|  ElCiudadano.cl |  Noticias

El Ciudadano

Original article: Comunidad Palestina de Chile conmemoró la Nakba con llamado a la memoria, justicia y coherencia internacional

Palestinian Community in Chile Commemorates Nakba with Calls for Memory, Justice, and International Coherence

The Palestinian Community in Chile held a solemn and heartfelt commemoration of the Nakba at the Palestinian Club. The term Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, is used by the Palestinian people to remember the mass expulsions, destruction of villages, and territorial loss that occurred around 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel and the Arab-Israeli war.

The event was attended by prominent figures from the Palestinian community in Chile, including political personalities such as Isabel Plá Jarufe, Patricio Hales, and Marcela Sabat; business leaders and social representatives like Alejandra Mustakis, Mario Dabed, and Ricardo Meruane; as well as members of the diplomatic corps including the ambassadors of France, Morocco, South Africa, and representatives from the Embassy of Italy. Senators Andrés Longton, Diego Ibáñez, Iván Moreira, and representatives Cristián Araya and Diego Schalper also attended.

The ceremony began with the recitation of the poem “We Love Life” by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, performed by a child who arrived from Gaza in 2025. This gesture added a profoundly human tone to a day focused on memory, identity, and the pain of a community that maintains its connections with Palestine.

Following this, Maurice Khamis, president of the Palestinian Community of Chile, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that the Nakba is not merely a historical event, but a continuing reality.

"Seventy-eight years ago, the Palestinian people were ripped from their land. More than 750,000 men, women, children, and the elderly were expelled from their homes, while hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed to erase not just a physical presence, but also a memory, an identity, and a history," he stated.

Khamis added that "this catastrophe did not end in 1948" and argued it continues "whenever a Palestinian family is expelled from their home in Jerusalem or the West Bank, whenever a child is killed in Gaza, with illegal settlements, with the wall, with the blockade, with the occupation, and with impunity."

In his remarks, the president of the Palestinian Community of Chile also connected the history of the Palestinian diaspora in the country with the memory of the Nakba. He highlighted that thousands of families came to Chile "with only a suitcase, a key, a photograph, or a letter written in Arabic" and that since then, they have contributed to the country’s development without relinquishing their identity.

"The Palestinian Club has been much more than a social space. It has been a refuge of identity, memory, and gathering for generations of Palestinians and Chilean-Palestinians," Khamis asserted, also making a direct appeal to the State of Chile and the international community, stating that "it is not enough to express concern while Gaza is destroyed" and that "in the face of Palestinian suffering, silence becomes complicity."

"Palestine does not ask for privileges. Palestine asks for justice. And although they have attempted to erase an entire people from history, Palestine remains alive: it lives in its people, it lives in its culture, it lives in its resistance, and it also lives here in Chile, in every family that refuses to forget," he concluded.

One of the most significant moments of the day was led by students from the Arab School, including two children who arrived from the West Bank last year, who collectively recited the poem “I Am From There,” also by Mahmoud Darwish.

The Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Chile, Vera Baboun, participated via a video sent from Palestine. In her message, she urged Chile to maintain a firm stance regarding the situation of the Palestinian people.

"We call on Chile to remain on the right side of history, against colonization, against genocide, against injustice," the diplomat stated.

Next, a video was shown containing historical images of the Nakba and the testimony of Laila Beitro, a survivor of the Palestinian catastrophe currently living in Chile. Her account deeply moved the audience, largely composed of Palestinians born in their homeland, along with their children, grandchildren, and descendants of immigrants.

The closing of the ceremony was led by Senator and Vice President of the Senate, Iván Moreira, who began by acknowledging the contribution of the Palestinian community to the development of Chile and praised the work of the Palestinian Community of Chile and its president for bringing the reality of the Palestinian people closer to Chilean society.

"The Nakba is an occasion to honor the fallen and embrace those who survived," said Moreira, who maintained that this commemoration "does not seek to reopen wounds, because those wounds remain open" and asserted that defending Palestine should not only be understood as an act of solidarity but also as a defense of Chile’s interests in favor of a world governed by law rather than force.

"Today we face a genocide that is being overshadowed by the conflict with Iran," Moreira stated, adding that "there is no worse precedent for the international system than allowing the dispossession that began in 1948 to continue today," and he recalled that Chile has maintained a position of condemnation of the Israeli occupation and support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people.

"Chile has both a legal and moral obligation to the significant Palestinian community living in our country. I am committed for the rest of my life to the freedom of Palestine," he asserted.

Chile is recognized as the country outside the Arab world with the largest Palestinian community, estimated between 500,000 and 700,000, and as the main center of the Christian Palestinian diaspora worldwide.

This reality was once again evident in a commemoration that combined poetry, testimony, historical memory, and a political call for justice, on a night marked by emotion and the affirmation of an identity that, 78 years after the Nakba, remains profoundly alive in Chile.

El Ciudadano

La entrada Palestinian Community in Chile Commemorates Nakba with Calls for Memory, Justice, and International Coherence se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.