Palestinians Mark Their 1948 Uprooting With Sirens, Rallies, Launch Of Black Balloons

[Purveyor]

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinians marked the 60th anniversary of their displacement Thursday _ an annual ritual of mourning that turned even darker this year because of crippling internal divisions, diminishing independence hopes and the stark contrast to Israel's all-out birthday bash.

In the West Bank, rallies, sirens and the launch of thousands of black balloons were to commemorate the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

Underscoring the political divisions, Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers planned separate events, including a march toward a sealed Israeli border crossing.

This year's commemorations of what the Palestinians call their «nakba,» or catastrophe, comes at a time when hopes for a peace deal with Israel are increasingly dim.

Several months of negotiations have produced no tangible results, an Israeli prime minister weakened by a widening corruption probe is seen as unlikely to take daring political steps, and support for U.S.-backed Palestinian leaders seeking a peace deal is plummeting. The Palestinian economy remains stagnant, despite a massive injection of foreign aid, in part because of Israel's reluctance to ease its restrictions on movement and trade.

---EOE---

http://www.pr-inside.com/palestinians-mark-their-1948-uprooting-with-r589891.htm

[xchrom]

1. can't actually do it -- but -- recommend.

[Vegasaurus]

2. Notice how the political divisions among the Palestinians

even prevent them from unity on their "nakba".

If they can't come together on something like that, which should have universal agreement, or so we are told, we are to expect the factions to find unity on politics, religion, domestic problems or peace?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. US celebrations this weekend will also be marked with black (balloon) clouds.

I love the symbolism of the black cloud over the celebration.

A silent, but articulate, reminder of the price that was paid.

[notfullofit]

11. Why has there been

no TV coverage of this in the US?

[oberliner]

12. Where did this happen?

Where in the US were there celebrations marked with black balloon clouds?

[notfullofit]

13. I was

wondering the same thing myself. There has been no coverage of it that I have seen anywhere.
I did hear that in the UK the BBC was showing it from a very distorted anti-Israel point of view (typical of the BBC ofcourse).

[ProgressiveMuslim]

14. I attended such a rally today in Philadelphia. nt

[oberliner]

40. Thanks for the info

I think I found some details about the event online.

[Sezu]

22. All agressors who lose a war they started pay a price.

The Arabs are no exception. They shouldn't have tried war.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. Palestinians who were displaced did NOT start a war...

So why is it that you expect they should pay for something they were victims of?

[aranthus]

42. Of course they did.

The initiation of violence by the Palestinian street in December, 1947, is too well documented to ignore. The first organized attacks were by Palestinian groups against Israeli buses and convoys, and next by the Palestinian guerrilla army on Jewish settlements. Your argument is like saying that "Germany didn't invade Poland, the Nazi army did." It's the same false argument that's being made now about Hamas and Gaza. On the one hand, according to Jimmy Carter, Israel is supposed to negotiate with the "elected government" of the Palestinians, and on the other, it should not impose security measures on "the innocent civilians" of Gaza. You can't have it both ways. If the Palestinians want a state, then they have to accept the responsibilities of nationhood, including the responsibility for the wars started by their leaders.

[Scurrilous]

4. Palestinian Quilt Presents a Different Viewpoint

Creation of Israel Came At Great Cost, Some Say

<snip>

"One man grasped a large key close to his chest as a symbol of the compound his family was forced to flee 60 years ago. Another flipped through the pages of a tiny clothbound diary, stamped 1948. In it, his father meticulously noted the events occurring in Palestine: "A cloudy day. Critical situation . . . and all the people leaving the country."

These men and dozens of other Palestinians and Palestinian Americans who gathered on the Mall yesterday call the events of 1948 the nakba , the Arab word for catastrophe. Their event was organized as a counterpoint to the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel, celebrated nationally and in Israel last week, where President Bush joined in the ceremony.

To make way for Israel, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and more than 400 of their villages were destroyed, organizers of the event said.

