Today marks the 61st anniversary of the war that led to the creation of the state of Israel and which expedited the Yishuv’s plans for population “transfer”: a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from region. By the end of the war, approximately 750,000 Palestinian had either been forcibly expelled from their homes or fled the fighting. Today, the 1948 refugees remain stateless — scattered across the region from the squalid camps of South Lebanon to the ruins of Baghdad — and their descendants have expanded the number of registered Palestinian refugees into the millions.

Statelessness is violent. Stateless people have no rights that are actively enforced or protected. They have no embassy looking out for their welfare and are subject to any number of restrictions imposed by the host governments in the countries where they reside. That Israel has never considered the possibility of addressing the Palestinian refugee problem in any meaningful way has perpetuated the refugees’ plight and deepened their suffering. It is one of history’s great injustices and a lingering trauma that has defined the political identity of generations of Palestinians.

I believe that anyone who celebrates the creation and establishment of their own country simultaneously celebrates the injustices committed in order to make their state possible. When Americans celebrate July 4th, they tacitly support Manifest Destiny and the genocide of the Native Americans. Likewise, when Israelis celebrate their independence, they tacitly support the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

61 years of exile; 61 years without justice.

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