❶ Israel Must Recognize Its Responsibility for the Nakba, the Palestinian Tragedy
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) The Israeli twins — Independence and Nakba
❷ Israel Controls More than 85% of the Land of Historical Palestine, says Statistics Bureau
❸ Hamas denies Israeli claims of Daesh presence in Gaza
❹ IN PICTURES: Israel clamps down on Nakba Day ‘return race’
❺ Palestinian refugees mark 68th Nakba Day in Haifa
❻ Opinion/Analysis: 68 YEARS: THE NAKBA CONTINUES
❼ POETRY by Fouzi El-Asmar
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❶ ISRAEL  MUST  RECOGNIZE  ITS  RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  NAKBA,  THE  PALESTINIAN  TRAGEDY
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Saeb Erekat
For the Palestinian people, the Nakba is a collective tragedy whose wounds have yet to heal 68 years later.  What we call the ‘Catastrophe’ is not just the destruction of at least 436 villages or the forced displacement of 70 percent of our people, but of our ethnic cleansing at the hands of a colonialist strategy. For reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel must recognize what it has done to the Palestinian people.
___It is time for Israelis to confront reality: when the Zionists came to Palestine, there were another people living here.      MORE . . .

. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) THE  ISRAELI  TWINS — INDEPENDENCE  AND  NAKBA
Jewish Journal
Avrum Burg
May. 11, 2016
Independence Day is also the Day of the Nakba (in Arabic, the Day of the Catastrophe). There is no escaping it. Whether we like it or not, Israel’s story includes the Jewish story as well as the Palestinian one. Hence, the question that faces Israel today is a simple one: Can Nakba and Independence live together under the same roof? If the answer is no, there is an automatic result: We have to cancel the words and spirit of our Declaration of Independence (“… Israel … for the benefit of all its inhabitants. . . .      MORE . . .  

❷ ISRAEL  CONTROLS  MORE  THAN  85%  OF  THE  LAND  OF  HISTORICAL  PALESTINE,  SAYS  STATISTICS  BUREAU
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
May 15, 2016
The Palestinians Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said, the Israeli Jews utilize more than 85% of the total area of the historical land of Palestine, whilst Palestinians, who comprise 48% of the total population, utilize less than 15% of the land.
___In a report issued by PCBS to mark the Palestinian Nakba Day, the central bureau said, ”The Palestinian world population totaled 12.4 million by the end of 2015, which it stressed indicates that the number of Palestinians worldwide has multiplied about nine-fold in the 68 years since the Nakba.      MORE . . .

❸ HAMAS  DENIES  ISRAELI  CLAIMS  OF  DAESH  PRESENCE  IN  GAZA
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO
May 15, 2016
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Saturday denied recent claims by an Israeli army official that members of the Daesh terrorist group had recently entered the Hamas-run Gaza Strip from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
___“These allegations are promoted by the Israeli occupation; they are mere fabrications that have no basis in fact,” leading Hamas member Ismail Radwan told Anadolu Agency.
___The claims, he added, “seek to justify Israel’s decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip”.       MORE . . . 

❹ IN  PICTURES:  ISRAEL  CLAMPS  DOWN  ON  NAKBA  DAY  ‘RETURN  RACE’
+972 Blog
Oren Ziv, Activestills
May 14, 2016
Abduallah Abu Rahmah, one of the leaders of the Bil’in protest movements, was arrested on Friday during a bicycle race in the West Bank to mark the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.
___Hundreds of Palestinian and international cyclists participated in the so-called “return ride” that kicked off in Ramallah and ended in the village of Bil’in, where grassroots protests against the occupation and the separation barrier have taken place weekly over the last 11 years.       MORE . . .  

❺ PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  MARK  68TH  NAKBA  DAY  IN  HAIFA
Days of Palestine
May 14, 2016
Hundreds of Palestinians marked on Saturday 68th Palestinian Nakba Day as they organised ‘March of Return’ in occupied Palestinian city of Haifa.
___The march was organised in a site of a Palestinian village destroyed after its indigenous Palestinian residents were savagely massacred and some of them forced out by the Israeli Zionists in 1948.
___Organisers of the march said that it was held to highlight the internationally-recognised right of Palestinians, forced out of their homes, to return back.
___Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset, activists and locals made their way to the destroyed village of Al-Tira in the outskirts of Haifa. The village was almost completely destroyed . . . .      MORE . . .  

❻ Opinion/Analysis:  68  YEARS:  THE  NAKBA  CONTINUES
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
Manuel Hassassian
May 15, 2016
The 15th May marks the Palestinian Nakba. The word Nakba means ‘catastrophe’ because that is exactly what happened in May 1948 when Palestine was wiped off the map [. . . .] 750,000 indigenous Palestinians were violently driven out of their homes in villages and towns and forcibly dispossessed by Jewish settler militias.
___Today, Israel is in ‘Nakba denial’. It will not acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which was perpetrated in order to create its self-declared state.   MORE . . .

“THE WAY,” by Fouzi El-Asmar

I shall not despair;
Whether my way leads to a jail,
under the sun
or in exile
I shall not despair.

It is my right to behold the sun
To demolish the tent and banishment
To eat the fruit of the olive
To water the vineyards
with music
To sing of Love
in Jaffa, in Haifa
To sow the fertile land
with new seeds
It is my right.

Let my way be
The reaching of one hand to another
That a tower of dreams be built.

This is my way
And if the last price to pay
is my sight
my life
I shall
but will not give up
my way.

El Asmar, Fouzi. POEMS FROM AN ISRAELI PRISON. Intro. By Israel Shahak. New York: KNOW Books, 1973.  Available from Amazon.
About Fouzi El Asmar.
Israel Shahak (April 28, 1933 – July 2, 2001) was a Polish Holocaust survivor and Israeli professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known especially as a liberal secular political thinker, author, and civil rights activist. Between 1970 and 1990, he was president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and was an outspoken critic of the Israeli government. Shahak’s writings on Judaism have been a source of widespread controversy.