Palestinian refugees (British Mandate of Palestine - 1948). Public Domain.Seventy years ago, on 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, eight hours before the British Mandate over Palestine was set to expire, declared the independence of the State of Israel. Celebrations for this occurrence, in 2018, began at sunset on 18 April and ended on the evening of the following day – due to the date difference between the Gregorian and Jewish calendars.
Following President Trump’s decision, the US administration has moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on 14 May of this year – a move that has already caused outrage among Palestinians all over the world. The US move is as historically blind as it is politically foolish. It utterly ignores what the dates I have just mentioned represent for the counterpart of a conflict – to say it cynically – that has lasted as long as the State of Israel exists: the Palestinians.
Palestinians consider 15 May one of the most painful days in their calendars. It is the day of the commemoration of the Nakba (in Arabic يوم النكبة or Yōm al-Nakba, the «Day of the Catastrophe»), the ‘uprooting of the Palestinians and the dismemberment and de-Arabisation of historic Palestine’, as Professor Nur Masalha has poignantly defined it in his book The Palestine Nakba. While it is commemorated every year as if it belonged to the past, the Nakba lives on not only symbolically, but also as a unifying descriptor of a constellation of measures enacted by the State of Israel – often in violation of international law – to drastically reduce public spaces for Palestinians.
