We Palestinians will not repeat the Nakba

JVL Introduction

Palestinians who experienced the Nakba in 1948 resist leaving Gaza.  Saaed Salam remembers fleeing the bombs when he was five “When the truth became clear, that we had abandoned our homes and others had taken them, we wished a thousand times that we had stayed and faced death instead. The regret never left us.” Along with 400,000 others, he refused even to move from the north to the south and the so called “safe zones”.  The conditions were truly appalling but moving was unimaginable for some, despite the suffering and the loss of loved ones.

We might wonder why the mainstream media and politicians are reacting to Trump’s utterances but paid little heed to Israeli leaders wanting to move everyone to Sinai or even to eliminate them altogether.  Why, for example, is it OK for Starmer to emphasise again and again, Israel’s right to self-defence even though he has not once referred to the Palestinians’ right to the same?

There cannot be another Nakba, further ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.  And it is not up to us – or Trump – but the Palestinian people themselves.

LL

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Sun 9 Feb 2025. Read the original here.