US: Tlaib presents resolution for Congress to recognise Palestine Nakba

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has introduced a resolution for Congress to recognise the Palestinian Nakba, a day after Palestinians marked the Catastrophe’s 74th anniversary. Tlaib was the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress. The resolution was co-sponsored by Tlaib’s fellow Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Betty McCollum and Marie Newman.

“Today, I introduced a resolution recognising the Nakba (Catastrophe), where 400 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, over 700,000 Palestinians uprooted from their homes, and made refugees,” Tlaib wrote on Twitter yesterday. The Palestinian people have been living “under oppression and violent racism” ever since the Nakba, she added. “Nakba is well-documented and continues to play out today.”

She insisted that, “We must acknowledge that the humanity of Palestinians is being denied when folks refuse to acknowledge the war crimes and human rights violations in apartheid Israel.”

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights celebrated the move. “For far too long, the Palestinian experience has been ignored by Washington, and Palestinians have been gaslit for trying to tell their story,” said the group. “We must shift US foreign policy away from enabling Israel’s ongoing displacement of Palestinians with military funding — and towards accountability.”

READ: Nakba Day is when Palestinians remember the catastrophe of their land being stolen

The Institution of Middle East Understanding (IMEU) praised Tlaib for “giving voice to this reality, and highlighting the pain and injustice Palestinians have suffered.” The IMEU pointed out on Twitter that: “During Israel’s creation, nearly 75 per cent of the Palestinian population was ethnically cleansed from Palestine and more than 400 Palestinian villages destroyed. These actions were deliberately planned and carried out by Zionist militias in order to steal Palestinian land.”

The Nakba — Catastrophe — was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the creation of the Zionist state of Israel by terror gangs helped by the British Mandate authorities. More than 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and villages at gunpoint. At least 500 Palestinian towns and villages have since been razed to the ground by Israel in the effort to Judaise historic Palestine.

With more than 15,000 Palestinians killed during the Nakba, the refugees fled to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighbouring Arab countries. They and their descendants have never been allowed to fulfil their legitimate right to return to their land.