For Palestinians, May 15 on the calendar means “Nakba,” the Arabic word for disaster. It’s the day after Israel declared independence in 1948, and marks a war in which some 700,000 Arabs were expelled from or fled their homes as the new state was established on most of the territory they knew as Palestine. For 70 years, Palestinians have claimed the right to return to their land, a position Israel rejects. This year, as the date approached, thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip marched toward the frontier with Israel in a symbolic effort to recover their ancestral homes. Some attempted to breach the border fence by cutting the wire, storming the barrier and planting explosives. Israel responded with deadly force.
The short answer is Donald Trump. Palestinians are angry that the U.S. president recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and officially moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. The U.S. dedicated the new embassy, converted from an existing American consulate in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood, on May 14, with a blue-ribbon delegation from the White House and U.S. Congress. Palestinians consider the eastern part of Jerusalem as occupied territory and hope to establish their own capital there one day.
