Recasting the Nakba: Palestinian struggle between victimhood and resistance by Ramzy Baroud on Middle East Monitor

If Palestinians actually “existed” in Israel’s imagination, there can never be any moral justification for its creation; there will never be any Israeli narrative that could be powerful enough to rejoice at the birth of the Israeli “miracle” that “made the desert bloom”. That blood-stained birth callously required the destruction of an entire nation; people with a unique history, language, culture and collective memory. It was thus absolutely necessary for the Palestinians to be wiped out to quell any possible sense of Israeli guilt, shame and legal and moral responsibility for what has befallen millions of dispossessed people.

… Terms such as the “Jewish Nakba” are becoming omnipresent, in reference to the alleged ethnic cleansing of Arab Jews from their countries during the war of 1948. While the attempt to rewrite history is disingenuous at best, it signals the growing signs of defeat for the Israeli discourse. The term “Nakba” has proven to be too powerful a reference to the origins of Israel, established with genocidal intent and complete disregard for another nation.

Nevertheless, the Nakba must be in a constant process of re-evaluation and, if needed, redefinition. The Nakba is not merely a question of history, but an ongoing reality that has affected several generations of Palestinians.