For many decades, the Zionist narrative falsely described the foundation of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba as the miraculous victory of a small, suppressed people against an overwhelming Arab majority, aiming to give Israel a mythical, religious aura, while claiming that the Palestinian population had left voluntarily because they overestimated their own strength. Palestinian scholarly accounts that documented the Zionist’s long-planned systematic military campaign of terror were available as early as the 1950s and 1960s, with publications including Walid Khalidi’s Why Did the Palestinians Leave? (1959), Plan Dalet (1968), and All That Remains (1992). Yet the atrocities had to be documented by Israelis, such as Professor Ilan Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, for the West to begin questioning the official account. As Edward Said pointed out, Palestinians were denied their narrative.
Based on a thorough reading of newly released documents from Israeli archives, Tom Suarez in Palestine Hijacked explains why the United Nations in 1948 recommended giving more than half of the land of Palestine to the one-third that comprised its Jewish population (up from an original around 7 percent at the beginning of the British Mandate), asserting that this was done to curb the expansionist desires and intentions of the emerging Zionist state. Israel took four-fifths of original Palestine in 1948, has unofficially annexed 60 percent of the remaining 20 percent, and is in the process of taking over one-tenth of Lebanon and parts of Syria – and has never declared its borders. And while we have official ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, the killing and ethnic cleansing continue, without repercussions for Israel other than a change in opinion among many in the world.
In this issue about the ongoing Nakba (published again without a sponsor), our gratitude goes to the institutions that use This Week in Palestine as a platform to inform our readers about their engagement. We also thank the authors who contributed to this issue, including Professor Ilan Pappé, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter; Jalal Al Husseini, a research fellow in political sociology at the French Institute for the Near East; Dr. Issam Nassar, a professor of history who currently heads the history program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies; BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, an independent human rights organization; Elena Qleibo-Kogan, an anthropologist, diplomat, and writer; Sura Abualrob, the media and communications officer at the Palestinian Museum; Dr. Norma Masriyyeh Hazboun, an associate professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities; Nader Anton Abu Amsha, who since August 2023 has served as executive director of the Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees at the Middle East Council of Churches (DSPR-MECC); Rania Hammad, a writer and activist based in Italy; Khaled Farraj, the director general of the Institute for Palestine Studies; Dr. Hatem Bazian, a senior lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley; and Ahmed Masoud, an award winning Palestinian author who lives in the UK.
Our two books of the month are Gaza Is Dying While the World Remains Silent and Murjana; our Artist of the Month is Ibrahim Zaki, and the Exhibition of the Month is Hide and Seek.
Our entire team wishes you a good end of the school year and a blessed Eid al-Adha to all who are celebrating it; most of all, we wish for peace for the region and the world!
Tina Basem
