Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat kicked off a series of events to commemorate the dispersal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after Israel’s creation in 1948. Speaking on the same day that Israel officially kicked off celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Jewish state, Arafat told an audience in the West Bank town of Ramallah, “Today we are celebrating the memory of the catastrophe.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.