Israel aims new Nakba-style weapon at Arab citizens

What Jewish Israelis call their War of Independence, Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic. During the 1948 war and its aftermath, Israel depopulated and destroyed 600 Palestinian villages and expelled more than 700,000 Palestinians from the newly-established state in order to open up their land for Jewish settlement.
But the Israeli campaign to control land has never stopped. As Israel celebrates the 69th anniversary of its establishment — Palestinians commemorate the Nakba annually on May 15 — it is also brandishing its latest weapon against its remaining Arab citizens, designed to corral them into an ever-shrinking living space.
According to Israel, the new Kaminitz Law, which was enacted in April 2017, is intended to consolidate and streamline state powers in enforcing planning and building regulations. But in practice, this law allows the Israeli government to carry out a new wave of mass home demolitions in hemmed-in Arab villages and towns already hard hit by severe housing shortages and a history of discriminatory state policies.
Read more in Nakba files

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