Chapter One The Ongoing Nakba Within the Palestinian context of forced displacement, one fact is fundamental: the Nakba is ongoing. In other words, the Nakba is not isolated to the historical events of 1947-1949 which resulted in the expulsion of between 750,000 to 900,000 Palestinians, but is a continuing phenomenon that was initiated well before that period, was accompanied with the beginning of the colonization of Palestine during the British Mandate, and extends well into today. As such, the Ongoing Nakba is terminology adopted by BADIL to describe the perpetual colonization enterprise and its pillars: land grabbing, displacement of the Palestinian people and their simultaneous prevention to return and implantation of colonizers. This vicious cycle is maintained and upheld through a plethora of Zionist-Israeli policies, practices, and laws that perpetrate population transfers to alter the demographic and geographic composition of Mandatory Palestine, ultimately culminating in a colonial-apartheid regime. The result of this regime is the creation, sustainment, and augmentation of the longest standing refugee population in the world. Today, displaced Palestinians number approximately 9.17 million, 812,000 of whom are internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Mandatory Palestine. To understand the foundations and roots of this displacement, the following chapter explores the four historical episodes of mass displacement, the nine Israeli policies of ‘silent’ transfer that achieve forced displacement in reduced and less visible numbers, and recent political developments highlighting the ongoing failure of the international community and the environment in which the above policies are allowed to function. 1.1. Historical Waves of Palestinian Displacement The Palestinian people that lived within the borders of Mandatory Palestine, a land now divided into what is called Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) – comprising the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – have been exposed to four major periods of forced displacement: (1) the British Mandate (1922-1947), (2) the Nakba (1947-1949), (3) Israeli military rule imposed upon Palestinians inside the Green Line (1949-1966), and (4) The Six Day War of 1967. 1.1.1. First Wave: The British Mandate (1922-1947) In December 1917, British-led Allied forces occupied Palestine, which was then part of the