On May 15th Palestinians celebrate Nakba Day, the Day of Catastrophe, but what really happened on that day in 1948? It was the day when six Arab Armies invaded Israel to drive the Jews, the indigenous people, into the sea. These armies captured what is now called the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was at the time the Jewish quarter of the city. These armies ethnically cleansed these areas of Jews. To assist in their quest, they urged the Arabs to clear the area, creating 750,000 Arab refugees. At the same time 850,000 Jews became refugees. The Jewish refugees were resettled, however the Arab League refused to allow the Arab refugees to be resettled, in order to keep them as a festering wound to use against the Jews. Later, Jordan illegally annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it held until Israel recaptured its legal territory in 1967. In the 1960s, for propaganda reasons, these Arabs renamed themselves “Palestinians”. Uniquely for groups of refugees, under UN authority, the Arabs and their descendants remain refugees in perpetuity, even those that have been resettled in other countries, meaning that the conflict can never be resolved. That is the real tragedy. [Photograph: Jews ethnically cleansed from East Jerusalem, 1948]