Media Center
May marks 60 years of Nakba
Local experts are available for media comment on the displacement of Palestinians and the current situation of Palestinian refugees
(May 5, 2008 – Toronto) Throughout the month of May, celebrations are being held in Jerusalem and around the world to mark the 60th birthday of the State of Israel. In Toronto, the main "Israel at 60" celebration is being promoted with the slogan, "Let's party like it's 1948!". For Palestinians and people of conscience, this party coincides with Al Nakba – "the catastrophe" – and it is no occasion for celebration.
From 1947 to 1948, over two-thirds of the Palestinian population was driven from their land to make way for establishment of the State of Israel. Over 500 Palestinian villages and neighborhoods were destroyed. Today, more than 7 million Palestinian refugees live in exile, denied their right to return to their homes and homeland – a right enshrined in international law and in UN Resolution 194. This number includes 4.5 million Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and registered for assistance with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); an estimated 1.5 million Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 but not registered for assistance; 950,000 refugees displaced in 1967; an estimated 338,000 internally displaced Palestinians in Israel; and an estimated 115,000 internally displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
In the Gaza Strip, where the majority of the 1.5 million residents are refugees, Palestinians live under siege, denied electricity, food, medicines and other essential supplies by Israeli military closures and blockades. Those who live under occupation in the West Bank and those who remain in Israel must resist ongoing efforts to displace them, and the kind of systemic discrimination and dispossession and resisted by black people under South African apartheid.
As Palestinians around the world prepare to commemorate Al Nakba, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid has assembled a list of local experts on the events of 1947 and 1948, and on the current situation of Palestinian refugees. They are available for comment and interviews with the media, and can be reached at the numbers below.
For a more extensive listing of international experts on the topic, please consult the press brochure compiled by the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, available at http://www.badil.org/ and attached.
The following experts are available for comment on the displacement of Palestinians since 1947-48 and the current situation of Palestinian refugees:
Naji Farah is a Palestinian writer and former teacher in is early seventies. He was a teenager at the time of Al Nakba. His family members were separated when Palestine was occupied in 1948, and his was not able to reunite until after the 1967 war. Naji was a community activist within Israel, where he led the Land Day activities in his town in Shfa Amer. Holder of an Israeli passport, he immigrated to Canada in 1979.
Phone: (416) 739-6270
Mazen Masri is former legal advisor on refugee issues to the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is active with NGOs working on Palestinian refugees issue, and has written and lectured on the topic. He holds law degrees from the Hebrew University and University of Toronto. Currently, he is a PhD in law candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.
Phone: (416) 822-6689
E-mail: mazenmasri@osgoode.yorku.ca
Khaled Mouammar has served as a Board Member for the Immigration and Refugee Board from 1994 to 2005 adjudicating on refugee claims. He currently serves as the National President of the Canadian Arab Federation and works as a consultant with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Phone: (416) 879-6766
E-mail: benwalid@rogers.com
Dr. Elia Zureik is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. With regard to the Middle East, he has published the following books: The Palestinians in Israel: A Study of Internal Colonialism (1979) and Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process (1996). He is the co-editor of Reinterpreting the Historical Record: The Uses of Palestinian Refugee Archives for Social Science and Policy Analysis (2001), Sociology of the Palestinians (1980), and International Public Opinion and the Palestine Question (1981). His articles appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Third World Quarterly, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Global Dialogue, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Social Justice, Journal of Refugee Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly, and Dissent, among others.
Professor Zureik also researches the impact of computers on society. He is the co-editor of Computers, Surveillance and Privacy (1996) and Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security and Identity (2005). His articles have appeared in Studies in Political Economy, Industrial Relations, Telecommunications Policy, Communications of the ACM, and Computers and Society.
Phone: (613) 533-2167
E-mail: zureike@queensu.ca
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To schedule an interview OR to speak with a CAIA spokesperson, please contact the CAIA media liaison: media@caiaweb.org.