The Palestinian Nakba did not end in 1948

The Nakba of 1948 culminated in systematic massacres and mass displacement and serves as a crucial lens through which to understand subsequent patterns of extermination.

To truly understand the present-day reality of Palestinians, one must begin with understanding the Nakba.

While thousands of Palestinians were displaced in the Nakba, some remained on their land. These people continue to live under Israel's systematic oppressive rule to this day.

In his book, 'Images of the Death of the Palestinian', Palestinian professor Ismail al-Nashif addresses these patterns, describing them as a deliberate destruction of the Palestinian identity — a clear Israeli colonisation policy that continues unabated in the present day.

These policies were deliberately devised by Israel to exercise full sovereignty and control over the land, which is the ultimate goal settlement movements. To attain this sovereignty, the eradication of the land's inhabitants becomes necessary through systematic policies such as ethnic cleansing, settlment expansion, and apartheid.

Building upon the pivotal moment of extermination in 1948, subsequent patterns of extermination have been established as invisible daily practices aimed at eradicating Palestinian existence.

On his part, the late intellectual and expert on Palestine, Elia Zureik outlined several defining characteristics of the settler movement, which was integral to the Zionist  cause.

Key characteristics include land control, the confinement of the indigenous population to cantons, the implementation of surveillance systems to monitor and subjugate Palestinians, and using defence and security as a pretext to justify state violence and oppression.  

Israel's policy of preventing Palestinian resistance fighters from travelling abroad during the period of military rule is a prime example of this policy. 

Israel enforced draconian rules to discourage such practices: any Palestinian who wanted to travel outside of Palestine —even for a single day — had to stay outside the country for a full six months before being allowed to return.

During these months, Palestinians were forced to find employment and, at times, even start families, which ultimately forfeited their right to return. To this day, Palestinians continue to face travel restrictions.

Moreover, Palestinians homes are routinely seized or demolished by Israelis.

Palestinians are also routinely strip searched — whether publicly or privately — and herded into public spaces, being forced to lay face down on the ground with their hands raised above their heads. 

Censorship and curfews

The Israeli colonial state also exercised censorship and control over publishing and writing, enforcing strict regulations and restrictions.

The military governor, for example, required approval for any written work to be published in the occupied territories, and imposed curfews that limited the hours in which Palestinians were allowed to leave their homes.

Activists who were effective in championing Palestinian resilience were often deported. The country was divided into isolated cantons, and communication between them was severed through the establishment of settlements.

During the 2014 war on Gaza, Palestinian professors Suhad Al-Nashif and Nadera Shalhoub exposed racist calls to kill Palestinians, including a soldier wearing a shirt depicting a pregnant veiled woman as a target, with the inscription "one bullet kills two" beneath it.

Checkpoints were scattered between villages, cities, and Palestinian camps, serving as sites where soldiers exerted their authority forcefully. They became the focal point of an extensive system of censorship, surveillance devices, and inspection tools.

Palestinians passed through these checkpoints using what is known as "the mou'atah" or the de-feathering machine, in reference to the machine used to remove feathers from chickens.

Permits and restricted movement

Permits became a central subjugation tool in the daily lives of Palestinians, which helped Israel maintain its dominance. Palestinians faced restricted movement between areas in the name of Israeli 'security' measures.

The Shin Bet — Israel's General Security Service — rejected travel permits to Palestinians deemed a potential threat to Israeli national security.

On his part, Australian historian Patrick Wolfe described settler colonialism as a policy aimed at eradicating, removing, and uprooting indigenous Palestinians. According to Wolfe, the coloniser's relationship with the indigenous people is not simply based on control or exploitation of cheap labour but on their elimination. 

These theories have garnered significant attention from academic and research institutions over the past two decades due to their profound importance. They aim to dismantle the logic of Israeli colonisation by drawing upon the frameworks and debates of the colonial settlement school.

Academic research

The evolution of academic activity in this field since the 1990s — following the emergence and dissemination of foundational works in anthropology and sociology — has been articulated by Walid Habas.

Foundational works by scholars such as Patrick Wolfe, Annie Compson, Susan Pedersen, Caroline Elkins, and Lorenzo Veracini have all played a crucial role. This academic interest culminated in the establishment of the "Colonial Settler" journal in 2010, which contributed to the conceptual development of this perspective.

On the other hand, Ashraf Badr argues that the attribution of the colonial settler as a theoretical perspective can be traced back to Fayez Sayegh. Sayegh's study on Zionist colonisation, published by the Palestinian Research Centre in 1965, analysed Zionism as a part of world imperialism.

This perspective predates the publication of Veracini's article and was already familiar to Palestinians. Azmi Bishara also supports this notion, suggesting that the description of Zionist colonisation as a replacement or substitutionary colonisation was well-established among Palestinians prior to Veracini's work.

Within this context, it is important to note that Zionism should not be regarded as a fascist phenomenon, nor can it be attributed solely to periodic capitalist crises or the displacement of migrant workers by oppressive regimes.

Instead, it represents an armed and racist "settlement project" that forcibly expelled Palestinians from their historical land and continues to oppress them as they struggle to assert their rights.

Lebanese intellectual Elias Khoury offers an alternative interpretation of the Nakba. In his view, the Nakba should be understood as an ever-present reality rather than a historical event that ended in 1948.

Permits, checkpoints and surveillance

Interconnected policies — exemplified by the permit policy — deliberately aim to control Palestinians' daily lives. Their movements and activities are closely monitored by various colonial institutions, including the Shin Bet.

'Obedient' Palestinians are 'rewarded' with permits, while those deemed as potential threats are denied permits. 

Israel also uses military checkpoints as a way to exercise control over Palestinians. Analysis of these mechanisms of control extend beyond the actions of individual soldiers at checkpoints and encompasses the state's efforts to assert authority over Palestinians within the spatial confines where they exist.

Advanced scientific developments have been employed by Israel to monitor Palestinians within this space. For instance, an Israeli startup called AnyVision, backed by Microsoft, has developed facial recognition software using biometric mechanisms to monitor Palestinians.

This software enables real-time tracking of individuals across multiple surveillance cameras.

The Israeli military project in the West Bank heavily relies on this technology, which has been implemented at 27 checkpoints and Israeli barriers in the region to enhance checkpoint operations, as reported by investigations conducted by NBC network and Haaretz newspaper.

The Nakba, therefore, is an ongoing process of extermination that extends beyond direct acts of violence. It is a deliberate policy to make life so difficult for the Palestinians that they abandon their country.

These practices deliberately oppress and subjugate Palestinians with the aim of fracturing, dismantling and dispersing the Palestinians as a body of people and encourage their migration.

It is a systematic policy to achieve absolute control over the land.