To most Palestinians, 1948, the year of al-Nakba, is the formative year of their lives. This is true irrespective of age, background, or occupation, or whether the person is a refugee or not, or lives in Palestine or the diaspora. On this fiftieth anniversary of al-Nakba, JPS asked a number of Palestinians of different generations and walks of life to write short pieces on what this event has meant to them. In JPS's letters of invitation, the "guidelines" suggested were to avoid political and historical analysis in favor of personal reflections. The following are the results.

Armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine has been a rallying cry of the Palestinian national movement since its emergence in the 1960s, but its results have never been more than marginal. Instead, military groups have served a primarily political function, offering Palestinians in the diaspora organizational structures for political expression and state building. However, the nature of the PLO as an exile entity attempting to unite a disparate diaspora has necessarily resulted in an authoritarian leadership wary of the administrative, civilian, and social organizations needed to form a state. Ultimately, the political patterns that developed during the armed struggle impede as much as aid the realization of an independent Palestinian state.