May 15th is Nakba Commemoration Day

The Nakba, or the "catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to the displacement and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians as a result of the 1948 War. During the war Israel declared its independence from Great Britain and began a policy of expansion by any means possible beyond the borders defined by the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

As a result, several massacres were committed by the Jewish forces, particularly in Tantura and Dier Yassin. Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and marched to neighboring Arab countries. 530 Palestinian towns, villages, and neighborhoods were depopulated. Israel has renamed all of these locations or Hebraized the Arabic names in an attempt to wipe the history of the Palestinians from the land. After the war, new Jewish immigrants moved into the vacant Palestinian homes.

Below was a Palestinian home until the Nakba and has become inhabited by Jewish immigrants from the United States. The village of Sa'sa' is now a kibbutz.


Today, boarded up and neglected mosques and churches stand awkwardly in Israeli towns. Below is a picture of a mosque in Tiberias with the Sheraton in the background.


Read a testimony from the war.

Today, this policy, or the Nakba continues, particularly in East Jerusalem in the neighborhood of Silwan. The Jerusalem municipality has declared this Palestinian neighborhood "green space" and have issued eviction and demolition orders for the Palestinians who have lived in this area prior to Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. This area will then be called the "City of David" claiming the land as legitimately Jewish land by means of the name.


Sabeel Young Adults from the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Galilee travelled to Ma'lul, a village destroyed in 1948, to clean the church and mosque. Today, the village is considered a national park by the Israeli authorities.

Demolition orders for the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al Bustan

Israel has issued orders for the demolition of an entire neighborhood in East Jerusalem called al Bustan which would uproot 2,000 people and replace their homes with...an open park. The demolition orders are for 80 Palestinian homes that the Israeli authorities claim were built illegally. However, many of these homes were built BEFORE Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

As for construction after 1967, Israel has employed a policy of planning, development, and building that severely restricts construction by Palestinians creating a situation in which Palestinians are unable to obtain permits to build or even make additions to existing homes. Because of this, many Palestinians are forced to build without a permit because they have no other way to provide shelter for their families.

On the U.S. Secretary of State's visit to Israel, Clinton stated that activities like the demolition orders are "unhelpful" and "not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the road map." While Clinton's remarks are an understatement and the demolition orders are not only destroying the peace process but also in clear violation of Humanitarian Law, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat responded by charging the Palestinians with feeding Clinton misinformation and that the land had been set aside as open space and parks (apparently after the land had already been built on before 1967 when Israel acquired the land).

For more information about these particular demolition orders please follow these links:

ICAHD article about this neighborhood
PNN article about this neighborhood