Nakba never ended for Palestinians, it is still happening today, historian says

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]Sami Abu Shahad is a Palestinian historian and former member of the Israeli Knesset. He joins us now from Jaffa. Good to have you with us. Is the Nakba a historical event or is it an ongoing process?

[00:00:19]>> Well, Sami, I wish we could deal with the Nakba, the historical event that had a beginning and an end in 1948 or or in 1949. But unfortunately, this Zionist terrorist groups that expelled the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 has built a state. And now they are a big army which is continuing to to to plan death and violence and destruction not just for the Palestinian people or in areas in Palestine like in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem or other Palestinian cities inside Israel, but they are planting violence, destruction and death as you have been reporting now in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iran, all all over the Middle East. So we we cannot deal with the Nakba only as a historical event that had a a beginning and an ending in in one or two or two years.

[00:01:19]Unfortunately, all the evil that has been and going on, it has been going on since 1948. And imagine this small state called Israel has led a war on the Arab world in 1948, in 1956, in 1967, 1973, invaded Lebanon 1982, then the first Antifa 1987, then the Gulf War 1990, second Antifa 2000, another invasion to Lebanon 2006, and since then another five wars on Gaza. And in between all this big wars you add violence all the time. So it is a continuous event which is carrying too much destruction, death and crimes all the time.

[00:02:09]You mentioned there the issue of terrorism and perhaps what many people might not fully know is is how those figures which who were implicated in the killings of Palestinians as well as others who did not support the policies of the the Zionist gangs.

[00:02:35]Those people like Yetsak Shamir uh like Manakim Bean who had a British arrest warrant out for him, they became part of the leadership of the state of Israel.

[00:02:48]Talk us through that and how do we see that sort of pattern repeating itself with figures in more recent administrations, current administrations who have also had uh terror convictions against them like Bengavir going on to become minister of national security.

[00:03:14]Sammy, you know, most of the world unfortunately do not know that the Israelis, the vast majority of the Israelis still denies the Nikkba. They they do not any. While you know part of them who did the crimes have admitted that they expelled people and they destroyed houses and they did all these crimes till now in the official narrative in the Israeli schools when they teach history there is total Nakba denial. Not just their when we are commemorating the Nakba, when we the victims of all these crimes, when we are commemorating the Nakba, we are attacked. A few days ago, our students in the Hebrew University were attacked by a member of the Israeli because they were commemorating the Nikkba. Nowadays, in an hour or so in Tel Aviv University, the Palestinian students will be commemorating the 708th commemoration of the Nakba. We are and the police is telling us that they might be attacking us. The police is not dealing with those who are planning to attack our students in the university. Why Sammy? Because we are saying that there was a Nikkba in the vast majority of the Israeli audience. There is total denial of the Palestinian pain and of the Palestinian narrative. Till today, Tel Aiv University itself Sammy is built on a destroyed Palestinian village.

[00:04:48]Until today, they are not ready to say that or write a sign that they have built their university on the destruction on the ruins of another Palestinian village. This denial, Sammy, is preventing any just dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. I I want to say this.

[00:05:08]>> Let me jump in and ask this question. In terms of policies, the continuation of the Nagba as policies, what does that mean for even for Palestinians who did not flee their lands in 1948, who became Israeli citizens? When you have laws that organizations like Balum would point to like the the basic law of 2018, article 1C, which talks about national self-determination as a right that is unique to Jewish people.

[00:05:46]Sammy, first of all, uh we when those who stayed in in in Israel as as Israeli citizens like me, we are now 20% of the Israeli population, nearly 2 million people. First of all, the Israeli state officially do not acknowledge our Palestinian identity. We are not allowed to teach our Palestinian history, our Palestinian narrative in our schools.

[00:06:11]We must teach only modern Zionist history according to their narrative.

[00:06:17]Till today there's an atmosphere of terror in our schools that if a teacher will be telling the Palestinians their story their what happened to their grandfathers. He will be expelled out of the system. So there is a terror, an environment controlling the Israeli education system that prevents the the Palestinian teachers from teaching our history in our schools. And we are being chased all the time till today. Sammy, if we if we raise a Palestinian flag in our demonstrations like any national minority anywhere in the world, okay, we are being attacked and people could be imprisoned for just raising because there is this insistence that they try to to kill us and bring us out of the history and out of the geography of Palestine. The basic fact that we still exist Sammy makes them feel that they did not finish their job. This is why you have people like Basel Motric telling us in the Knesset when I was a member in the Kineset. He clearly said that this criminal Benorian did not finish the job in 1948 and they are here to finish the job. And this idea of expulsion still exists not just in 1948 and nowadays Israeli you have a majority of racist fascists that led the genocide against Gaza led the expulsion of 60,000 people lately in the West Bank from their camps to to to different areas in the West Bank and they >> let me ask you a quick question. What role did the British play in setting up the stage for the Nagba?

[00:08:06]>> The most and the most important role that made Zionism succeed was the British role without this colonial force in any helping the Zionist. Zionists could not have and succeeded in their project in Palestine before the British occupation of Palestine in 1917.

[00:08:26]Zionism was a total failure. what in and helped empowered this project and made them able to expel us from our homeland and destroy us for all these decade was because of the British help. Okay, thank you so much Sammy Abu Shahad, a Palestinian historian and former member of the Israeli Kesset joining us from Jaffa.