"While people are welcome to celebrate the creation of Israel, it's significant and important for people to understand that in order for Israel to be created, the Palestinians paid a price for what happened," said Nora Hasan, a member of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. The event also was sponsored by Sharing Jerusalem, the Vineeta Foundation, the American Palestinian Women's Association and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The group gathered west of the reflecting pool, in view of the Capitol. The event was one of many held in more than 20 cities nationwide. Here, the group laid out a huge antique quilt, each square stitched with the name of a Palestinian village, the number of residents and the year it was destroyed.

A large map of Palestine was outlined on the lawn with a rope and dotted with flags that represented the villages.

The names of the villages were read as a bell tolled, and eyewitnesses, or the children of eyewitnesses, spoke about what happened in 1948."

more

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Do you say that about all displaced people, or is it just the Palestinians? n/t

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. Do you ever read what you post here? Is this truly how you wish to portray yourself? nt

[Vegasaurus]

8. Celebrating misery and playing the perpetual victim

has not served the Palestinians at all.

Honestly, do you think this perpetual victimhood and crying about all the ways they have been shortchanged is making their lives a single bit better?

Other refugees have moved on. They have no choice if they want to make something of their lives.

What happened 60 years ago is done.

Continuing to cry about it isn't making the situation any better. All it does is make the people angrier.

The best Palestinian leadership would be one that looks at the here and now and tries to improve the lives of the people, instead of promoting perpetual victimhood.

That is my opinion, coming from a long line of disenfranchised refugees from Russia and Poland. We moved on. So can the Palestinians, if they choose to.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

10. You will reap what you sow Veggie. nt

[Vegasaurus]

15. What have I sown?

I ask for the Palestinians to take responsibility for improving their lives, not to make terrorism and perpetual victimhood their entire national identity.

Other groups of peoples have suffered, some far, far worse than the Palestinians.

Many have been able to develop decent lives for themselves.

Isn;t a decent life better than one of misery?

I think the Palestinians could do the same, were there a will to do so.

[Violet_Crumble]

17. Apart from stupidity and hatred, not a lot else n/t

[Vegasaurus]

18. Spoken from the paragon of intellect herself nt

[Violet_Crumble]

21. It doesn't take any great intellect to see what's being sown...n/t

[notfullofit]

29. On the other hand,

I don't think the Palestinian people have been allowed to make a decent life for themselves, not with Hamas in charge.

[msmcghee]

9. I realize the narrative has great force in these parts.

However, the creation of the state of Israel caused no loss to the Arabs of Palestine. Not one Arab was expelled from their home or lost their property because of it. It's a lie that keeps getting repeated in this forum.

Many Arabs did lose their homes and property as the result of a war that was started by the Arabs to destroy Israel - as often happens in such territorial wars of conquest. The number equates to a little less than the number of Jews that were expelled from neighboring Arab / Muslim states in the region who lost all their possessions and sometimes their lives also as a result of that war.

The Arabs lost that war and therefore lost territory and the Arabs who left Israel lost their property that was left behind. The Jews won that war and they therefore acquired that property. Such arrangements have been going on for many thousands of years wherever humans have settled and battled over sovereignty and resources. It's never a good things when such wars happen but at least in this case, it was the side that started the war that lost it, which offers some small justice. They lost little territory overall as a consequence. However, those Arabs who left Israel for whatever reasons (and there were several reasons such decisions were made at the time) did end up losing their personal property because they were not given the right to return to Israel and claim it. I fail to see why that is such an unusual or unjustified outcome under the circumstances - especially since the Arab world has never stopped calling for and attempting to annihilate Israel and Jews who live there.

Just as it was in 1948, the Arabs would do well to get past their loss that was the result of Arab bad decisions and make the best of the situation that the Arabs created.

Let me ask you a question. If that war had gone differently and most of Israel's Jews at that time had been killed but some had managed to escape somehow, do you think the Arabs there today, who would probably be living in the houses that Jews had owned and built, and living under present-day Egyptian, Jordanian or Iraqi rule - would be offering the right of return and replacement of lost property to the millions of descendants of those Jews? Do you think they would be paying them restitution or kicking out the present Arab owners of that property to make way for them?

As an old Indian friend said to me one day when I asked how he felt about the way Native Americans have been treated by white men, "The white men and the Indians had a war, we lost".

