Late 1800’s – Early 1900’s: Emergence of political Zionism
Before the emergence of political Zionism and the establishment of the Zionist settler colonial project, Muslim, Christian and Jewish people had lived together and coexisted in Palestine for centuries.
Influence by the rise of nationalism across Europe, some European Jewish people decided the solution to rising persecution in Europe and Russia was the establishment of a Jewish nation state in Palestine.
In 1896, Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl, considered to be the father of modern political Zionism, published a pamphlet entitled “The Jewish State” fostering new momentum within the Zionism political movement.
The late 1800’s – early 1900’s saw the founding of many Zionist organisations including: the Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA), the Jewish National Fund. Both organisations played a major role in the dispossession of Palestinian people and acquisition of Palestinian land for the Zionist colonial project.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish population in Palestine had nearly doubled.
The understanding that ‘transfer’ – a euphemism for ethnic cleansing – of the indigenous Palestinian population was necessary for the Zionist colonial project was clear within the movements leadership from the earliest days.
1917: The Balfour Declaration
Issued on November 2nd, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was a British government statement supporting “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The declaration is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nakba.
1923 – 1948: The British Mandate for Palestine
The British Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate granted to Britain following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The mandate tasked Britain with implementing the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which aimed to create a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, while also guaranteeing the civil and religious rights of the existing the Palestinian population.
1936 – 1939: The Great Palestinian Rebellion (Arab Revolt in Palestine)
The Great Palestinian Rebellion was a popular uprising by Palestinian people against the British administration. The movement sought independence from British colonial rule and the end of British support for Zionism, including Jewish immigration from Europe and land sales to Zionists.
1937 – 1948: The Irgun & Lehi: Zionist terrorism on the rise
The Irgun (Etzel) and Lehi (Stern Gang) were Zionist paramilitary organisations that used terrorism against the Palestinian population and British mandate authorities to advance the creation of a Jewish state. Operating primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, they conducted bombings, assassinations, and massacres, including the Deir Yassin massacre and King David Hotel bombing, leading and heavily influencing the escalation of hostilities.
After 1948, Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun terrorist group, founded a far-right nationalist political party called the Herut (“Freedom”) Party. In the year of its founding, over 20 prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, signed an open letter to the New York Times condemning the party and likening Herut to fascist and Nazi parties in their ideological approach.
In 1973, several right-wing political parties merged to form the Likud (“Consolidation”) Party, representing the consolidation of the Israeli right-wing political parties and operating under the Herut leadership.
Today, the Likud Party is lead by current Prime Minister of so-called ‘Israel’, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Likud party’s roots in Zionist terrorism are omnipresent in it’s actions and policy platform today.
Nov 1947: The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
In February 1947, Britain announced that it would end its mandate of Palestine and turn the responsibility of the future of Palestine over to the United Nations.
On November 29, 1947, following aggressive lobbying by Zionist organisations and their supporters in Europe and the United States, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 calling for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
The Partition Plan allocated approximately 55% of Palestine to the Zionist state and just 42% to the Palestinian state, despite the fact that Jewish people made up only about a third of the population of Palestine in 1947, many of whom were recent immigrants from Europe. The plan proposed Jerusalem be placed under international administration overseen by a UN-run body.
The Arab Higher Committee rejected the plan, as well as the idea that Palestinians should give up more than half their country to newly arrived European immigrants who owned only a tiny amount of the land they were being given.
Dec 1947 – Feb 1948: Beginning of Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Muslims & Christians
Almost immediately after the UN Partition Plan was passed by the General Assembly, the large-scale expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians began. Zionist militias escalated violence and terror against Palestinian civilian, murdering and wounding hundreds of people.
By the end of 1947, Zionist militias had already expelled almost 75,000 Palestinians from their homes.
March 1948: Zionist leadership approves Plan Dalet
On March 10, 1948, Plan Dalet, or Plan D – the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine – was approved by the Zionist leadership. The plan laid out detailed plans for offensive attacks against specified Palestinian communities which should be targeted for ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces. These offensive attacks entailed “the destruction of the Palestinian Arab community and the expulsion and pauperisation of the bulk of the Palestine Arabs, calculated to achieve the military fait accompli upon which the state of Israel was to be based.”
