- Project of Liberation

11 May 2026
https://masarbadil.org/en/2026/05/8133/

The following article by Khaled Barakat, member of the Executive Committee of
the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, was
originally published in Arabic at Al-Akhbar:

Every year, as the fifteenth of May approaches, Palestine returns to the
forefront of global memory as an open wound since 1948. Images of displacement,
massacres, the destruction of Palestinian villages, and the uprooting of the
people from their land are revived under a name and a slogan that has become
firmly entrenched in political and media discourse: the "Nakba." Yet the
question worthy of discussion today is this: Is this expression alone still
capable of conveying the nature of the historical stage through which the
Palestinian people are living? And does it serve Palestinian, Arab, and
international liberation consciousness, or has it come instead to confine the
Palestinian cause within the framework of tragedy, victimhood, and humanitarian
catastrophe?

From here emerges the need to restore consideration to a political and
struggle-oriented concept adopted by the forces of the Palestinian revolution
after the launch of the contemporary fedayeen movement in the 1960s: the name
"Day of Palestinian Struggle," alongside the slogan "International Week of
Solidarity with the Palestinian People and Their Inalienable Rights." These
names were not merely linguistic substitutions; rather, they expressed a
historic transition in the Palestinian people's consciousness of themselves,
from the position of a stricken victim to the position of a fighting people
waging a protracted people's war and a battle for liberation and return.

Here, it is worth pausing at the intellectual roots of the term "Nakba"
itself. When the Syrian Arab thinker Constantine Zureiq coined this term in his
famous 1948 book The Meaning of the Disaster, he did not mean only what had
befallen the Palestinian people. Rather, he was speaking of "the Arabs' disaster
in Palestine" - that is, the historical, political, and civilizational defeat
suffered by the official Arab order and Arab elites at the hands of the Zionist
project and Western colonialism.

From this angle, Zureiq was correct and accurate in his characterization; the
Nakba was not merely the loss of land, but an expression of a comprehensive Arab
incapacity that allowed the establishment of the Zionist entity on the land of
Palestine and the displacement of its people. However, the Palestinian national
movement, particularly after the launch of the contemporary Palestinian
revolution, sought to move beyond the condition of the "Nakba" as a title of
defeat, toward redefining the Palestinian as the bearer of a project of
resistance and liberation, not merely the victim of a historical
catastrophe. Hence came the emphasis on the concept of "Day of Palestinian
Struggle" as an expression of the transition from the era of defeat to the era
of militant action and historical initiative.

The Palestinian national movement, especially in its revolutionary ascent after
the defeat of 1967, understood that reducing Palestine solely to the "Nakba"
carried a political and moral danger. The Nakba is a description of a historical
event that took place in 1948; Palestine, however, is an ongoing cause and an
open struggle against the Zionist settler-colonial project. Therefore, emphasis
was placed on transforming the fifteenth of May into an occasion for political,
popular, and revolutionary mobilization, affirming that the Palestinian people
had neither been defeated nor disappeared, but had reorganized themselves in the
refugee camps, in the arenas of resistance, and in the movements of students,
workers, and fedayeen, becoming a historical force fighting for liberation.

Anyone who reads revolutionary literature, Palestinian political thought, and
the writings of the fedayeen organizations during the rise of the contemporary
Palestinian revolution will find that the fifteenth of May was not merely a
"Nakba anniversary," but an international occasion bearing the name
"International Week of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and Their
Inalienable Rights." This concept was linked to a Palestinian, Arab, and
international vision that regarded Palestine as a comprehensive cause of
national and human liberation, not merely a humanitarian issue tied to refugees
or the outcomes of war. However, this concept began to gradually decline with
the rise of the political settlement project and the transition from the
discourse of comprehensive liberation to the discourse of the "Palestinian
state" within the conditions imposed by the existing international order.

In this context, November 29, the anniversary of the United Nations partition
resolution on Palestine issued in 1947, was institutionalized as the
"International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." The irony here is
that this date is not connected to the will of the Palestinian people or their
struggle, but to an international decision that legitimized the partition of
Palestine and granted the Zionist movement international recognition for
establishing a colonial entity on the land of historic Palestine. Therefore,
restoring the fifteenth of May as the "Day of Palestinian Struggle" also means
restoring the political compass that links international solidarity to the idea
of liberation and return, not to the logic of partition and settlement.

The difference between the two expressions is not superficial. "Nakba" refers to
catastrophe and defeat, while "Day of Palestinian Struggle" refers to
resistance, continuity, and popular will. The first focuses on what colonialism
did to the Palestinian people, while the second focuses on what Palestinians do
to confront and uproot colonialism. Between the two discourses lies a profound
difference in the construction of political consciousness, especially among the
new generations in Palestine and the diaspora.

This does not mean abolishing the characterization of the Nakba or diminishing
its historical importance, but rather restoring it to its proper context. The
Nakba is not a frozen memory that ended in 1948; it is an ongoing colonial
process extending over more than seven decades. But confronting this ongoing
Nakba cannot be achieved solely by weeping over the past or revisiting scenes of
displacement. It requires highlighting the path of popular and armed resistance,
the steadfastness of the prisoners, the uprisings of the people, the refugees'
commitment to the right of return, and the growing international solidarity with
Palestine.

Reviving the use of the name "Day of Palestinian Struggle" today also carries an
important political significance in confronting attempts to liquidate the
Palestinian cause and reduce it to merely a humanitarian or relief issue. The
Palestinian cause is not a refugee crisis in need of aid, but the cause of a
people waging a battle for national liberation against a settler-colonial
project backed by Western imperialist powers. Therefore, the language used to
describe the cause is not a secondary matter; it is part of the battle over
consciousness and historical narrative.

Likewise, restoring the concept of the "International Week of Solidarity with
the Palestinian People and Their Inalienable Rights" reaffirms the
internationalist dimension of the Palestinian cause. Palestine has never been
merely a local or isolated humanitarian issue; it has always constituted a
global symbol in confronting colonialism, racism, and domination. Historically,
the Palestinian revolution was linked to liberation movements in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America, and to the struggles of peoples against apartheid,
colonialism, and occupation.

In light of the transformations unfolding today, the rise of global popular
solidarity movements with Palestine, and the revival of the slogan "From the
river to the sea," the need appears urgent to once again present the fifteenth
of May as a day of struggle, confrontation, and global popular mobilization, and
not merely an occasion for mourning tragedy. For despite massacres, siege,
genocide, and displacement, the Palestinian people continue to resist, and
Palestine continues to produce new forms of steadfastness and struggle.

Restoring the name "Day of Palestinian Struggle" and calling for "the liberation
of Palestine from the river to the sea" is not merely nostalgia for the
literature of the Palestinian revolution in the 1970s. It is an attempt to
reconnect the present with the roots of the Palestinian liberation project, and
to restore the understanding that Palestine is not only a matter of memory, but
also a matter of the future. A future forged through popular struggle,
resistance, organization, and collective will, not through surrender to the
logic of permanent defeat.

For this reason, the fifteenth of May must be presented as a day for renewing
the pledge to Palestine, return, and liberation, and as a day for affirming that
the Nakba did not bring an end to the Palestinian people, but rather launched
one of the longest national liberation movements of the modern era.