Sometimes it's better to know when that happens and accept it and try to rebuild a future for your self in ways that would prevent such a future "catastrophe" - than to form one's national and personal identity around such loss.

[rockymountaindem]

16. While I'm solidly behind Israel in this situation

it's worth pointing out that plenty of nationalities originally based their identity on defeat/persecution, and some still do. The foremost among these groups would probably be the Serbs, but there are lots of other examples, such as the Poles and Irish. The Palestinians might not be doing the best thing for themselves by clinging to the memories of 1948, but they're far from alone in that regard.

[Vegasaurus]

19. 4.5 displaced people, living on the global dole

in perpetual refugee status, is hardly typical, even for groups which have suffered defeat and persecution.

How many more years? Another 60? Another 100?

[Violet_Crumble]

23. 'Global dole'?

I assume that's yr special way of referring to UNRWA. UNRWA operates only in the Middle East and it's main assistance is through education and healthcare. Why would anyone begrudge displaced people education and healthcare? As critical as I am of the US, it certainly doesn't share the 'global dole' line of 'thought' as it's one of the largest donors to UNRWA. Yon otu should also be aware that when it comes to other groups around the world who have been victims of displacement, assistance is still given to this day. It happens here for indigenous Australians where there are govt benefits for them specifically. Don't worry, though. The Pauline Hansons and Keith Windshuttle's of the world would refer to that as bludging and the dole as well :)

[Violet_Crumble]

20. It's not just nationalities, but minorities within nationalities...

I agree with you about Palestinians being far from alone in that regard. What I find telling in this thread is that the 'get over it!' mindset of some is only applied to the Palestinians. Because if they apply that to the Palestinians, they also have to apply the 'get over it' routine to indigenous Australians. There's a very similar situation here where our national day is commemmorated by indigenous Australians as Invasion Day. It started back in 1938 with the Day Of Mourning, though in later years it's Invasion Day commemmorations that have gained the most publicity. Yes, there are some Australians who carry on with the 'pity party' and 'get over it!!' routines, but they're the usual hateful types who claim that European settlement was a boon to the indigenous people, who weren't treated badly, blah blah blah.



Cry me a pity party, indeed!

When it comes to the Palestinians, they do have very real grievances that can't be brushed aside by telling them to get over it. Brushing their grievances aside would do more than anything else to fire up anger. What needs to happen as part of a resolution of the conflict is that there must be acknowledgements of past suffering, and then things can move forward. Unfortunately right now there's an ugly tendency on both sides to try to negate the others suffering, and this can be seen in some of the comments in this thread...

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

27. They are being told to get over remembering the wrongs done to them...

Neither RockyMountainDem nor myself said anything in our posts about assistance. We're talking about how it's normal for people who have been oppressed or displaced to commemmorate the past, and I've shown examples of how it happens in my country. Now, if the claim is that no-one is telling Palestinians to get over remembering the past, then posts like 'cry me a pity party' do show that people are telling Palestinians to get over it...

btw, claiming that Palestinian refugees are out to destroy Israel and want to take back every inch of Palestine is the stuff theatrics are made of. Not to mention it being hyperbolic and rather ugly in its attempt to negatively generalise a large and diverse group of people...

[msmcghee]

28. Really?

" . . nor myself said anything in our posts about assistance."

Then what's this?

VC: "I assume that's yr special way of referring to UNRWA. UNRWA operates only in the Middle East and it's main assistance is through education and healthcare. Why would anyone begrudge displaced people education and healthcare? As critical as I am of the US, it certainly doesn't share the 'global dole' line of 'thought' as it's one of the largest donors to UNRWA. Yon otu should also be aware that when it comes to other groups around the world who have been victims of displacement, assistance is still given to this day. It happens here for indigenous Australians where there are govt benefits for them specifically."

You're right about Rocky Mtn Dem however - since you are the one who brought it up.


VC: "btw, claiming that Palestinian refugees are out to destroy Israel and want to take back every inch of Palestine is the stuff theatrics are made of. Not to mention it being hyperbolic and rather ugly in its attempt to negatively generalise a large and diverse group of people..."

