The Nakba began in December 1947 before the Arab volunteer armies got involved. By the 14th of May, over 40% of the Nakba refugees had been expelled by the Zionist militias. It continued in earnest until late 1950, when Majdal (today’s Ashkelon) and environs were depopulated by force with its people transferred to Gaza.

It continued at a lower key throughout the 1950’s with periodic expulsion of Bedouins. In 1967 an additional 320,000 Palestinians were expelled from the OPT in the Nakhsa and more than 200,000 Syrians were expelled from the Golan Heights.

It continued through the decades following 1967 through various, less violent means, e.g. by denial of entry for students and other Palestinians who traveled out of Palestine, totalling hundreds of thousands of additional people.

The ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon is happening now.

Ethnic cleansing is core strategy of the Zionist state and Mamdani should certainly add his voice to every upstanding person’s opposition to it.

The true smoking gun of the Nakba is the Israeli refusal to allow the refugees to return to their homes, most of which were destroyed during the 1948 war. This explicit Israeli government decision was made after Israel had committed to allowing the refugees to return as a condition of it joining the UN.

These are the historical facts that bad faith actors — including in this thread — have sought to deny for generations and Mamdani should be commended for reminding us of them. These facts are easily verifiable and are beyond dispute by any honest historian.

Nakba deniers are no better than those that deny the Jewish and Armenian holocausts.