Booket Series: UNDERSTANDING THE NAKBA: THE CATASTROPHE – Refugees of the Arab-Israeli Conflict | StandWithUs

Introduction
On May 15 of each year, Palestinians observe “Nakba Day.” “Nakba” is Arabic for “catastrophe.” This is how many Palestinians describe the founding of the State of Israel, Israel’s victory against invading Arab forces in the 1948 war, and the subsequent refugee crisis. There were an estimated 500,000 to 750,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. Most fled to escape the war, which was launched by Arab forces. A minority were expelled by Israeli forces or left because Arab leaders encouraged them to do so. The refugees suffered personal and collective traumas that remain central to Palestinian identity to this day. This suffering was made worse by Arab states, which used the refugees as political weapons in the conflict with Israel. Another group also became refugees in the aftermath of the 1948 war. An estimated 850,000 Jews living in Arab states fled or were expelled. Arab governments engaged in brutal retaliation against these Jewish communities after Israel’s victory in 1948, even though their Jewish citizens lived far from the war zone and had virtually no involvement in the fighting. The Jews fled from Arab states in the 1950s and 1960s, so by the 1970s, only 1 percent of the Jewish population remained in Arab states. By the 1980s most Jews were gone from Iran as well. For the Jews from Arab states and Iran, this, too, was a catastrophe.