindy, have posted a video blog on the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice website, writing, “March 16, 2013 marks the 10-year anniversary of our daughter, Rachel Corrie’s death. We thank you all for the love and support you have sent us over the last 10 years, and we thank you for all the work you do on human rights. Please view and share this video and act. Join us at the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice in our call to action!”
You can also remember Rachel by reading the emails she sent home from Palestine in 2003 before she was killed, including this from a February 27, 2003 email:
“Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Apartheid of Displacement: Women’s Voices From the Palestinian Diaspora
Friday March 8 (Noon – 1:30 pm)
Henry Marshall Tory Building (Tory) Room 1-129
North end of HUB Mall on Saskatchewan Drive, University of Alberta Campus (Click here for map)
Help us spread the word! Invite your friends to the Facebook event.
Since the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) of 1947-1948, in which some 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and at least 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes or lands in what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has called “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” Palestinians have become one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
The majority of these Palestinian refugees and their descendents — now numbering over 5.5 million — have since been forced to live in exile, prevented despite multiple UN resolutions and international law to return to their homes, and unable to call any other place home. To mark International Women’s Day, come hear from three Palestinian women living in the diaspora, and their families’ stories of exile from refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries to life in western society.
About the speakers:
Dalal Awwad is a third generation Palestinian refugee. She is originally from Lifta – a village near Jerusalem. In 1948, her father’s family was expelled from Lifta, which caused the majority of the second and third generations to live as refugees in the West Bank. She moved with her parents between two different villages in areas near Ramallah. This consequently resulted in her changing schools several times. As a child, she lived through the intifada, formation of settlements around her village, and many other unfortunate events. At the beginning of this school year, she left Palestine to begin with her undergraduate studies in Canada.
Reem Skeik is a Palestinian immigrant. Her father’s family is from Gaza, while her mother’s family are Palestinian refugees from Jaffa. After their expulsion in 1948, the family lived in Lebanon for a few years, and eventually settled in Kuwait, where Reem was born. After the Gulf War, like many other Palestinian refugees, Reem’s family endured another expulsion. Reem and her family settled in Gaza, where she started her elementary education for the next four years, until immigrating to Canada. In Edmonton, Reem continued her education, completing a BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Alberta. She is currently at the University of Alberta completing her Master’s degree in the same field.
Nada Awwad is a third generation Palestinian refugee. Her father’s family is originally from Lifta, a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and her mother’s family is from Beitin, a village northeast of Ramallah. In 1948 her father’s family was expelled from their village and into refugee camps in the West Bank where the family was raised, during the 1967 war her father’s family was once again forced to run, eventually returning to the same refugee camp. Her mother’s family immigrated to Canada in 1949 where they currently live. Nada was born in the United States in 1992, and in 1998 her family moved to Palestine where they lived until 2004 when they returned to Edmonton.
All IAW 2013 events are open to everyone, and are free of charge. We look forward to seeing you there!
Idle No More to Occupation No More: Indigenous Intifadas from Turtle Island to Palestine Thursday, March 7 (7:00 – 9:00 pm) Telus Building Room 134 Corner of 111 Street & 87 Avenue, University of Alberta Campus
(Click here for map)
Help us spread the word! Invite your friends to the Facebook event.
“You who come from beyond the sea, bent on war,
don’t cut down the tree of our names,
don’t gallop your flaming horses across
the open plains….
Don’t bury your God
in books that back up your claim of
your land over our land,
don’t appoint your God to be a mere
courtier in the palace of the King”
- Mahmoud Darwish, The Penultimate Speech of the “Red Indian”
There are many similarities between the experiences and struggles of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and the Palestinian people: the establishment of settler-colonial states on stolen land, the ongoing destruction and exploitation of indigenous land and resources, denial of collective identity, culture, and rights, and most importantly, ongoing resistance to colonization, occupation and oppression.
The emergence of the Idle No More movement for Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination and rights also has strong parallels to the two Palestinian Intifadas (an Arabic word literally meaning “shaking off”) – powerful civil society movements that arose spontaneously from the grassroots to challenge decades of oppression under the Israeli occupation.
Come explore and discuss these connections and what lessons each movement can learn from the other with a panel of speakers involved in the Idle No More movement in Edmonton and a Palestinian refugee involved as a grassroots organizer during the First Intifada (1987-1993) in Gaza.
In the words of the statement by Palestinians in Solidarity with #IdleNoMore: “Now is the time – from Canada/Turtle Island to Palestine, we must all be ‘Idle No More’, and take a stand: against colonialism, against occupation, and for self-determination, sovereignty, rights and justice for Indigenous peoples.”
