The Story of Palestine

“O country and home,

Never, never may I be without you,

Living the hopeless life,

Hard to pass through and painful,

Most pitiable of all.

Let death first lay me low and death

Free me from this daylight.

There is no sorrow above

the loss of a native land.” 

Euripides

Palestinian loss of land from 1946 to 2000

There are many sad days in the history of Palestine, but two dates are historically remembered to be the saddest, May 15th and June 5th. May 15th is not just a sad day in the history of Palestine but the Arabs as a whole. It is known as "Youm al Nakba" which in Arabic means "the day of the catastrophe". It is an annual day of commemoration or rather "commiseration" for the displacement of Palestinian people that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

After the Balfour Declaration and League of Nations Mandate  gave basis for Israel to establish a homeland in Palestine more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled and forced to flee their homes and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated and destroyed. 
Having carried out their massacres and having expelled over 725,000 Palestinians from their homes, and while the UN General Assembly was considering the Trusteeship Plan for Palestine, 37 Zionist leaders representing Zionist parties worldwide met on Friday, May 14, at the Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv to sign what they called a “Declaration of Independence”.
It said that “the state of Israel will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. We all know that this has not been the case.

June 5 is known as "Yawm an-Naksa" which in Arabic means "day of the setback". It is the annual day of commemoration for Palestine and the Arabs for the displacement of the Palestinian people that accompanied the Arab's loss of land to Israel's in the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War. The lost lands were the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. In the October War of 1973 Egypt defeated Israel and gained parts of Sinai and after the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from the entirety of Sinai in 1982. However East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, remain occupied territories by Israel until this day. 

According to UNRWA as of June 2011 there are 4.8 million Palestinian refugees, of which 1.4 million  refugees live in 58 camps in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. Amnesty International reports on the Occupied Palestinian Territories  Human Rights watch reports of Human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

The Child and her diary

She wrote in her diary every night

When bullets passed by her window… she wrote

When Israeli soldiers killed her mother she wrote

She wrote of the horrors she sees

And the nightmares of flames and destruction

She the Palestinian child

Writes in her diary every night

  To ease To ease her enormous pain

To sedate her fears and nightmares

That little Palestinian child

Had died while writing in bed

From Israelis bulldozing her home

And now she lies in her tomb

Forgotten…as if she never existed

But her diary will carry on

The suffering of every Palestinian child

And now on her tomb Israeli children play

And sing with no worries of tomorrow

Where she once lived is confiscated What are left from her family are refugees     A poem by Laila Yaghi                                        

More Poems about Palestine by Laila Yaghi: The child and her diary, Tears of blood and other poems press this link 

الخارطة (كنت أحلمُ بوطنٍ تملأُ فضاءاته الواسعة زقزقاتُ العصافير ، فوجدت وطناً لا تكفي شوارعه لأسماء الشهداء الذين سقطوا في الطريق إليه) ماذا أقول لطفلتي حين تسألُ :- - كيفَ أرْسُمُ شكلَ خارطةِ الوطنْ؟! - يا والدي الشكل يشبه خربشاتِ دجاجتي فوق الرمالْ آهِ من مُرِّ السؤالْ ! ماذا أقولُ و قد تعدَّدت الخرائط و الورقْ يا طفلتي هذا الذي يبكي أمامك لا أسميه الوطنْ هو بعضُه هو قلبُه هو قدسُه لكنَّه بعضُ الوطنْ يا طفلتي سنظلُّ نرسمُ حلمَنا مهما تفلسفَ في السياسةِ جاهلٌ أوحاول البُلهاءُ تشويهَ الوطنْ هيا ارسمي .... شكلُ الخريطةِ خنجرٌ ما أجملَ الوطن الذي يغفو على حد الخناجرْ هيا ارسمي ..... عكا تنامُ على ضفاف البحرِ تنتظر البلابلْ هيا ارسمي يافا و حيفا و الجليلْ هيا ارسمي الوطنَ الجميلْ هيا ارسمي القدس الحزينْ ولترسميه سنابلاً ولترسميه بلابلاً ولتزرعي إسمَ الشهيدْ علماً على صدر الشوارعْ - آهِ لنْ تكفي الشوارعْ
- فلتكتبيه على السنابلْ ولتعلمي يا طفلتي .. لن يهنأ الأوغادُ فوق ترابه ولتكتبي فوق الخريطةِ ما يلي :- سنعود يا وطني قريباً و الحصى بدأت تقاتل حتى الحصى بدأت تقاتل حتى الحصى بدأت تقاتل

      

 الشاعر مصطفى عثمان الأغا

For more Arabic poems by Mustapha Othman Alagha press this link.

For further readings:

1948 LEST WE FORGET – Palestine and the Nakba

Poems by Palestine What legitimacy does Israel have?