50 YEARS OF NAKBA IN PALESTINE

1997 marks the 30th anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel, and 1998 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe). In human terms, that year saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages in present day Israel, etc.

Due to the capital importance of the 1948 & 1967 events on Palestinian history, present, lives, land, identity, culture and future, the KSCC will devote the majority of its fall 97 and 1998 programs to their commemoration. The goal is to induce a national exercise of remembrance, and reflection on the future. Specifically, the following events will be organized:

1- Lecture series by prominent Palestinian (& Palestinian-Israeli) intellectuals on the influence of the 1948/67 events on their lives & work, & on Palestinian identity & culture. The lectures will be later collected in book.(start: 13/11/97)

2- Testimonies by survivors, 50 years to the day of the events they witnessed. They will speak in "town meetings" formats, & each testimony will be recorded to create a sampling visual/oral history archive of the Nakba.(start: 2/98)

3- Projection of films, organization of theatre plays, art and photo exhibits on the Nakba & its representations in documentary & artistic form.(start: 8/11/97)

5- Creation of a website on the Nakba.(start: 1/1/98)