Why doesn't the EU recognise the anniversary of the Nakba?

Recognising the Nakba [the 1948 Palestinian 'catastrophe' of expulsion and displacement] should not be a controversial matter.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in 1948 is one of the most factually proven events in history. Failure to recognise the Nakba means an endorsement of the narrative that justified the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people.

The matter is of utter importance: without recognising the Nakba, it would be impossible to tackle the root causes of the situation of Palestine, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

From a policy perspective, Israeli goals have not changed since 1948, and are largely based on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the annexation of Palestinian land. The Nakba is an ongoing process, and failure to recognise it becomes a failure to recognise the Palestinian reality.

The Nakba has been largely ignored for several reasons, including a western endorsement of the Israeli narrative for 1948.

The celebrations of the creation of Israel continue to take place in several western capitals without even mentioning the need to bring justice to the Palestinian people.

In 2023, the European Commission promoted a video by its president Ursula von der Leyen who largely endorsed the Israeli narrative of Israel “making the desert bloom”.

At that moment, Palestinians accused the European representative of racism, something that largely angered European diplomacy.

'Clowns' and 'anti-semites'

Those same diplomats, though, were not as angry when a few months later, the then-Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz (now defence minister) referred to Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez as a “clown” or to the former EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell as an “anti-semite.” The European Commission never apologised for employing a talking point largely used to whitewash the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.  

Failure to recognise the Nakba also helps in understanding the limits that Palestinian rights and the Palestinian experience have in the west.

Put simply, “Never again” doesn’t apply in Palestine.

There is no criminalisation for negating the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, rather, there have been attempts, through endorsing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, to criminalise pro-Palestinian activism.

The calls for reviewing the EU–Israel Association Agreement are an important step forward, but they go alongside several EU countries ignoring the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants on Benjamin Netanyahu, including France, Italy, Greece and Germany, among others.

This has a direct effect on the ground, where Israeli politicians have been clear about their goals of occupation, annexation and ethnic cleansing (referred to as “voluntary immigration” after over two-thirds of Gaza have been destroyed by Israeli forces).  

At the core of the failure of the Middle East Peace Process has been the Israeli refusal to accept the implementation of international law and the UN Charter, two basic components of the rules-based international system, at the same time that Israel utterly objects to the principle of equality for the Palestinian people.

Israeli legislation promotes that only Jews have the right to self-determination and bans the recognition of the Palestinian state. In other words, Israeli legislation opposes both equality under one democratic state, or the existence of two sovereign and independent states living side by side.

Denying the Palestinian right to self-determination is at the heart of the Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. This is the continuation of the Nakba.

There is an interesting movement within the European Union regarding Palestine.

Demands to review the Israel–EU Association Agreement cannot continue to be ignored by EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, just like there is talk about further European recognition of the Palestinian state by European countries to be announced next month, in the context of a French-Saudi-led international peace conference.

Those are all basic requirements to make clear that the EU will only support a political outcome based on respecting human rights and honouring the Palestinian right to self-determination.

Recognising the Nakba goes in the same direction: it is about establishing that ethnic cleansing is a crime rather than a “solution”, it's about bringing historical justice to the Palestinian people after 77 years of western powers negating or ignoring what our parents and grandparents went through, it is about committing to comprehensively restore the rights of the Palestinian people on its homeland.

It is about making clear that “never again” is also about Palestine. 

This year, we turn 25 and are looking for 2500 new supporting members to take their stake in EU democracy. A functioning EU relies on a well-informed public – you.