Nakba is the arabic word for “catastrophe”. For Palestinians, it refers to the events that took place in 1948 resulting in the creation of Israel, causing the destruction of 418 towns and villages, the ethnical cleansing in cities like Haifa and the deportation of more than 700’000 Palestinian refugees. Backed by western forces, the Nakba is a large-scale tragedy commited to escape the guiltiness of another large-scale tragedy.
Every May 15th, the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba. Since the context of the Arab revolutions, this year’s commemoration sounded different: unlike the 62 last times, today there was hope for a better future. The Facebook event called “Third Intifada” appointed to coincide with the Nakba commemoration gathered 500’000 people before to be censored. A march from Cairo to Rafah, a breakthrough the Golan and a massive protest in South Lebanon, a wave of Egyptians, Syrians, Jordan, Lebanese, all together with the Palestinians stood like one man and surrounded Israel. Israel was no more a country but a besieged city, behind walls, behind heavy weaponery, behind fear. Al Jazeera broadcasted live images of the crowds clashing with the Israeli Army. And there were the first shohada (martyrs) of the Nakba commemoration/third Intifada.
Clashes and Israeli borders, clashes in front of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo; the Arabs made clear they will not be silent anymore. Is it the beginning of the Second Nakba, not the Palestinian Nakba, but the Israeli one? Is it for real the beginning of the end for Israel? Israel still has a chance to save itself from the 63 years contained anger of hundreds of millions of Arabs: building peace, based upon fairness. Stop colonizing, stop occupying, stop the blocus, allow the return of the Palestinian refugees, recognize a Palestinian State, accept the borders of 67. Israeli still have the opportunity and capacity to avoid living their own Nakba. Too bad this opportunity was denied to Palestinians in 1948, when the Western World through the UN simply took the decision to erase from the map a country called Palestine and put another one at its place called Israel.
