Briefly and in the broadest strokes possible, Al-Nakba means "the catastrophe", and it refers to the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from their land by the state of Israel. There were two major waves of this expulsion, the first around 1948 at the time the state of Israel was established and the second in 1967 when, in a brief war with disastrous consequences, Israel took over even more land and began an even harsher military occupation of the little land that Palestinians had left. When you talk to or about Palestinian refugees, you will commonly hear them referred to as either 1948 refugees or 1967 refugees, meaning that they or their ancestors were displaced in either '48 or '67 (or, for some, both). However, those are not the only moments at which Palestinians have been driven from their land, as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land even today. But those are the two big dates to remember (and this description is about as simplified as I could possibly get).
The situation for Palestinian refugees is incredibly complex, and I don't profess to be any kind of expert on it. I don't remember the exact number of refugees that have been counted to date, but it's in the millions, as we are now into the 4th and 5th generations of descendents who have been living away from their families' land. There are Palestinian refugees in all of the surrounding countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, among others. There are also a lot of refugees still living within the West Bank and Gaza (but obviously not on their original land, since, by definition, they have been displaced). Refugees may live in refugee camps or they may live among the general population. They are treated very differently depending on where they are located, but they have few rights in most countries and most refugee camps tend to be underresourced, overcrowded places that offer substandard living conditions and house impoverished populations. Remember that these "camps" were originally meant to be temporary residences for refugees while they waited to be able to go home, just as should be the case with any other refugee group. They were certainly not laid out with any kind of permanence in mind.
This May will mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. That's 60 years that millions of people have been living as refugees, separated from their homes and land and suffering the material realities of poverty and the indignity of dehumanization at the hands of Israel and other states. As I said before, this population continues to multiply, and the original refugees now have grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, none of whom have been allowed to reclaim (or even, in most cases, physically return to visit) the land that is rightfully theirs. Israel celebrates May 15th as its "Independence Day" (I always ask myself, independence from what exactly? But that's another story). This is akin to stating that Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas paved the way for a future of humanitarianism and progress. What does it mean, then, to celebrate a genocide by calling it a moment of "independence"? However you want to frame the issue, Israel's past and continuing policies regarding refugees are not legal according to international law, as the state of Israel does not acknowledge the refugees' right of return.
There is so much more to say about this issue, and I encourage you to read more about it (try http://www.badil.org/Refugees/refugees.htm) and to participate in Nakba commemoration events this coming spring (for Philadelphia area events, go to http://www.phillyalnakba.org/).
I say all this just to give you some historical context for the stories I have been hearing. Every family I have spent time with has a Nakba story. Families have been ripped apart by the Nakba. Just tonight, I talked to a woman who lives in Jordan as a result of being displaced in 1967. Though her daughter and grandchildren live in Jerusalem, she does not have the right to move back to Palestine, so she can only visit for brief periods. This story is not one of the extreme ones. In fact, it is rather mundane for a refugee story. But what struck me in hearing it is how often I have heard that same sort of story. The person who had to grow up in Jordan, even though his family's land was here. The person who has aunts, uncles, or cousins in Syria who cannot move back to the West Bank. The person who has never met his relatives in a camp in Lebanon. Every family has these stories, it seems.
I think most Westerners don't see that Palestinian society is very interconnected and very collectivist. Homes and land are passed down through generations, and they can represent the long-term economic sustainability of a family. Families are close-knit. Even family members that rarely, if ever, see each other may see pictures and hear stories about each other over the course of their lives until each knows the other intimately. I am not trying to essentialize a whole people here, but I think it's important to understand something of the centrality of family and community in Palestine in order to grasp the significance of these Nakba stories.
A key strategy that Zionism has used to destroy Palestinian society in order to permanently get Palestinians off of what it claims is "Jewish land" is to fracture communities, making the social and economic support systems disappear and implicitly encouraging the members of those communities to start looking elsewhere for better living situations. Splitting up families is an ingenius way to accomplish this. It's pretty amazing to watch how close those families have remained, despite such difficult obstacles.
And it's painful to hear all of their Nakba stories.
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