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CallZone Media.

Hello and welcome to It Could Happen here.

My name is Donna El-Kurd.

I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics.

I'm recording this on May 19th, 2026, and this past

weekend, May 15th, was Neckba Day. Neckba is the Arabic word for catastrophe, and Neckba Day

commemorates when close to a million Palestinians were expelled in 1948 with the founding of the

Israeli state, so the Palestinian catastrophe.

Hundreds of villages and towns were destroyed, and many Palestinians were made refugees

in camps around the new state, in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and farther afield.

Within Israel, Palestinians who somehow managed to remain were put under

a military rule. As the past few years have demonstrated, and as many Palestinians will tell you,

this Nekba never ended. Usually I use this podcast to discuss current events or to interview

someone who is an expert on a dynamic I'm interested in and I think is useful for people to hear.

But today I'm going to be doing something a little different and outside my comfort zone.

I'm going to share my personal family history and our Nakhapah story.

I'm a Palestinian from Jerusalem.

Both sides, my mom and my dad, are from Jerusalem, and I was born there. Usually when people ask me where I'm from,

and I say that, they just assume East Jerusalem, because that's where Palestinians have been

sequestered today. They were driven out of West Jerusalem in 1948. But actually some of my family were from

the western side of the city. My paternal grandmother and her family lost their home in West

...