Saturday, June 25, 2022

 

The Israeli left has broken the Nakba taboo. Will the right of return be next?

The past year has seen many left-wing Israeli groups looking beyond the occupation to confront the legacies of 1948, but they remain divided over redressing the exile of Palestinian refugees through return.

Rachel Beitarie, Executive Director of the left-wing Israeli NGO Zochrot, sits in front of the Jaffa Clock Tower. Around 95% of Jaffa's Palestinian population fled or were expelled during the Nakba. (Oren Ziv)

The depopulated Palestinian village of Mi’ar lies some 17 kilometers east of Acre in the north of Israel. It doesn’t appear on modern maps, and there are no road signs to direct you to all that remains of the village today: two cemeteries, the larger one surrounded by the prickly pears that once marked the village’s border. Everything else — from the local school to the homes of the hundreds of people who lived here prior to July 1948 — has been totally erased from the landscape and from the consciousness of the Israeli public.

The Israeli Left Has Broken... by Thavam Ratna