Untitled - Ipam

Welcome to Palestine 48!
What do we mean by Palestine 48? We are over one and a half
million Palestinians who became citizens of the State of Israel in the
aftermath of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the subsequent
establishment of the State of Israel, known as the Nakba. While the
grand majority of the Palestinians was expelled from Palestine during
the Nakba, those who survived and remained inside the arbitrary
ceasefire lines became citizens of the state; isolated from their
natural Arab environment and consequently became an object to the
oppressive Israeli policies that aim to eliminate our Palestinian identity
through land-grabbing, violence and the enforced education system.
However, in recent years there has been a cultural and national awakening
among 48 Palestinians. This was a product of the long years of consistent
struggle against the Israeli policies to our national identity and collective
memory. Such an awakening is expressed by, among many other things,
the rising number of Palestinian cultural, political and educational
associations and organizations who provide the physical and intellectual
services which the Israeli state refused and still is refusing flatly to provide.
Following the decision made by the International Council of the World
Social Forum to hold the WEF in Palestine, Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-
Based Organizations) took the initiative to establish a national committee
inside Palestine 48 that will prepare for the forum’s activities in parallel
to the already-established ones in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and in the
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Accordingly, the activities of the
forum in Palestine 48 will occur simultaneously with the above-mentioned
places.
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