March of Return (Israel)

The March of Return (Arabic: مسيرة العودة, romanized: Masīrat al-ʻAwdah) is an annual protest march in Israel organized by the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID), also known as the Committee of the Uprooted,^[1] which represents the "Present absentees", i.e. the Palestinian citizens of Israel who are internally displaced. The march takes place annually on or around Nakba Day or Land Day, with a different destination each year – each year one of the c.400 depopulated Palestinian villages in Israel is chosen.^[2]^[3]

^ Järvi 2021: "As mentioned, the tradition of internally displaced Palestinians visiting the villages annually has existed for several decades. It was, however, only in 1998 when ADRID established it as a nation-wide event that has been organized annually on Israel’s Independence Day… For most families, the March of Return did not replace family visits altogether but became an additional and more politicized event… One reason for the growth of the March of Return is that for the tens of thousands of participants, the day is a national holiday in Israel, and they are thus free of other obligations. The performative importance of organizing the March on Israeli Independence Day, however, transcends the visibility gained by the amount of people. The organizers recognize that the significance of appropriating the day is that it is ‘stating mainly: your day of independence is our day of catastrophe, Nakba’. Furthermore, marking Independence Day as a day of mourning is criminalized in Israel with the so-called Nakba Law that enable reducing state funding and support from institutions that are ‘rejecting the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’ or ‘commemorating Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning’… By defining how the Independence Day can and should be commemorated, the state attempts to regulate the ways it can be represented and who is included in the national body. With the March Palestinians thus challenge the narratives of official independence celebrations and assert that the state is founded on dispossession and that Israeli landscape is built on Palestinian ruins. Thus, the March of Return challenges those ways through which the state aims to present itself and can thus work as a ‘performative contradiction’... that can – over time – facilitate a political change and challenge the exclusions that are constitutive for the state… The performative power of the March of Return is that it, albeit temporarily, makes visible the Palestinian past, and brings to the fore the continuing existence of Palestinians on the land. By assembling for the March, Palestinians are exercising the performative right to appear… Similarly for Palestinians, while it might not be accurate to speak about healing from a trauma as it is still ongoing, the annual event of March of Return does provide a means to bear witness to the consequences of Nakba by appearing in the places Palestinians were erased from and claim the right to return to those places by enacting the future in which also healing and justice could be possible."
^ Wermenbol 2021, pp. 74–78: "The March of Return, held annually since 1998, is the largest commemoration dedicated to the Nakba with tens of thousands of Palestinians participating every year."
^ Sorek 2015, pp. 72–80

[1] Järvi 2021: "As mentioned, the tradition of internally displaced Palestinians visiting the villages annually has existed for several decades. It was, however, only in 1998 when ADRID established it as a nation-wide event that has been organized annually on Israel’s Independence Day… For most families, the March of Return did not replace family visits altogether but became an additional and more politicized event… One reason for the growth of the March of Return is that for the tens of thousands of participants, the day is a national holiday in Israel, and they are thus free of other obligations. The performative importance of organizing the March on Israeli Independence Day, however, transcends the visibility gained by the amount of people. The organizers recognize that the significance of appropriating the day is that it is ‘stating mainly: your day of independence is our day of catastrophe, Nakba’. Furthermore, marking Independence Day as a day of mourning is criminalized in Israel with the so-called Nakba Law that enable reducing state funding and support from institutions that are ‘rejecting the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’ or ‘commemorating Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning’… By defining how the Independence Day can and should be commemorated, the state attempts to regulate the ways it can be represented and who is included in the national body. With the March Palestinians thus challenge the narratives of official independence celebrations and assert that the state is founded on dispossession and that Israeli landscape is built on Palestinian ruins. Thus, the March of Return challenges those ways through which the state aims to present itself and can thus work as a ‘performative contradiction’... that can – over time – facilitate a political change and challenge the exclusions that are constitutive for the state… The performative power of the March of Return is that it, albeit temporarily, makes visible the Palestinian past, and brings to the fore the continuing existence of Palestinians on the land. By assembling for the March, Palestinians are exercising the performative right to appear… Similarly for Palestinians, while it might not be accurate to speak about healing from a trauma as it is still ongoing, the annual event of March of Return does provide a means to bear witness to the consequences of Nakba by appearing in the places Palestinians were erased from and claim the right to return to those places by enacting the future in which also healing and justice could be possible."

[Wermenbol_2021_p.-2] Wermenbol 2021, pp. 74–78: "The March of Return, held annually since 1998, is the largest commemoration dedicated to the Nakba with tens of thousands of Palestinians participating every year."

[Sorek_2015-3] Sorek 2015, pp. 72–80

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