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Introduction: The Shock of the NakbaNakba Full Description: Arabic for “The Catastrophe.” It refers to the mass expulsion and flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during the conflict. It is not merely a historical event but describes the ongoing condition of statelessness and dispossession faced by Palestinian refugees. The Nakba marks the foundational trauma of Palestinian identity. During the fighting that established the State of Israel, a vast majority of the Arab population in the territory either fled out of fear or were forcibly expelled by militias and the new army. Their villages were subsequently destroyed or repopulated…
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Introduction: The Arab World Meets Bandung In April 1955, as the leaders of twenty-nine newly independent states gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, one figure stood out among the delegates from the Arab world — Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s thirty-seven-year-old prime minister. Barely three years after seizing power in Cairo, Nasser was already emerging as the defining voice of Arab nationalism. The Bandung Conference gave him a platform to link the Arab struggle against imperialism with the broader Afro-Asian movement. The Bandung Conference, hosted by Indonesia’s President Sukarno, was the first large-scale gathering of postcolonial leaders from Asia and Africa. Its aim…