Nakba Day

'Israel/Palestine: Commemorating the Nakba and Debating Loyalty'
by Ayesha Saldanha

May 15 is Nakba Day, when Palestinians commemorate the creation of Israel and subsequent Palestinian displacement and dispossession. Shortly after the day this year, a controversial piece of legislation was proposed in the Knesset banning commemoration of the Nakba. Two other bills were recently proposed, one introducing a pledge of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, and another criminalizing public denial of Israel as a Jewish state. While the "loyalty law" has been rejected, and the Nakba bill has been amended, the fact that the bills were introduced at all has prompted debate and protest.

It’s me has been contemplating the annual Nakba commemorations:

I didn’t want to write about this commemoration…I don’t know why.
However, as long as I don’t put the words down they kill me from inside. So let them come out…and one of them will kill me.
The Nakba.
A tent… a blue card [given to refugees]…and a key…and deluded hopes.
And expressions such as “holding on”, “we will return”, “refugees”…and so on.
A substantial subject for pedants such as I…This time I didn’t want to [write], but a discussion this morning with my mother – or with any mother – was as follows:
Me: Mother, today is the commemoration of the Nakba.
Mother: [sighing] Every day there is a nakba, every day there is an commemoration, every day there is a celebration.

Total silence.


Reacting to the "loyalty law", The Other Door has written a sarcastic post in the personae of various Palestinian citizens of Israel:


I am Mohammed Al Safoori. I swear by the Torah of the Jews that I will be a loyal citizen to the State of Israel, and will respect traffic regulations, pay my taxes and put up a picture of Mira Awad in my living room.
I am Salima Al Jebaili. On the soul of my dead father, I swear I will be loyal to Israel and bake only kosher bread.
I am Sulaiman Ladwai. I swear by Almighty God that I knew and named my eldest daughter Walaa' [loyalty] as a premonition of allegiance to the state of Lieberman. My whole family and I will be loyal to the state. We will see you at Yarkon Park on Independence Day. Arabs are allowed to enter, right?
I am Mahmoud Abu Daqa. I was called Mahmoud after my grandfather who was martyred with the resistance fighters in ’71. My grandfather was martyred for the sake of the nation, and I will continue on his path, and swear an oath of allegiance to the State of Israel.


I am Jameel Khouri from Efrat. On the life of Virgin Mary I swear to be loyal to Israel.
[…]
I am Nora Majdalawi and my friends call me Nurit [a Jewish name].You too all seem to betray… I am committed to be loyal to the state and also recognise it as a democratic Jewish state. I hope peace will manifest itself every country of the world, just has as it has for us. I would like to send greetings to my friends in the civil defence at Nahariya Hospital.
I am Murad Al Abed. I swear by God, by the mosque and by the prophets, by my love and your love, by my eyes (which I hope will be eaten by worms if I lie), by heaven, by my mother, by my father’s testicles, by prostitutes, and by the life of Najla Fathi, that I love Israel, and that we are against terrorism.


You may view the latest post at
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/05/israelpalestine-commemorating-the-nakba-and-


On the speech, Gorenberg writes:

His message to us was very, very basic Obama: First, I acknowledge your history. Second, it’s time each of you recognize the other’s side history, that you stop thinking that somehow by admitting the other’s side suffering you’ll erase your own. And now that you’ve acknowledged history, stop holding on to it as if electricity were running through it, as if your hand can’t let go. Move forward. Turn history into history - the text explaining how we got here - and stop treating it as an ever-repeating present.