The Palestinian Nakba did not end in 1948
An Israeli soldier places a flag at the entrance of the Nur Shams, 22 December 2025
Hanin Majadli writes in Haaretz on 26 December 2025:
Denying the Palestinian Nakba is denying not only the past, but also the present.
The denial is not due to a dispute over narrative: Israelis deny the Nakba not because it did or did not happen, but because it is still happening.
When the Israeli military uproots hundreds of olive trees in the West Bank “for security reasons,” it is a nakba, a catastrophe, not as a metaphor or as a historical memory.
And it is not a counterreaction to Palestinian terrorism: The goal is to expand the jurisdiction of a nearby settlement. Nor does it happen because the army “turned into” a settler army: It never stopped serving the policy of Judaizing the area and pushing the Palestinians out of it.
This week, an apartment building in East Jerusalem’s Wadi Kadum neighborhood was razed, leaving around 100 people suddenly homeless. The area had been cordoned off since the morning; bulldozers went in, residents were assaulted and two of them – a young man and a teenager – were briefly detained. All this happened because the building didn’t have a construction permit. It didn’t have a construction permit because the state doesn’t issue construction permits to Arabs.
On Tuesday, police violently dispersed a Christmas celebration in Haifa’s Wadi Nisnas, disrupting a dabke dance and arresting a “Santa Claus,” a DJ and a stall owner. This too is part of the Nakba.
A week earlier, in Jaffa, a pregnant Arab woman and her children were assaulted by settlers. The violence didn’t end with the attack itself. Police arrested not only the Jewish suspects but also dozens of young Arabs who dared to demonstrate in protest. This is no accident: If the police were to arrest only Jews, one might think that all of Israel’s citizens are equal. It’s important to the state that we know this is not the case.
A month ago, the Supreme Court approved the demolition of a Bedouin village in the Negev and the displacement of its residents to facilitate the expansion of the city of Dimona. This is how the logic of displacement that began in 1948 continues, with a judicial imprimatur – not with shelling or military orders, as in Gaza, but in civil courtrooms.
More and more accounts are emerging from the West Bank’s Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps of Israel preventing the return of thousands of residents who were evicted or displaced in military operations earlier this year, as part of an effort to effect demographic change. Again, it’s Judaization alongside the displacement of Palestinians.
More occupation news: In the West Bank, settlers don’t cease attacking shepherds, farmers, families and entire communities. Guns, pepper spray, arson, property damage. They slaughter sheep, uproot trees and injure people. Everything that’s labeled as Palestinian is considered a fair target. The situation is more horrific than ever. This is not about “friction” or “seasonal violence” due to the olive harvest, nor is it about the “wild weeds” of the “hilltop youth.” This is policy, composed and ratified by the military: If the military were disturbed by it, it would have stopped long ago.
Another news item: Five settlers broke into the home of a family in the West Bank village of Samu’a, pepper sprayed a woman and her three children and injured them. They also killed at least two sheep and injured a third. This too was not an exceptional event.
This is what the Nakba looks like when it continues and when the best Israelis are complicit in it. The Nakba didn’t end in 1948; it is taking place in Gaza, East Jerusalem, Jaffa, the Negev and in the villages, fields and refugee camps of the West Bank.
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