Dishonouring Palestinian memory of the Nakba at the UN

Another Nakba commemoration has passed. At the UN, the rhetoric remains unchanged. It is chilling that even after a colonial genocide which Israeli officials called Nakba 2.0, the UN is determined to never mention colonialism. The UN will never, not even on the anniversary of the Nakba, face the Palestinian people and admit its complicity by endorsing the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine’s colonisation.

No matter how much the UN maintains its self-imposed relevance when it comes to the Palestinian people’s fate, the Palestinian people should not be subjugated to the UN. And neither should Palestine’s history, culture and collective memory be exploited for UN commemorative speeches.

Last week, the UN General Assembly’s President Annalena Baerbock, delivered a speech for the 78^th commemoration of the Nakba, commencing with a poem by Mahmoud Darwish to illustrate the Palestinian people’s perpetual displacement. Baerbock immediately distorted the Zionist colonisation of Palestine, stating, “One of the very first tasks of the United Nations was to find a just solution to conflicts and crises across the world, including the Question of Palestine.’”

But Palestine was never a question. Palestine was colonised with full UN approval.

Baerbock continued, “The long-promised Two-State Solution, recognized as the only sustainable path to peace, security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis – and the only real answer to the Question of Palestine – remains out of reach.”

If colonialism is to be rendered into question and answer, Baerbock should have focused on a simpler formula. Colonise – decolonise.

However, Baerbock again and predictably veered away from addressing Israeli colonialism. “We know what to do,” she said, referencing the New York Declaration which merely rehashes the international commitment to the two-state paradigm.  Of course the UN knows what to do – follow any road that extends the 1947 Partition Plan. If that leads to genocide, as it did in Gaza, so be it, according to the UN. Conflict and question are the only vocabulary the UN needs as veneer for its complicity.

Since the ceasefire, 800 Palestinian children in Gaza have been killed, Baerbock states, without mentioning Israel. Since October 2023, Israel killed over 21,000 children in Gaza. How is Baerbock using statistics on Nakba commemoration day? Why minimise timelines and statistics? To fit the two-state narrative, of course. If one speaks of Gaza since the ceasefire, there is no need to mention Israel’s genocide since October 2023, much less all of Israel’s war crimes which have made rendered the two-state implementation impossible. A limited account of Israel’s normalised violations is more in line with branding the two-state paradigm as “the only solution”.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority fared no better, shrinking itself further to promote the Trump administration’s interference in Gaza, and noting, without criticising, the UN Partition Plan “which called for the establishment of an Arab State for the Palestinian people on 45% of historic Palestine alongside the State of Israel.” Is it possible that Mahmoud Abbas can state this without recognising the dissonance? The land is Palestinian. The 1947 Partition Plan colonised Palestine. It did not guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state; the land theft percentage speaks for itself.

On the 79^th anniversary of the Nakba in 2027, anyone incapable of calling out colonialism and its web of complicities should stay silent. There is no honour in appropriating Palestinian memory to reap impunity for the coloniser and institutional accomplices.

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