On May 14th it will be exactly sixty years ago that the state of Israel was founded. A moment of celebration for the Israelis, but for the original Palestinian population of the country that day in 1948 was the start for a gigantic humanitarian tragedy: the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The Dutch Tropical Museum now has put up an exhibition on the Nakba, showing the eyewitnesses testimonials of those Palestinians caught up in it. Much of the video material used in this exhibition originated with the Nakba Archive, an international attempt to document and research the experiences of the first generation of Palestinian refugees from what would become Israel. This is important, because this generation is slowly dying of old age and this is the last opportunity to document their stories. The exhibition itself is also important, because the story of the Nakba is little known in the Netherlands, whose sympathies traditionally lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians. That an exhibition on such an important aspect of Palestinian history can now be shown in such a renowned museum with none of the usual zionist outcry is a good sign