Plan Dalet called for:
“Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously…“
“Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”
Three quarters of all Palestinians, around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes and made refugees in order to facilitate Israel’s establishment. Palestinian’s homes, land, and other belongings were systematically destroyed or taken over by Israelis, while they were denied the right to return or any sort of compensation.
From April 1948, expulsions and massacres of Palestinians under ‘Plan Dalet’ accelerated and became systematised. On April 9, Zionist terrorist groups (led by the Irgun and Lehi militias and supported by the Haganah and Palmach militias) attacked the village of Deir Yassin. More than 100 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and elderly people, were massacred. Some of the victims were raped, mutilated, and publicly paraded on trucks before being murdered.
News of the Deir Yassin massacre spread rapidly, sowing terror amongst Palestinian communities and forcing Palestinian’s to flee their homes in anticipation of further violence and brutality against civilians by advancing Zionist forces.
May 1948: State of Israel declared & the Arab-Israeli war begins
By early May, between 250,000 to 350,000 Palestinians had been forced from their homes and displaced as refugees within their own country by Zionist terrorist militias.
On May 14, Ben-Gurion and the Zionist leadership unilaterally declared the state of Israel. The next day, the British withdrew the last of their soldiers.
On June 11, a 28-day truce began. It was brokered by Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the UN as a mediator. During the lull in fighting, the Israeli military carried out the large-scale, systematic destruction of Palestinian villages that had been ethnically cleansed earlier in the year. When the truce expired, the military resumed its expulsions and massacres of Palestinians.
July 1948: The Lydda Massacre & Death March
On July 9, the Israeli army began an assault on the city of Lydda. During the attack, Israeli soldiers massacred some 400 Palestinians, including between 175 and 250 men who were killed inside a mosque they had been detained in.
Following the Lydda massacre, Israeli soldiers expelled some 70,000 Palestinians from the city and nearby Ramla, in what became known as the “Lydda Death March.” It was one of the largest single instances of ethnic cleansing carried out during the Nakba. As many as 350 – 500 Palestinians died from thirst and exhaustion, the majority of whom were children and elderly people.
September 1948: Lehi assassinates UN mediator
On September 17, members of the Lehi (Stern Gang) terrorist group murdered the UN-appointed mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, along with a French officer, in order to block a UN plan to place Jerusalem under international administration and efforts to facilitate the Palestinian’s right of return.
The assassination was approved by Lehi’s 3 person leadership, including future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. No one was ever charged for their murders and the Israeli government granted amnesty to all Lehi members shortly afterwards
Dec 1948 – Jan 1949: Right of return
In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 calling for Palestinian refugees to be allowed to exercise their legal right to return.
The Palestinian right of return has been affirmed repeatedly by the UN, including through UNGA Resolution 3236, which “Reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.”
In January 1949, the Israeli military established “free-fire” zones along Israel’s new frontiers to stop Palestinian refugees from returning home. In 1949 alone, more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed in these areas. Between 2,700 and 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli armed forces, police, and civilians in free-fire zones between 1949 and 1956.
February-July 1949: Armistice Agreements
Between February and July 1949, a series of armistice agreements ended the fighting between Israel and neighboring countries, although they technically remained in a state of war in the absence of a permanent peace treaty.
Expanding far beyond the proposed borders of the Zionist state delineated in the UN Partition Plan, by the time the Israeli military stopped its advance Israel was in control of 78% of Palestine. The remaining 22%, comprising the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, fell under Jordanian and Egyptian control, respectively.
Three quarters of all Palestinians, around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes and made refugees in order to facilitate Israel’s establishment. Palestinian’s homes, land, and other belongings were systematically destroyed or taken over by Zionist militias. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees remained in refugee camps, waiting to return home.
While the Zionist movement sought first and foremost to remove Palestinians from their land, it also tried to erase Palestinian heritage and culture. The overall objective was nothing short of an attempt to wipe Palestine off the world map.
