Nakba 75 and the ongoing erasure of Palestinians
Trisha
‘The Nakba is not a memory; it is a continuous uprooting’
- Mahmoud Darwish
May 2023 marks 75 years since the Nakba of 1948. Nakba Day marks the physical erasure of villages and communities and the creation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
As Darwish’s quote above illuminates, this violent history of displacement is both a historical event and an experience that is ongoing, felt daily by Palestinians. Today, there are approximately six million Palestinian refugees registered living in around 58 camps in Palestine as well as surrounding nations. The violence of 1948 continues today through the same tactics of ethnic cleansing, such as home demolitions, while new iterations of this violence continuously emerge. The threat and restriction to academic freedom is one of these new forms, backed by neo-imperial powers who have been complicit in the settler colonial project established through the Nakba.
This complicity is explicit in the U.K’s supply of arms to the Israeli Occupation Forces; Elbit Systems is responsible for 85% of Israel’s drones, the same ones deployed against Gaza in 2008, 2014, 2021 and as recently as last week. Therefore, Elbit’s factories in the U.K, ten in total, have been continuously and successfully targeted by direct-action group Palestine Action. This May, on the anniversary of the Nakba, Palestine Action have laid siege against Elbit’s Leicester base.
The urgency of the ongoing Nakba is demonstrated by groups like Palestine Action and prompts us to not only commemorate history but understand our present and fight for a future. A number of the texts below help us to do this. Political work such as Ghada Karmi’s recently released One State proposes a radical solution that goes against the normative peace processes suggested by international bodies. New works of fiction such as Isabella Hammad’s Enter Ghost beautifully depict the complexity of a Palestinian’s relationship to her homeland.
Linked Books
![Image for One State : The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97807453/9780745348315.jpg)
- title
- One State : The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel
- author
- Karmi, Ghada
![Image for Enter Ghost : from the prize-winning author of The Parisian](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97817873/9781787334069.jpg)
- title
- Enter Ghost : from the prize-winning author of The Parisian
- author
- Hammad, Isabella
![Image for Justice for Some : Law and the Question of Palestine](https://jackets.dmmserver.com/media/356/97815036/9781503613577.jpg)
- title
- Justice for Some : Law and the Question of Palestine
- author
- oura Erakat
![Image for The Hundred Years' War on Palestine : A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97817812/9781781259344.jpg)
- title
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine : A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance
- author
- Khalidi, Rashid I.
![Image for Minor Detail](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97819130/9781913097172.jpg)
- title
- Minor Detail
- author
- Shibli, Adania
![Image for Rifqa](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97816425/9781642595864.jpg)
- title
- Rifqa
- author
- El-Kurd, Mohammed
![Image for Except for Palestine : The Limits of Progressive Politics](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97816209/9781620977255.jpg)
- title
- Except for Palestine : The Limits of Progressive Politics
- author
- Hill, Marc Lamont, Plitnick, Mitchell
![Image for Greater than the Sum of Our Parts : Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97807453/9780745347479.jpg)
- title
- Greater than the Sum of Our Parts : Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine
- author
- Elia, Nada
![Image for Palestine +100 : Stories from a century after the Nakba : 2](https://jackets.gardners.com/media/640/97819109/9781910974445.jpg)
- title
- Palestine +100 : Stories from a century after the Nakba : 2
- author
- Ghalayini, Basma, Maarouf, Mazen, Dabbagh, Selma, Masoud, Ahmed, Hamed, Anwar, Shawish, Talal Abu, Y
![Image for Popular Protest In Palestine](https://jackets.dmmserver.com/media/356/97807453/9780745335094.jpg)
- title
- Popular Protest In Palestine
- author
- Marwan Darwish
![Image for Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31hfY1aqjyL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
- title
- Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies
- author
- Hayek, Heba
![Image for Friends of Israel : The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity](https://jackets.dmmserver.com/media/356/97817866/9781786637659.jpg)
- title
- Friends of Israel : The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity
- author
- Hil Aked