Palestinian key

{{Short description|Palestinian symbol of homes lost in 1948}}

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File:Palestine Nakba Day demo in Berlin.jpg demonstration in Berlin]]

File:Nakba Day 2010 Hebron.JPG, 2010, Hebron. The sign says: {{langx|ar|حتماً سنعود فلسطين|We will return to Palestine}}]]

The Palestinian key is the Palestinian symbol of homes lost in the 1948 Nakba, when more than half of the population of Mandatory Palestine were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, and were subsequently denied the right to return.{{cite book | last1=Meital | first1=Y. | last2=Rayman | first2=P. | title=Recognition as Key for Reconciliation: Israel, Palestine, and Beyond | publisher=Brill | series=Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia | year=2017 | isbn=978-90-04-35580-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DE9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA73 | quote=Michal concedes the fact that Israelis do the same thing to the memory of the Nakba when saying "it was in 1948, enough talking about the past, let's talk about the future." When the Palestinians come with their keys [the Palestinian symbol of their lost homes], she says, "it's the same thing, it's a memory still burning in the hearts of families}}{{cite web | last=Fisk | first=Robert | title='I spoke to Palestinians who still hold the keys to homes they fled decades ago – many are still determined to return' | website=The Independent | date=2018-06-28 | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/palestine-keys-return-home-israel-palestinians-a8398341.html | quote= Keys must always be the symbol of the Palestinian “Nakba” – the “disaster” – the final, fateful, terrible last turning in the lock of those front doors as 750,000 Arab men, women and children fled or were thrown out of their homes in what was to become the state of Israel in 1947 and 1948.}} The key is considered part of a hope for return and a claim to the lost properties.Feldman, llana. 2008. [https://www.academia.edu/3426853/Refusing_invisibility_Documentation_and_memorialization_in_Palestinian_refugee_claims Refusing Invisibility: Documentation and Memorialization in Palestinian Refugee Claims], Journal of Refugee Studies 21 (4): 4, page 503: "Anyone familiar with Palestinian visibility practices will certainly be aware of the importance of certain central objects within this field. Many refugees still have the keys to their houses in Palestine. Keeping these keys, and showing them to visitors and researchers, is part of a hope for return and a claim to these properties. Given this widespread practice, these keys, with their distinctive old-fashioned look, have also become symbols of refugee commitment to Palestine. At demonstrations in support of Palestinians one can often find people carrying enlarged replicas of these keys in the process transforming individual objects into collective symbols."