1948 – 1967: ’48 Palestinians
Approximately 150,000 Palestinians remained inside what would become the borders of so-called ‘Israel’. Approximately 30,000-40,000 ’48 Palestinians were internally displaced within so-called Israel, prevented from returning to their homes, which were destroyed or taken over by Jewish settlers.
Between 1948 and 1966, ’48 Palestinians lived under brutal military law. ’48 Palestinians were forced into segregated ghettos with severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, freedom of speech and access to employment.
Between 1948 and 1967, Israel expropriated approximately 172,973 acres of land belonging to Palestinian citizens of the state.
Military rule was lifted for ’48 Palestinians in 1966. By that time, Israel’s apartheid regime has been firmly established and institutionalised. ’48 Palestinians continue to have their land stolen and homes destroyed, and suffer from widespread, systematic discrimination.
1948 – present: Israel’s apartheid regime
Following the ethnic cleansing of between 750,000 and 1 million Palestinian people from their homes and villages by Zionist militias during the 1948 Nakba, Israel began establishing legal frameworks for it’s apartheid regime to ensure a Jewish majority population was maintained. Laws established in the period following the Nakba include:
- Absentee Property Law (1950): a law which allowed the state to seize land from displaced Palestinians, preventing their return.
- Law of Return (1950) & Entry into Israel Law (1952): a law which grants Jewish people from anywhere in the world the right to immigrate to so-called ‘Israel’ and gain automatic citizenship, while Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to their homes.
- Israeli Citizenship Law (1952): Depriving Palestinian refugees and their decedents of citizenship and all rights in their country.
It is nearly impossible for Palestinians to attain permits to build new homes or apartments and Israel destroys those that are built without permission, a practice particularly prevalent across the illegally occupied West Bank.
Palestinians are systematically forced from their homes and villages as homes are seized or destroyed by Israeli forces and Zionist settlers are moved into ethnically cleansed villages. Settlers carry out extreme violence against Palestinians across the West Bank and commit murder with no consequence. They
“Israel has established and maintained an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis – a system of apartheid – wherever it has exercised control over Palestinians’ lives since 1948. Amnesty International concludes that the State of Israel considers and treats Palestinians as an inferior non-Jewish racial group. The segregation is conducted in a systematic and highly institutionalized manner through laws, policies and practices, all of which are intended to prevent Palestinians from claiming and enjoying equal rights to Jewish Israelis within the territory of Israel and within the [occupied Palestinian territories], and thus are intended to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people.”
June 1967: The Naksa (setback)
After years of Israel’s constant provocation of its neighbours through raids, bombings, and violations of UN resolutions, Israel launched an offensive attack against several states in the region, primarily Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
The 1967 war expanded upon what Israel had been started with the Nakba of 1948 and it’s 1956 war where Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt in an attempt to overthrow Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser after his government nationalised the Suez Canal. Israel’s offensive attack caught Egyptian forced by surprise, leaving nearly all of Egypt’s air force destroyed.
After 6 days of war, on the 11th of June 1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The 1967 war was a clear continuation of Israel’s wars against the region to continue it’s settler colonial expansion. Following the June 11 ceasefire, Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and began its ongoing illegal occupation of the remaining Palestinian territory – the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.
During and after the June 1967 war, Israel forcibly expelled a further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. Approximately 175,000 of those Palestinians were made refugees for the second time.
Australia’s Future Fund
The Future Fund is an Australian Government investment fund, also known as Australia’s sovereign wealth fund. Established in 2006, the Future Fund describes its main objective as being ‘to strengthen the Commonwealth’s long-term financial position’.
The Future Fund invests public money (tax payer money) on behalf of the Australian Federal Government, claiming to invest “for the benefit of future generations of Australian’s”.
In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes. Thousands were massacred. Land was stolen. This was the beginning, but Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, illegal occupation, and apartheid regime continues today.
Australian public money is paying for it.
Australia’s Future Fund is worth $350 billion and is supposed to safeguard all of us.
Currently, $260 million of the fund is invested in weapons companies perpetrating a genocide and human rights abuses in Palestine.
