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Israeli organization Zochrot will release the I-Nakba phone app on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, on 5th May at 20:00. Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe”, will let users of the app locate any Arab village abandoned in the 1948 war on an interactive map, add comments, photos, and data and learn about the history of the village, including the Jewish presence that replaced it.
Zochrot, Hebrew for “Remembering”, aims to educate Israelis about a history which has been concealed by propaganda, denial and enmity for the past 66 years, all from their humble office in Tel Aviv. They strive to undo decades-long obliteration of memory and landscape, and hopefully, build a better future for the two communities who share the divided land.
Speaking about the app, Zochrot’s Media Director said, “There is an app for everything these days, and this one will show all the places that have been wiped off the map. It means that Palestinians in Ein Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon, say, can follow what happened to the village in Galilee that their family came from – and they will get a notification every time there’s an update. It’s amazing”.
The UN had voted to partition British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states in November 1947. By 1949, when Israel emerged victorious against its enemies, with about 400-500 villages were depopulated, destroyed, occupied and renamed. Till date, fierce debate rages in the infamous conflict between the two nations, on whether mass withdrawal of Arab villages was done on and ad hoc basis by local commanders or was a part of a master-plan for ethnic cleansing.
Zochrot focuses on the uber-sensitive question of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees, and has earned the hostility of Israeli Jews who reject the right of any Palestinians to return. The NGO’s DirectorLiat Rosenberg said, “There are a lot of Israeli organizations that deal with the occupation of 1967, but Zochrot is the only one that is dealing with 1948. It’s true that our influence is more or less negligible but nowadays there is no Israeli who does not at least know the word Nakba. It’s entered the Hebrew language, and that’s progress.” Rosenberg and colleagues hold several courses and prepare resources for teachers, avoiding any attempts out outlaw the Nakba commemoration.