(on-site), in the weeks building up to the 2018
commemoration of Nakba Day, the situation on the
ground escalated with the move of the US embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the large-scale
demonstrations at the Gaza border (referred to in
Arabic as the great March of Return), which resulted
in the shooting of a large number of victims by the
Israeli military. At the same time, responses began
to appear online to an invitation from the US-based
Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
calling individuals to share their personal family
Nakba stories and use the hashtag #MyNakbaStory
(Image 4).
The Nakba, a source of bitter resentment among
Palestinians since 1948 (Abu-Lughod and Sa’di,
2007), was thus given an online platform, used
mainly by diaspora Palestinians based in the United
States, who shared their family stories of loss,
migration, and flight, ignored by the state of Israel
and by Jewish Israeli society in its memory regime
and memory laws.
“The Nakba was not only the past,” as one
prominent activist for Palestinian rights explained
to me, “but is still an ongoing phenomenon and is
part of an ongoing process… it may have been in
its infancy in 1948, but has continued in a number
of ways on a singular historical trajectory since
then” (Interview with the author, Skype, May 7,
2019). Nakba is about the present, as the various
commemorations of Nakba Day emphasise each
year. Nakba Day is now firmly established in the
Yousef Munayyer’s tweets, with the hashtag #MyNakbaStory, May 14,
2018
Palestinian calendar, among Palestinian citizens of
Israel (joined in smaller numbers by Jewish Israeli
activists), as well as in the West Bank and Gaza
(Sorek, 2015), and around the world. Just like on-site
commemorations, online commemorations of Nakba
on May 15 have grown and evolved in recent years.
This corresponds to other campaigns on social media. See for example the
#TweetYourThobe campaign that was launched on January 3, 2019, to cele-
brate Palestinian culture and the induction of Rashida Tlaib to Congress. Su-
san Muaddi Darraj, https://972mag.com/palestinian-sumud-tatreez/141238/;
As Rashida Tlaib Is Sworn In, Palestinian-Americans Respond With
#TweetYourThobe January 3, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/
us/politics/rashida-tlaib-palestinian-thobe.html; NPR January 6, 2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/06/682607997/viral-hashtag-celebrates-pales-
tinian-american-representation.
3
Munayyer and others with whom I spoke define themselves not as memory
activists but rather as advocacy activists for Palestinian rights. For them,
at the present, remembering and reminding people about 1948 are part of
a broader struggle for justice and rights. Here I refer only to their online
activism and use of the #mynakbastory hashtag as memory activism.
4
70
Observing Memories
ISSUE 3
In 2018, the initiators of the campaign at the
IMEU decided to add the word ‘my’ to the previously
used hashtag #NakbaStories. For them, this was a
way for Palestinians to push back against what they
see as ongoing attempts to erase their culture and
history. 3 As such, on digital social platforms, people
are able to share their family stories and narratives
without restrictions, physical borders, walls or