In the Media: AMP’s #Nakba74 Commemorations

2022 marked the 74th anniversary of the Nakba, the Zionist mass expulsion campaign against indigenous Palestinians lasting from 1947 to 1949. The essence of Zionism, the creation of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine, amounting to an ethnostate, required the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population. This ethnic cleansing campaign was executed by both Zionist paramilitaries and the newly formed Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Only a few days prior to the anniversary of the Nakba, US citizen and Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by Israeli forces. Nakba commemorations coincided with memorials for Abu Akleh.

This year, American Muslims for Palestine and its chapters held a series of protests and events across the country from Washington D.C and New Jersey, to Dallas and Los Angeles. You can find a list of the AMP-sponsored events below.

• Minneapolis, MN: Nakba March: Free Palestine! 
• New Jersey, NJ: Palestinian Resilience: The Ongoing Nakba
• Chicago, IL: Nakba 74 | National Day of Protest
• Dallas, TX: Nakba 74 | National Day of Protest 
• Washington, DC: Nakba 74 Protest: DMV All Out for Palestine 
• Los Angeles, CA: Nakba 74: Ongoing Colonization Ongoing Resistance 
• Milwaukee, WI: Nakba Day Community Picnic
• St. Louis, MO: Nakba 74 Protest
• San Diego, CA: 2022 Nakba Commemoration  

Domestic and international media outlets covered AMP-sponsored events across the country, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Al Araby, TRT World, and the Middle East Eye.

The Chicago Sun-Times covered the protests in Chicago. “Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of downtown Chicago to protest the May 11 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Our allies at CAIR – the CAIR-DFW affiliate – urged supporters to attend an AMP sponsored protest in downtown Dallas.  “The Dallas Fort-Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-DFW) will join a large coalition of human rights organizations for a protest in downtown Dallas to call on the Biden administration to hold the State of Israel accountable for the murder of U.S. citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”

The New Arab covered AMP’s main protests in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C, where AMP national staff organized thousands of protestors.

“On a sunny day in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC more than a thousand people gathered to honour the Palestinian Nakba and to demand justice for the slain journalist Shireen Abu Akhleh.”

Istanbul-based TRT World reported on international Nakba Day protests, including AMP’s domestic events.

“Nakba Day comes as tensions have been running high amid repeated Israeli arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank and killing of a trailblazer journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”

MEE, the Middle East Eye, was on the ground in Washington as demonstrations in Washington transformed from a protest to a march along Constitution Avenue. 

“The annual demonstrations are usually a melancholic affair, but demonstrations in New York City and Washington were layered with additional tragedy in the aftermath of the death of Palestinian veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot by Israeli forces last week.”

Only a few days after the 74th commemoration of the Nakba, Israel apologists gathered in New York for the annual Celebrate Israel Parade. AMP provided commentary on this celebration of apartheid and dispossession of Palestinian land.

"Israel apologists are hell-bent on equating support for Israel as part and parcel of the Jewish tradition, and our Jewish friends and allies have repeatedly rejected this notion as offensive and a disservice to world Jewry."