The Day of Catastrophe

Today is an important day in the history of Palestine, so I thought a quick, informative post might be in order.

Today is Yawm an-Nakbah, the Day of Catastrophe celebrated by Palestinians in concordance with the Israeli Independence Day (which came yesterday). This is the day Palestinians remember the beginning of their displacement.

Just as Christmas is symbolized by a tree and St. Patrick's by a shamrock, Nakbah Day's token is a key. This is in remembrance of the house keys Palestinians took with them as they closed their doors for the last time back in 1948.

Before 1948, the year Israel made the land theft official by declaring statehood, the Arabs used the word nakbah, or 'catastrophe,' to refer to the year 1920, when European powers dismantled the former Ottoman Empire by dividing it up into states as they wished, with no regard for linguistic or cultural affiliation. (That's also the reason why half of Afghanistan speaks Farsi and half Pashto, half of Pakistan speaks Pashto and half Hindi, and why the 30 million Kurds, instead of ending up with their own country, got distributed into the corners of a half dozen nations where they became an outcast minority, to this day remaining the largest people group without its own state).

The continuity if the word nakbah  isn't lost on me; for the last century it's been used with sadness and bitterness to refer to history-shaking acts of Western imperialism. When I put myself in the place of the Kurds, Pashtun, Berbers, and the handful of other people groups that got squashed by the former British protectorates, I start to understand a little of the violence. And especially when I put myself in the place of Arab Palestinians, who still live on the outskirts of their former homeland, looking in as illegal Israeli settlers eat up more and more of it.

This year's Nakbah Day has added significance. Hundreds of Palestinians taken prisoner by Israel, purportedly without cause, have been on a hunger strike for 76 days, and today is the day they break their fast. In support of the detainees, many Palestinians have changed their Facebook profile pictures to one of a nameless blindfolded prisoner (which I've posted at the top of this page).

There will be protests and marches and chanting. Some years, the IDF meets the protestors with tragic results.

So today, my prayers are for peace in Palestine. I'm praying for an end to acts of Arab violence against civilians, as well as an end to Israeli tyranny. I hope that Americans, among other Western countries, can begin to reconcile for the conflict we've helped cause by offering words of peace to God.