ADC Statement on the 78th Anniversary of the Nakba: Palestine Endures

Washington, DC | May 15, 2026 – Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Nakba – the Catastrophe – when Zionist militias and settlers, with the help of British forces, massacred, expelled, and dispossessed Palestinians from their homeland to establish Israel in 1948. Since 1949, Palestinians around the world have commemorated this day to mark the Zionist project’s destruction of historic Palestine, honor and remember those killed and displaced, and to reaffirm an unwavering commitment to freedom and return. 

The Nakba was and remains a catastrophic effort to erase Palestine and Palestinians from their land and from history itself. However, despite decades of annihilation and destruction, it has failed to extinguish the Palestinian people’s steadfastness. 

For Palestinians, the Nakba is an ongoing reality marked by occupation, siege, checkpoints, land theft, home demolitions, forced displacement, imprisonment, collective punishment, and violence aimed at uprooting Palestinians from their homeland. 

Since its founding, Israel has intentionally engaged in an expansionist project that involves the ongoing occupation, oppression, and murder of Palestinians. This project culminated in the genocide that began more than two and a half years ago and continues to this day. Israel and its Western backers are bent on continuing their campaign of aggression, driving the region toward perpetual war and devastation. This is not accidental, but part of a plan by the current extremist Israeli regime and its American enablers to destabilize the Middle East so that Israel can exercise control over the region. All at the expense of human life, freedom, and property.

Yet the refusal to surrender persists across generations. Palestine endures in the memories of refugees, in the names and stories of villages erased from our maps, and in the steadfastness of those who continue to create life amid destruction, who insist upon dignity amid humiliation, and who defy erasure despite decades of displacement, siege, and occupation.

As the world has become acutely aware of Israel’s crimes and the oppression of Palestinians that Zionist philosophy entails, governments throughout the West have turned to censorship, repression, intimidation, and even criminalization in an effort to shield Israel from accountability and themselves for complicity.

Every attempt to destroy Palestine has deepened not only the resolve of Palestinians determined to live freely on their land with dignity and self-determination, but also the conviction of millions around the world who believe that we will see a free Palestine within our lifetime.

ADC is dedicated to protecting the rights of the Palestinian-American brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to tell their family’s stories, to fight for their family’s rights in the political sphere, and to visit their families in Palestine; and for the rights of all Americans to advocate for justice in Palestine.

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