‘Nakba’ (‘Catastrophe’)

For Palestinians, 2017 is a year of significant anniversaries.
While historians mark May 15th as the anniversary of the date on which Palestinians were expelled from their historic homeland in 1948, the fact is the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians began in earnest in 1947.
In strict historical terms 1947 and ‘48 were the years in which Palestine was conquered and depopulated.

On May 15th of every year, over the past 68 years, Palestinians have commemorated their collective exile from Palestine. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine to make room for a ‘Jewish homeland’ came at a price of unrelenting violence and perpetual suffering. Palestinians refer to that enduring experience as ‘Nakba’, or ‘Catastrophe’.
However, the ‘Nakba’ is not merely a Palestinian experience; it is also an Arab wound that never ceases from bleeding.