The Future Fund has investments in companies including Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Israeli banks which finance the demolition of Palestinian homes. Australia’s Future Fund holds hundreds of millions in companies which profit from the genocide of Palestinians and the destruction their homes and land – the same dispossession that wiped 530 villages off the map in 1948 continues today.
Our future can’t be built on death, destruction and ethnic cleansing. It’s time to stop the flow of Australian money to Israeli weapons. Recognition isn’t enough. The Future Fund must divest.
The Nakba is now, and until our politicians act, we’re all paying for it.
Nakba is Now. Divest. Sanction. Resist
Australia’s Future Fund must end it’s investment into Israeli genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation.
Read more about the key divestment targets for Australia’s Future Fund:
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $8,658,722.00 into Elbit Systems.
Elbit Systems is an Israeli weapons company that manufactures munitions, combat vehicles, drones, electronic warfare systems, cybersecurity technology and other surveillance systems. Elbit is Israel’s primary weapons supplier and largest private weapons manufacturer.
Elbit weapons have repeatedly been used against Palestinian civilians, resulting in numerous casualties and the mass destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water and electric systems. Many recorded incidents linked to Elbit weapons or materials are considered war crimes:
- In 2015, an Elbit bomb was used to strike a home in Khan Younis, killing nine people, including six children.
- In April 2024, an Elbit drone attacked three World Central Kitchen vehicles in central Gaza, killing seven aid workers including one Australian.
- In a 2006 Lebanon bombardment, an Elbit drone killed over 1,100 people, about a third of them children.
- Elbit tanks have also been used in Gaza operations, including firing at the border in 2020, at protesters during the 2018 Great March of Return, and in earlier assaults in 2012 and 2014. They have also supported demolitions of homes and farmland.
The construction of Elbit’s corporate factories on occupied Palestinian land has contributed to significant forced displacement, including in Ramat Beka in Naqan/Negev, displacing 36,000 Palestinians with the demolition of over 2000 buildings including 1200 Palestinian homes.
Elbit is also the primary supplier of surveillance systems used on the apartheid wall, considered illegal under international law, to monitor and surveil Palestinians.
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $13,616,886.00 into Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin is a US weapons company. As of 2022, it is the largest military contractor in the world.
Lockheed Martin provides the Israeli Air Force with F-16 and F-35 war planes, missiles, sensor and radar warfare technology, and rocket systems. For years, these weapons have repeatedly been used against Palestinian civilians, resulting in numerous casualties as well as mass destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water and electric systems.
- Throughout the Gaza genocide, F-35s have been repeatedly used by Israeli Forces in airstrikes in Gaza, including in designated safe zones killing tens of thousands of civilians.
- Lockheed Martin fighter jets and missiles have been used in airstrikes against Palestinian civillians in 2008/9, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2021.
- In 2024, Lockheed Martin missiles were used in the attack killing World Kitchen aid workers, including one Australian.
Lockheed Martin was directly named in United Nations From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide Report in July 2025. It was also named in a statement from UN in June 2024 directly calling out the companies complicity in genocide, amidst calls for an end of the transfer of weapons to Israel.
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $165,307,100.00 into Palantir.
Palantir is a US company developing AI software that supports large-scale data analytics and decision-making processes for military and other government agencies. Shortly after Israel’s genocide in Gaza commenced, Palantir entered into a partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Defense to assist with the ‘war effort’. The IDF subsequently used Palantir tools during multiple raids in Gaza.
Palantir was also involved in the September 2024 attacks in Lebanon using exploding electronic pagers and radio devices, which killed dozens and wounded thousands of people including at least a dozen civilians. The attacks were condemned by United Nations experts as a “terrifying violation of international law” because of its indiscriminate nature and the ‘booby trap’ nature of the explosive devices.
Palantir has openly expressed public support for Israel during the genocide, more than any other non-Israeli company. In October 2023, it took out a full-page ad in the New York Times reading “Palantir stands with Israel”
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $31,498,111 into Bank Leumi Le Israel.
