Few know the history of the violent explusion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948: it is not taught in schools, and instead many- myself included- were  taught outright lies about Palestine being an empty desert, “a land without a people for a people without a land.” As ideas for a  second Nakba are being drawn up right and discussed right now, as you read this post, it is vitally important we remember this terrible history, and Britain’s role in it, and do everything in our power to stop it being repeated, with the full support of our ignorant, bigoted, cowardly and sometimes outrightly Islamophobic leaders.

I also recommend  reading The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

Long-running conflicts between different nations or religions can rarely be understood without the context of history. Of nowhere is this more true than the Middle East. In 1917,  Lord Balfour declared the support of the British Government for the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” At that time, Palestine was home to around 80,000 Jewish Ottomans and 650,000 Ottomans of Christian and Muslim faith. The story of what happened to those people over the next century the subject of Rashid Khalidi’s remarkable scholarly narrative, a deeply researched but compelling history of the struggle between Jewish aspirations and Palestinian resistance, rooted in the story of Khalidi’s own family. It is essential reading for a deeper understanding of the horrors of the current war and for any meaningful resolution of a century of blunders, misunderstandings, pain and injustice. As Khalidi writes ‘there are now two peoples in Palestine… and the conflict between them cannot be resolved as long as the national existence of each is denied by the other.’”

The Israeli historians Ilan Pape and Tom Segev are also excellent on 1948 and the Nakba.

The Conquest of Palestine since 1946

Mass ethnic cleansing cannot be allowed to happen a second time, on either side. The only, fair, just and sustainable solution remains, in my view, the Two State Solution: an Israel and a Palestine, two secure states, side by side. Very, very difficult to achieve, and now more difficult than ever, but the only hope.