The 70th anniversary of the Nakba

The month of May brings with it a painful memory for Arabs and Muslims, the anniversary of the Nakba. We remember that the day when the heart of the Arab nation was ripped out and Palestine was seized before the eyes of the entire world.

The colonial powers immediately recognised, Israel. A rogue entity that was planted in our Arab region. The first to recognise Israel was the Soviet Union, followed by the US. The East and the West worked together to stab the Arab nation in the back.

But, the state of Israeli actually dates back a century, to  2 November, 1917. The the Balfour Declaration which was issued by the British government to establish a national homeland for the Jews on the land of Arab Palestine. It was a promise made by those who do not own the land to those who do not deserve it. This promise was achieved, along with the help of the other colonial states on May 14, 1948.

Since then, the Palestinians have lived in an endless series of suffering, hardship and the confiscation of more of their land by Israel. The Palestinians have not stopped fighting for the past 70 years, while Arab leaders did not stop conspiring against the struggle of the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, the superpowers, beginning with the US, support Israel, while the Arab leaders are loyal to and guard its borders. Al-Sisi explicitly said, “We will not allow Sinai to be the backyard for any terrorist operations against our neighbour.”

Report: 128 Israel violations on Palestinian holy sites in April

Since the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser, all of the Arab rulers without exception, exploited the Palestinian cause and used it to gain favour amongst their people. Moreover, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993 with Israel. In accordance with this agreement, it recognised Israel and but dropped the article regarding using armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the sea to the river from its national charter.

The Oslo Accords led to the murder and arrest of more Palestinians under the pretext of security coordination with Israel. The Al-Aqsa Intifada, (began on 28 September 2000) revived the spirit of resistance amongst the Palestinian people, was led by the late Yasser Arafat. This was after Arafat returned frustrated from America after the Camp David meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, under the auspices of US President Bill Clinton. This meeting made him realise that the peace agreements with Israel are useless and that they were all illusions that quickly evaporated and dissipated into thin air after there were high hopes to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of the Palestinian refugees to their land.

The Palestinian people survived on these hopes for seven years, since the Oslo Accords were signed, but when they woke up, they realised that the these were just dreams and that reality forces them to return to the struggle to liberate Palestine.

Israel is continuing the Nakba

Arafat led the intifada himself along side Hamas, which insists on the return of all of Palestine by means of armed resistance. This started a new phase in the Palestinian struggle that did not end with the demise of Arafat, his death by poisoning in 2004 and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip under the weight of Hamas’s valiant resistance. Israel retaliated with the assassination of Hamas’s senior leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who awakened the nation, and Dr Abdel Aziz Rantisi, among others.

In addition to this, Israel waged four fierce and violent wars on the Gaza Strip, as well as imposed a complete ground, sea, and air blockade on the Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas won the parliamentary elections in 2006. However, none of this undermined the resistance nor did it affect its determination or weaken the Palestinian people, who are willing to make great sacrifices for the sake of liberating their land. They have withstood burdens that no other nation in the world could have bore and they suffered severely for the sake of their independence, dignity, and pride.

Israel failed to subjugate the Palestinians in Gaza. They also failed to defeat Hamas. Therefore, they resorted to their agent in the West Bank and their security coordinator, Mahmoud Abbas, to carry out this mission. He launched a vicious campaign against Hamas, accusing the movement of terrorism and threatening it and insisting on it handing over its weapons to the imaginary PA. The PA cut the salaries of its employees in the Gaza Strip in order for the Gazans to turn against Hamas.

This year’s Nakba anniversary occurs amidst serious global challenges and important strategic changes on the global and regional arenas, a looming war between America and Iran, and the rise of an Arab axis led by the arrogant Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of the UAE, who are conspiring against the nation and allied with Israel against Iran and Hamas, considering them to be their main enemy.

Paraguay to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

The Nakba’s 70th anniversary occurs after the American President Donald Trump made the decision to recognise all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his intention to move the American embassy to Jerusalem on the day of the 70th anniversary. This aims to humiliate the Arabs and Muslims. He is expected to announce his “deal of the century” on this day; a deal cooked up in the White House and approved by the treacherous Arab leaders.

This deal aims to completely liquidate the Palestinian cause and end the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their land by establishing an alternative homeland for them made up of parts of Sinai and Jordan, to be annexed to Gaza, in order to form a Palestinian state with no sovereignty or weapons, with Abou Redis as its capital, thus removing Jerusalem from the equation.

However, hope remains in this great nation, the Palestinian people who constantly change the equation with their ingenuity and innovation in their means of resistance and struggle. They have surprised the entire world with their Great Return marches, which have terrorised and terrified the Israelis as they watch unarmed masses of Palestinians approach the border between Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories and remove the barbed wire.

The Palestinians are not carrying weapons, but they are carrying their right to the land, their faith, and their will. With their paper planes, they have managed to achieve what the Apache planes that killed thousands of Palestinians could not. The Israelis are scared to death, despite being alive, while the Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Apaches while they were fighting valiantly and courageously, without fear leaking into their hearts. Their belief is that they either fight and win or they become martyrs.

This generation are the descendants of the descendants of the Palestinians who were expelled from their land and displaced far from Palestine. They have never had the chance to see Palestine and live in it, amongst its plains, valleys, and mountains. However in their hearts, they live in Palestine and Palestine lives in them, in their hearts, and in their minds. They will not surrender their land, and therefore they have disproved the words of ancient Zionist leaders, such as Golda Meir, who said, “The old will die and the young will forget.” The old did indeed die, but it was after they handed their keys of return to the young and passed down the torch to them. The Palestinian people are a nation that does not die and cannot be defeated.

The 70th anniversary of the Nakba will not be spent crying over the lost land, but will be celebrated with the Great Return marches that will shake the ground under the feet of the Israelis.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.