Public Lecture on “The Meaning of the Nakba: Thirdly and Fourthly”

The Forced Migration and Refugee Unit at the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of international studies at Birzeit University held a public lecture on Wednesday May, 15 entitled “The Meaning of the Nakba: Thirdly and Fourthly.” This lecture was given on the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, in collaboration with Al-Tawasol Forum Society, which acts within a project on the right of return entitled ”we will return” funded by the Norwegian Population Aid (NPA). The lecture was presented by Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawwad, professor of history and political science at Birzeit University. Dr. Abdel Jawwad presented  his critical reading and review of the Nakba in terms of its meaning, causes, and its narratives. He stressed that the Nakba did not only target Palestine, it also had crucial impacts on the Arab region.

Dr. Abdel Jawwad emphasized on the absence of a comprehensive Palestinian narrative, and the absence of a collective memory of the Nakba. Thus, he called for promoting the Palestinian narrative in a more comprehensive way by speaking of the crimes and acts of heroism alike; not only generally speaking but in a way that would transform each case, massacre, story of a village and story of a refugee into a story which transforms into a picture and becomes entrenched in the Palestinian collective memory so that every Palestinian would know what happened during the exodus.

He also indicated that most of Arab literature until this day did not study the 1948 Nakba properly, which would depict the Nakba not only as a tragedy and catastrophe, and which portrays Palestinians as victims; but which should include another side of the story:  the acts of heroism which many authors tend to overlook. Concerning the reasons for defeat, Dr. Abdel Jawwad said “The Nakba was a natural outcome for a deformed history, and the Palestinian and Arab elites are only look for their personal interests. Moreover, he claimed that Defeat is more of a mental defeat rather than a political, and military one.” He also referred to the importance of paying more attention to the mental and intellectual systems, just as the political system, in order to overcome this predicament.

Dr. Abdel Jawwad said “the occupation tries to portray that Palestinians left  their homes and villages in 1948 out of fear, they do not talk about the extent of  crimes this entity committed to expel Palestinians from their lands.”

  According to Dr. Abdel Jawwad, “the Zionist gangs perpetrated nearly 80 massacres and destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages, which constitutes 60% of the Palestinian villages at the time. These villages were completely destroyed through the use of violence, in which the Zionist gangs realized that Palestinians would not leave their  land and country without a significant level of violence. “Violence was a very critical means for the occupation, the purpose behind it was to create a psychological war which forms the equation we either “die” or “leave”. It is very important to clarify this to our people and to the world, and that all of what happened was part of a detailed plan to empty the land of its inhabitants.

Ms. Mays Sarhan, the project coordinator in the West Bank, asserted on the necessity of upholding the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the importance of activating the role of universities and civil society organizations in raising the awareness of youth about the international resolutions regarding the Palestinian refugee issue and the right of return, especially resolution number 194.