Tomorrow marks the 64th anniversary of Al Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe of 1948. It is a day each year that Palestinians remember the calamity which befell them in order for the State of Israel to be born. The original 800,000 or so Palestinians who fled their homes in fear have now multiplied tenfold. There are over five million registered Palestinian refugees living in camps in Palestine and neighboring Arab countries. And every year, they remember their homes, their lands, and their lost lives to which they still long to return.
Uri Avnery argues that, in his desperation to make a mark by starting a war but unable to attack Iran for fear of the apocalyptic consequences, Israel’s new chief of staff, General Benny Gantz, is itching to attack Gaza instead, even without a pretext.
Five months ago, I wrote an essay for The EIectronic Intifada about the uniquely Palestinian way I was able to get to know my uncle.
In his book Kairos for Palestine, Rifat Odeh Kassis deals with a topic that is as fresh as the destruction of a Palestinian home by Israeli-driven, US-built bulldozers, and as ancient as the use of the term kairos, derived from an ancient Greek word which refers to a specific moment in time.