Bank Leumi is one of the largest banks in Israel. For decades, it has facilitated the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise by providing loans to construction projects in the occupied West Bank. Between 2017 and 2022 alone, the bank granted loans to multiple construction companies for building hundreds of housing units in at least seven illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including three neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.
The bank also finances commercial projects in illegal Israeli settlements, including the construction of a business park and the Design City shopping mall in two illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the Jerusalem Light Rail.
Bank Leumi operates branches in five illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and one in the occupied Golan Heights. It also provides loans and other financial services to several illegal Israeli settlement councils.
Because of these activities, Bank Leumi is listed on the 2020 United Nations Database of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $13,738,017.00 into Israel Discount Bank.
Israel Discount Bank provides financing and financial services to construction projects in the Israeli settlements, including the Heftziba’s construction projects in the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim, Har Homa and Beitar Ilit. It also provides mortgages to homebuyers in settlements: a mortgage for four homebuyers in Ariel (from 2003, 2008 and 2010) and three homebuyers in Alfei Menashe (from 2007), as well as mortgage services for a homebuyer in the settlement of Beitar Ilit in 2009.
The bank has branches in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and in East Jerusalem. Mercantile Discount Bank, a full subsidiary of the bank, has branches in the West Bank settlement of Beithar Illit and in East Jerusalem.
Israel Discount Bank was included in the 2020 United Nations database of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
As of December 2025, the Future Fund invested $27,047,934.00 into Bank Hapoalim.
Bank Hapoalim is one of the largest banks in Israel. For decades, it has been facilitating the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements by providing loans to settlement construction projects. Between 2019 and 2021 alone, the bank granted loans to multiple construction companies for building thousands of housing units in eleven illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including three neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.
Bank Hapoalim also finances infrastructure projects in service of Israel’s illegal settlements. For example, it led a consortium of financial institutions for financing the expansion of the Jerusalem Light Rail, a rail system that cuts through occupied Palestinian land and connects illegal Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem with the western part of the city. It also financed Superbus’s public bus lines that service illegal Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank. In the occupied Golan Heights, the bank financed the construction of an Enlight Renewable Energy wind farm, which services at least five illegal Israeli settlements.
In addition to financing construction, the bank also manages municipal accounts on behalf of illegal Israeli settlement councils, providing financial services to several settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory and Golan Heights.
Bank Hapoalim also operates at least seven branches in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and at least one branch in the occupied Golan Heights. The bank routinely provides mortgages to homebuyers in illegal Israeli settlements, facilitating the move of more Israelis there.
This bank was included in the 2020 United Nations database of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Future Fund has $260 million invested in these 5 companies alone.
| Company Name | Future Fund Investments |
|---|---|
| Elbit Systems Ltd. | $8,658,722.0 |
| Lockheed Martin Corp. | $13,616,886.00 |
| Palantir Technologies, Inc. | $165,307,100.00 |
| Israeli Banks | |
| Bank Leumi Le Israel | $31,498,111.00 |
| Israel Discount Bank | $13,738,017.00 |
| Bank Hapoalim | $27,047,934.00 |
| Total Investment Holdings | $259,866,770.00 |
Take action with us this Nakba Day.
Use Nakba Day to engage with your community to educate and raise awareness about the ongoing Nakba Palestinians face. Take action to pressure our government to demand an end to the Future Fund’s investment into Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation of Palestinian and apartheid regime.
Take one of the following actions, or come up with your own plan.
1. Sign the Petition: Divest the Future Fund.
Add your name to our Divest the Future Fund Petition to increase pressure on the Treasurer, Finance Minister and Future Fund Board Chair.
2. Distribute leaflets in your community.
Distribute Nakba Day flyers in your community to educate raise awareness about the ongoing Nakba and the Future Fund’s investment in Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid regime.
3. Pass a BDS Council Motion recognising the Nakba.
Escalate political pressure by passing a motion in your local council that recognises the 1948 Nakba and it’s ongoing nature and commits to divesting from Israel in it’s procurement policy.
4. Attend a Nakba Day Rally.
Join a local Nakba Day action happing in your community.
