Palestinians mark their 1948 displacement

May 15, 2013

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday to mark the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation.
Every May 15, Palestinians commemorate the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe the displacement. Hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out during the fighting.

The dispute over the fate of those Palestinians and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

http://www.chron.com/news/world/arti...nt-4517149.php



Had read in another article that seeds of modern day mideast terrorism/airplane hijacking were also sown around this timeframe.


Checking in for a flight has never been the same since 1967


"Habash's group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palest ine (P F L P), pioneered the hi jacking of airplanes as a Middle East terror tactic — one eventually employed by the al-Qaeda hi jackers on 9/11 — way back in 1968 when three P F L P armed operatives commandeered an Israel i El Al ai rliner enroute from Rome to Tel Aviv. Checking in for a flight has never been the same since.

Many P F L P operations remain etched into history as some of the most infamous acts of terrorism. In 1970, P F L P terrorists hijacked four air liners at one time, flew three of them to Jordan, blew them up, and triggered the Black September civil war between Jordan's Hashemite monarchy and Palestinian guerrillas. In 1972, Japanese Red Army terrorists working with the PFLP massacred 24 people at Israel's Lod International Air port (now called B e n G u r i o n International Air port).

What led Habash, a Christian physician — hence his nickname al-Hakim or the doctor — into such a life, of revolution, of killing? The son of a well-to-do merchant, he was trained at the American University of Beirut, the most liberal university in the Middle East then as now. His background was almost identical to that of his best friend, Wadia Haddad, the No. 2 in the PFLP and the operational genius and passionate proponent of the group's terrorist acts. When I asked Habash that question during a series of interviews many years ago, he simply told me about his personal experiences when his family lost its home during israel's 1948 War of Independence, what the Palestinians call the C a t a s t r o p h e."

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...707366,00.html