All IAW 2013 events are open to everyone, and are free of charge. We look forward to seeing you there!
Posted by psnedmonton 
![intifada1[2]](http://psnedmonton.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/intifada12.jpg?w=450&h=223)
The Nakba at 65
May 14, 2013Wednesday, May 15 marks 65 years since the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”): the dispossession, forced exile, and ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians from their land before and during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
To commemorate the Nakba in Edmonton, the Canada Palestine Cultural Association is hosting a dinner and evening of Palestinian folk music:
Commemorating Nakba
Cultural Event & Dinner
Saturday, May 18 (6:00 pm)
Palace Banquets & Conference Facility
3223 Parsons Road (99 Street)
You can find details of this event here or on CANPAL’s Facebook page for the event.
Sixty-five years later, Palestinians still face an ongoing Nakba as Israel continues to deny the right of return of displaced Palestinians and to illegally colonize Palestinian lands. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have now lived under a brutal Israeli military occupation for nearly 46 years, and Palestinians in Israel live under a system of apartheid – more than 50 laws enshrine their status as second-class citizens based on their ethnic and religious identity.
Below are some basic facts about the Nakba, produced by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
To learn more about the Nakba, you can visit the websites of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and American Muslims for Palestine.
Other sites you can use to educate people about the continuing relevance of the Nakba and the importance of the Palestinian right of return for establishing a just and lasting peace are Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948 from the Institute for Palestine Studies; Ongoing Nakba Education Center from BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights; and Expressions of Nakba from the US Campaign to End the Occupation.
You can also check out and share the new graphic from Visualizing Palestine on An Ongoing Dispossession: The Forced Exile of the Palestinians.
For an in-depth history of the Nakba and Plan Dalet, read Ilan Pappé’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
Al Jazeera in 2008 produced an award-winning series on the Nakba, which you can watch for free below.
Parts 1 & 2:
Parts 3 & 4:
Quick Facts: Israeli Independence & The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Total number of Palestinians expelled during Israel’s creation (1947-49): Between 750,000 and 1 million.
Number of Palestinians expelled prior to Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and the ensuing war with neighboring Arab states: Between 250,000 and 350,000.
Total number of Palestinian population centers systematically destroyed during Israel’s creation (1947-49): More than 400.
Number of population centers ethnically cleansed of their Palestinian Arab inhabitants by Zionist forces prior to Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and the ensuing war with neighboring Arab states: More than 200.
Number of documented massacres of Palestinians by Zionist and Israeli forces during Israel’s creation: At least two dozen. The most notorious took place at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, when more than 100 Palestinian men, women, and children were murdered by Zionist paramilitaries belonging to the Stern Gang and Irgun (led by future Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, respectively). These atrocities spurred the mass flight of Palestinians, and were instrumental in facilitating the creation of a Jewish-majority state in a region in which Palestinian Arabs were the majority.
Number of Palestinians who survived the expulsions, remaining within the borders of the new Israeli state: Approximately 150,000. Although granted Israeli citizenship, they were governed by Israeli military rule until 1966, had most of their land taken from them, and continue to suffer widespread, systematic discrimination today as non-Jews living in a “Jewish state.”
The total monetary loss of Palestinians dispossessed during Israel’s creation has been estimated at between of $100 billion and $200 billion (US) in today’s dollars.
The expulsion of the majority of the Arab population of what became Israel during the state’s establishment was not an unintended consequence of war, but rather a preconceived strategy of “transfer” to ensure the creation of a Jewish majority state. (See here for more on “transfer” in early Zionist thinking.) The military blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was called Plan Dalet (or Plan D) and was formally approved by the Zionist leadership on March 10, 1948. It called for:
In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which stated: “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
Successive U.S. administrations supported Resolution 194 and consistently voted to affirm it until 1993, when the administration of President Bill Clinton began to refer to Palestinian refugee rights as a matter to be negotiated between the two parties in a final peace agreement, following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Palestinian right of return has also been recognized by major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In 2001, Amnesty International issued a policy statement on the subject, which concluded: “Amnesty International calls for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel, the West Bank or Gaza Strip, along with those of their descendants who have maintained genuine links with the area, to be able to exercise their right to return.” (See here for more on the Palestinian right of return and international law.)
A survey released in 2010 by BADIL, the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, found the Palestinian refugee and displaced population to be approximately 7.1 million, made up of 6.6 million refugees and 427,000 internally displaced persons. Most of them live in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, or in neighboring countries, often only a few miles away from the homes and lands from which they were expelled.
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