Resources

► BADIL Info-Packet Nakba-60
(forthcoming)

► Nakba Archive: a collaborate project of researchers in Lebanon, Britain and the United States; includes, among others, photos, testimonies and a documentary DVD: www.nakba-archive.org

► Nakba-Dossier, in German; prepared and disseminated by the Nakba-60 group in Switzerland: http://www.bds-info.ch/hintergrundinfos/?c=Dossier-Nakba

► NAKBA: an electronic archive of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center compiled for the 50th anniversary of the Nakba (not updated): www.alnakba.org

► PalestineRemembered: a multimedia database by, for and about Palestinian refugees: www.palestineremembered.com

► Resources published by the Palestine House in Canada, including “Remembering Palestine”, a periodical newsletter with facts about the Nakba. Check “Resources” at: www.palestinehouse.com

► US Campaign to End The Israeli Occupation - “The Anti-Apartheid Framework”. See guides and resources at: www.endtheoccupation.org

► ICNP Call to Action, Launch of Nakba-60 Campaign

► 60 años de Apartheid y limpieza étnica - 60 años sin Palestina

ICNP Call to Action, Launch of Nakba-60 Campaign

29 November 2007

60 Years since the UN Palestine Partition Plan
30th UN Day Affirming the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

Call to Action for the Nakba-60 Campaign

International Coordinating Committee on Palestine (ICNP)

On 29 November 1947 the United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state despite the fact that the UN itself had found that such a step “may well run counter” to the principle of self-determination.[1] The UN Partition Plan (UNGAR 181) was never fully implemented. However, it set the stage for the 1948 war in which Israel was unilaterally established as a Jewish state by ethnically cleansing over three-quarters of the Palestinian people, confiscating their lands and barring them from return; this war is remembered by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe). Since then, Israeli policies and practices remain in violation of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

In 1974 the United Nations affirmed (UNGAR 3236) that Palestinians as a nation hold a set of inalienable rights: the right to self-determination without external interference; the right to national independence and sovereignty; and the right of Palestinians to return to the homes and properties from which they have been displaced and uprooted. In 1977, the United Nations declared 29 November as the Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. 

Today, the State of Israel claims legitimacy based on the 1947 UN Partition Plan although it continues to violate international law and has failed to respect key UN requirements regarding borders, return of refugees, and protection of minority rights. Israel’s military expulsions destroyed Palestine's pre-1948 Arab civilization.

Today Israel continues to deny refugees’ right to return, and to discriminate against its Palestinian citizens. Israel effectively controls the entirety of historic Palestine.  40 years into Israel's military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and almost 60 years into the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, we reaffirm the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. We reiterate Palestinian and global civil society’s 2005 calls to pressure Israel’s apartheid regime through a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until these rights are achieved.

We commit ourselves, to make 2008 a year of raising awareness of the Palestinian Nakba and support of Palestinian refugees' right of return. We will join Palestinian communities inside Israel, in exile and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in mobilizing for a year of educational and campaigning work beginning on November 29, 2007. May 15, 2008 will be a day of global mobilization to commemorate the Nakba, and the continuing dispossession and denial of Palestinian rights.