❶ Amara: The Nakba anniversary is a chance to renew the vow of resistance
❷ Annual ‘March of Return’ draws thousands of Palestinians to the Negev
❸ Israel locks down West Bank, Gaza for Nakba Day
❹ Palestinians on Nakba Day 2016 — Defiant, Undeterred and Organizing
❺ Opinion/Analysis: LESSONS  ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  NAKBA
. . . . . ❺― (ᴀ) Sykes-Picot agreement [May 16, 1916] unravelling on its centenary
❻ How I explained the Nakba to my kids
. . . . . ❻ ― (ᴀ) The Making of Israel: Zionist settler colonialism in historic Palestine
❼ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ AMARA:  THE  NAKBA  ANNIVERSARY  IS  A  CHANCE  TO  RENEW  THE  VOW  OF  RESISTANCE
The Palestinian Information Center
May 14, 2016
Senior Hamas official Shaker Amara, from Jericho, has said that the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) is a good chance to renew the vow to continue resisting the occupation until its removal from the Palestinian land.      MORE . . .  

❷ ANNUAL  ‘MARCH  OF  RETURN’  DRAWS  THOUSANDS  OF  PALESTINIANS  TO  THE  NEGEV
Ma’an News Agency
May 12, 2016
Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in the annual “March of Return” on Thursday afternoon near Bedouin towns in the Negev (Naqab) in southern Israel, commemorating the 1948 Nakba, amid the conclusion of Israeli Independence Day celebrations.
___Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and held banners emblazoned with support for the right to return for Palestinian refugees abroad and Palestinians internally displaced from their villages in Israel, as they made their way across the Negev in the dry afternoon heat.       MORE . . .    

❸ ISRAEL  LOCKS  DOWN  WEST  BANK,  GAZA  FOR  NAKBA  DAY
Days of Palestine
May 12, 2016
Israeli occupation army has announced plans to totally seal off West Bank, besieged Gaza Strip during 68th Nakba Day, which anniversary on May 15.
___According to an Israeli army statement, all checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel will be sealed off to West Bank residents expect for “humanitarian” cases. MORE . . . 

❹ PALESTINIANS  ON  NAKBA  DAY  2016 —  DEFIANT,  UNDETERRED  AND  ORGANIZING
Mondoweiss
Nada Elia
May 13, 2016
Dima al-Wawi knows what she wants to be when she grows up:  “My dream is that when I grow up I can be a lawyer who can defend children who have been oppressed,” the twelve-year old said in an interview shortly after her release from a four-month sentence in an Israeli jail.
___Al-Wawi will likely be extremely busy:  at any time in the past few years, Israel has held anywhere from 400 to 700 children in its prison cells, where physical and psychological torture are routine, adding injury to the insult of being arrested strictly because one is Palestinian.       MORE . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis: LESSONS  ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  NAKBA
Palestine Chronicle
Hani Al-Masri
May 13 2016
On the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, I think it is appropriate to share what I consider some lessons to be learned from the Palestinian experience since the establishment of Israel on the land of historic Palestine.
___For a start, it is a lie to say that the Palestinian and Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan contributed to the Nakba and led to Israel occupying 78 per cent of Mandatory Palestine; the UN allocated just over 50 per cent to the Zionist state. This excess has been shrugged off as a “mistake” but documents now in the public domain throw more light on this lie.      MORE . . .  

. . . . . ❺― (ᴀ) SYKES-PICOT  AGREEMENT  [MAY 19, 1916]  UNRAVELING  ON  ITS  CENTENARY
Middle East Eye
James Reinl
May 12, 2016
Centenarians are seldom in ruddy health.
___This is certainly true of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which celebrates its 100th birthday on Monday.
___The secret deal to divide the Ottoman Empire’s vast land mass into British and French zones of influence precipitated the borders of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and much else in the Middle East that exist – at least nominally – to the present day.      MORE . . .  

❻ HOW I EXPLAINED THE NAKBA TO MY KIDS
+972 Blog
Noam Rotem
May 11, 2016
Say Dad, what is independence?
___An independent person is a person who can do whatever they want. They are free and nobody makes decisions for them. When a state is independent, it means that no one tells it what to do and it can decide for itself what it deems to be good and bad.    MORE . . .  

. . . . . ❻ ― (ᴀ)  THE  MAKING  OF  ISRAEL:  ZIONIST  SETTLER  COLONIALISM  IN  HISTORIC  PALESTINE
Mondoweiss
May 13, 2016
This Sunday May 15 marks the 68th Nakba Day, an occasion of commemoration for the over 750,000 Palestinians that were forcibly displaced by Zionist militias between 1947 and 1950. For Palestinian communities, the violence of the Nakba started much earlier than 1948 and continues today. Our latest visual covers 143 years of Zionist settler colonialism.
Data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics shows how European Zionists began . . . .
MORE . . .  

“TENT  #50  (SONG  OF  A  REFUGEE),”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
Tent #50, on the left, is my new world,
Shared with me by my memories:
Memories as verdant as the eyes of spring.
Memories like the eyes of a woman weeping,
And memories the color of milk and love!

Two doors has my tent, two doors like two wounds
One leads to the other tents, wrinkle-browed
Like clouds no longer able to weep;
And the second ― a rent in the ceiling, leading
To the skies,
Revealing the stars
Like refugees scattered,
And like them, naked.

Also the moon is trudging there
Downcast and weary as the UNRWA,
Yellow as if it were the UNRWA
Under a load of yellow cheese for the refugees.

Tent #50, on the left, that is my present.
But it is too cramped to contain a future!
And ― “Forget!” they say, but how can I?

Teach the night to forget to bring
Dreams showing me my village
And teach the wind to forget to carry to me
The aroma of apricots in my fields!
And teach the sky, too, to forget to rain.

Only then, I may forget my country.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977.     More. . .