The following is the text of the letter drafted by the great poet Mahmoud Darwish addressed to the world in the name of the Palestinian people on the 53rd anniversary of the Nakba.
Today is the day of the greater anniversary.
We do not need to look back to recall the details of a crime committed because the details of the Nakba are open and extended on all time frames. The meaning that Palestinians understand from this war is translated in the major operation of uprooting them and transforming them into refugees inside and outside their country and the attempt to expel them from existence and from the whole universe after occupying their land and history towards transforming them from an entity in time and place into an excess of ghosts exiled out of time and place. The Intifada aims to stop the Israeli colonialist scheme in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from proceeding under the cover of the peace process which the Israeli leaders emptied from any content or meaning. Our wounded hands are still capable of carrying the dry olive branch amid the ruins of trees that are assassinated by occupation if the Israelis reach the age of maturity and recognize our national and legitimate rights as defined by international legitimacy resolutions, mainly the right of return, full withdrawal from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and the right of self determination in a sovereign and independent state with al-Quds as its capital. The international community cannot continue closing an eye to what is going on in the land of Palestine, as it did in the year of the Nakba.