Inevitably, the 65th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba - Catastrophe - was overshadowed by calls to exercise refugees' right of return. Although the vast majority of Palestinians live in forced exile and the focus tends to dwell on their plight, there is now an estimated 370,000 'internally displaced persons' (IDPs) within the Israeli state. They are also denied the right to return to their homes and villages. No Nakba anniversary can pass without remembering them.

Unlike their compatriots in the wider Diaspora, the displaced Palestinians in Israel enjoy little international assistance and far less protection. Ever since the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stopped providing services for them in 1952, they have remained refugees in their own land and second-class citizens in the state established around them.

Israel's ethnic cleansing polices in the Naqab (Negev) region have entered a new and dangerous phase. A ministerial council for legal codes this week cleared the way for a Knesset reading of the controversial Prawer plan to regulate the Bedouin communities in the region. If implemented, this scheme would result in the forced displacement of up to 70,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel and the destruction of 35 villages, which Israel regards as "unrecognized." This would be the largest single act of its kind since the Palestinian Nakba - Catastrophe began in 1948.

Recent figures estimate the Arab population in the Naqab to be just over 200,000. Their fate has been no less tragic than the rest of the Palestinian people. Faced with an unrelenting campaign of ethnic cleansing and Judaisation, their struggle today is to exercise the universal human right to own and live on their land.

Whenever Israel and America welcome an Arab initiative it must be in their favour. This is exactly what has happened with the Arab ministerial delegation to Washington offering to modify the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. They agreed to allow some "minor" land swaps but what does this mean? And why did Tzipi Livni, the minister responsible for Israel's negotiations team, hasten to accept the proposal when she rejected such an offer back in 2008?

Leaked documents from the 2008 negotiations with Israel revealed that the Palestinian Authority did actually agree then to Israel's annexation of several East Jerusalem settlements including Ramat Shlomo, Pisgat Ze'ev, French Hill, Neve Yakov and Gilo.

Israel's efforts to isolate the Gaza Strip politically are not working. Not even the recruitment of the US secretary of state has been enough to persuade Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to postpone his visit to the besieged enclave.

International opposition to the visit has refocused attention on to the occupied Palestinian territory. Similarly, the pressures exerted on the Spanish government to freeze its decision to open a consulate in Gaza have revived the debate about the legality of the Israeli-led blockade and its political value. Israel's policy is morally and politically bankrupt.