Jerusalem is the heart of Palestine and the Arab world. Since the Nakba of 1948, the city has suffered radical demographic and geographical changes due to Israeli policies of forcible displacement and annexation. Since the ethnicleansing of dozens of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages in the western parts of the city, Israel has consistently violated its obligations under the UN Charter, UN resolutions, and international law, creating an unprecedented culture of impunity for over 75 years. Following the Israeli aggression of June 1967 that led to the occupation of all of Jerusalem, the Palestinians left in the city were stripped of their political rights and turned into “permanent residents,” while thousands were prevented from returning to their birthplace, beginning a process of isolation of the city from the rest of Palestine and the Arab world through the tools used by Israel’s colonial settler enterprise. This goes from land expropriations and home demolitions to the separation of families and the exile of political and religious leaders. The Israeli occupation continues its policies that deny the rich multicultural history of the city and its Arab identity to turn it into an exclusive Jewish city. Based on its racist laws, including the Jewish Nation-State Law, the occupying Power refuses to implement its obligations while promoting radical Zionist groups that have led to the current situation where even the Status Quo of the Holy Sites is being threatened and religious symbols, including Mosques, Churches, and cemeteries, are often under attack.
This visual guide provides a perspective of how all those processes have intertwined since 1948 in the form of an ongoing Nakba (Catastrophe) aimed at perpetuating the denial of the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine, including the right to self-determination.
