**Please click here for video from www.panet.co.il.
***What happened to the people of Safuria?
Thousands of people converged Thursday on the land of Safuria to mark the anniversary of the Nakba and to demonstrate for the right of return of the refugees. The crowd included mainly Palestinian citizens of Israel, and some Jewish citizens. Chants included "Long live Palestine," "Gaza is Palestinian and Golan is Syrian," and "We are all one people" invoking the West Bank, Gaza and Arab countries along with the people of the Galilee, and "The White House is the biggest terrorist." Some people released hundreds of black balloons into the sky to fly over the 60th Birthday of Israel celebrations and barbecues to remind them of those who were forced out 60 years ago.
Safuria was a town that was cleared of its residents and destroyed in 1948. It was larger than Nazareth at the time of its destruction. Many of the descendants of the former residents of Safuria now live in nearby Nazareth, while others fled to refugee camps in the West Bank and surrounding countries. The Jewish community that now lives on the land of Safuria is called Tsippuri. Each year for the last ten years, these Nakba commemoration demonstrations in the Galilee have been at the site of a different destroyed village.
When I left the demo, I saw riot police waiting across the street. However they seemed relaxed and simply there to make sure no confrontations took place with the Jewish people celebrating in the field on the other side. Then, the next morning, I saw this image of Member of Knesset Wasel Taha:
I learned that after a couple hours of the demonstration, the police moved in, some on horseback, and attacked people with tear gas and sound bombs, brilliantly setting the fields on fire. My coworker was there with her small girls still at the time the police and army came into the crowd. My older daughter was so afraid. She never wants to go again, though I told her no, the police are just trying to make us afraid. There were people with blood, and smoke and bombs and gas. We are not used to this and we didn't expect anything like it. There had been no problem- the police and the army came in and made the problem.
Six youth were arrested, and more were injured at the close of what was an otherwise peaceful demonstration attended by whole families with small children:
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Nakba Demonstration in Safuria Attacked
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9 comments:
This is expected of the criminal and colonial zionists. Idiot who think that israel is a democratic country.
Let us intensify the efforts for the LOVE of Palestine. Do your part and perform your responsibility toward the Palestinian human rights. Silence is complicity, no actions means approval.
Mark you calendar for May 23-25 where we assert the Palestinian National rights. We will say it loud that we will never forget. Palestinians are the Key holders of peace. Join the thousands and strengthen the network of the thousands of activists. Express your opinion and let the many panelists know of where Palestine should go. Support our efforts to empower our community and assert the Palestinians right of return. Join the many Palestinian Americans and their supporters in Chicago commemorating the 60th year of the forced exile of the Palestinian people. Be pro active, ask questions to the Panelists and discuss the current event. We must empower ourselves and make a strong network for Justice, Peace and Freedom. Be pro active. Enough talks, Register on line.
So, uh... any comments today on the beginnings of civil war in Lebanon?
Let us intensify the efforts for the LOVE of Palestine. Do your part and perform your responsibility toward the Palestinian human rights. Silence is complicity, no actions means approval.
Mark you calendar for May 23-25 where we assert the Palestinian National rights. We will say it loud that we will never forget. Palestinians are the Key holders of peace. Join the thousands and strengthen the network of the thousands of activists. Express your opinion and let the many panelists know of where Palestine should go. Support our efforts to empower our community and assert the Palestinians right of return. Join the many Palestinian Americans and their supporters in Chicago commemorating the 60th year of the forced exile of the Palestinian people. Be pro active, ask questions to the Panelists and discuss the current event. We must empower ourselves and make a strong network for Justice, Peace and Freedom. Be pro active. Enough talks, Register on line.
How would you like the Palestinian right of return to be realized, and why -- as a relatively disinterested atheist observer interested in the spread of secular humanism -- should I support your vision over the typical two-state solution?
Well first, if you do some research for yourself you will realize that a two-state solution is not viable. Only when equal rights of all people based on the fact that they are human, not on what religion they are or what their father's and grandfather's names were, are realized. Why should a relatively disinterested atheist observer support the right of return of all world jews to israel, when it means the continual destruction of absentee property that is still by right belonging to people living horrible lives in refugee camps?
I would also add that one of the chants was, addressing Abbas, that "the Right of Return is not for sale." It doesn't matter what the end game is. Individual property rights are not something that can just be negotiated away or sold on behalf of those that held the property, especially by people that they didn't even have the chance to elect. One thing for certain is that no one is representing the rights of those in exile in any negotiations.
"The right of refugees to return is not only sacred and legal but also possible. Demographic studies show that 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. Ninety seven percent of the entire refugee population currently lives within 100 km of their homes. Fifty percent live within 40 km. While many live within sight of their homes."
http://al-awda.org/facts.html
I can tell you that the government tries very hard to develop absentee property that is currently undeveloped- planting trees, establishing national parks, establishing single families on huge amounts of land -all for the purpose of not only developing the land as Jewish Israeli, but also for the purpose of preventing the Arab areas that are remaining inside from expanding.
Spacially, accommodating a return on some scale would not be impossible. However the difficulty lies in the fact that allowing a return of people who happen to be Arab would harm the goal of maintaining an ethnically exclusive state for people who happen to be Jewish. They would just have to figure out a way to make that work-- oh! i know! equal rights under the law!
""Why should a relatively disinterested atheist observer support the right of return of all world jews to israel, when it means the continual destruction of absentee property that is still by right belonging to people living horrible lives in refugee camps?""
I view that as a means to an end, rather than a perfect end in and of itself.
I like it because Israel's existence supports the spread of secular materialist culture and liberal societal norms across the world. I like it because Israeli society is becoming increasingly disinterested in religion with each passing generation. I like it because the gender and relationship norms enshrined in most countries in the Middle East are under constant assault there.
If the Palestinians adopted the cultural norms on display in Israel, I'd be much more supportive.
You know what'd get my attention? Every year, assholes in Jerusalem of all the major faiths gather to protest the city's gay pride parade. If Abbas and the West Bank Palestinians were to say, "Hey guys, we're going to outdo the so-called 'progressive' Israelis, let's have a big gay pride parade in the West Bank!", I'd sit up and take notice.
Property rights are nice and all, but they're not absolute -- Promoting the right cultural norms on a worldwide scale is the important thing.
So you only are for the rights of human beings whose culture (or more accurately, your personal impression of their culture) you happen to like?
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