Maybe you don't know about this, but in democracies people elect their leaders and are then responsible for what those leaders say and do. I won't go as far as saying that Gaza is a true democracy but they did elect their Hamas leadership. Hamas is " . . out to destroy Israel and wants to take back every inch of Palestine . . " as they reaffirm in their statements and actions every day.

Therefore, it is reasonable and correct to say that Palestinians (as a society) agree with that because Hamas, their elected leaders, speaks for Palestinian society. Hamas certainly speaks for those Palestinians who live in Gaza - although they received many votes from WB Palestinians as I understand it.

On your main point: Do you really think anybody would be worried about black balloons if there were not rockets being fired into Israeli cities and towns every day. People are entitled to wallow in self pity if they wish - they are not entitled to kill innocent people because things didn't go their way 60 years ago.

[Violet_Crumble]

34. Go back and read the post you were replying to...

That's not the post you replied to. If you want to reply to posts in other parts of the thread, the way to do it is to go to that post and hit the reply button and reply, not go to another post about something else and reply there. Now, if you go back to the post you replied to, you'll see that neither RockyMountainDem nor I were talking about assistance...

No, it's not reasonable and correct to make generalisations about a scattered group of refugees because of what Hamas says, any more than it's reasonable and correct to do the same about Americans based on what the Bush administration says, or if Nutty becomes PM of Israel, to say it's reasonable and correct to claim that the population of Israel share his views....

As for yr last comment, it's not Palestinians who were displaced who are firing rockets or killing innocent civilians, nor are they wallowing in self-pity any more than Aboriginals here are.

[msmcghee]

35. I see you are wandering off into irrelevancies now.

But thanks for the insult free exchange. Hope we can have more of those.

[Violet_Crumble]

37. There wasn't anything irrelevant in my post...

If you think so, please point out what it was and I'll address it. When it comes to insult free exchanges, the ball's in yr court :)

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[msmcghee]

25. I'd offer the same advice to any people . .

. . who lose a war that they started and then spend many years wallowing in bitterness and self-pity. They will always claim they are seeking "justice" but in reality they are attempting to re-ignite and continue the same war using their past defeat in wars they started as justification. This should be obvious to anyone regarding the I/P conflict - even those progressives who have the ability to face the world as it is.

I'm all for compassion and letting bygones be bygones - but both sides have to desire that or it will just lead to more suffering and death of innocent people - a deadly morass that will never end.

I say it's time to end it. Enough is enough.

[rockymountaindem]

30. Well, there were multiple Polish uprisings after the final partition

They eventually succeeded. The Irish eventually succeeded in creating their own state. Whether the Palestinians want to stop now and take another offer or continue fighting hoping to establish their eventual state on the entirety of the land between the Jordan and the Med. is up to them.

[msmcghee]

31. Ireland was a land, a people and a nation . .

. . when Britain decided that an island that close and strategically critical to Britain's defense should be part of the Empire.

Israel was created under far different circumstances that had nothing to do with colonialism of a world power. It was created in stateless territory as a refuge for people who needed it. The proposal was for two states for the two peoples who lived there - since the Arabs made it clear they would not live in a state where Jews had equal rights as Arabs.

The Partition was a plan to provide self determination for both indigenous groups.

Comparing that to Poland and Ireland is a false analogy.

[rockymountaindem]

I'm not comparing the politics, just the mindset

I'm just trying to say that there are many groups both now and in the past who have based their nationalist zeitgeist on defeats (real and/or imagined) rather than on triumphs. That is what the Palestinians are doing and they're not alone. Whether or not that is a good idea for them is another debate entirely (I think it is not).

[msmcghee]

33. Thanks for clarifying. n/t

[Vegasaurus]

38. I agree with you

There can be no justice or righting what the Palestinians think is wrong.

The whole state of Israel is an injustice to them, and Israel isn't going away.

It's time for the Palestinians to wake up to the reality.

Their lives will improve immediately once they do.

[Sezu]

39. The problem with that is the religious aspect of Islam

which for most authorities in the area requires that "Muslim land," be reclaimed. So while secularists may face reality, the religious see israel's destruction as the will of Allah, thus a Holy War. It's doubtful that will change anytime soon if ever. Thank God Israel has a secular government, otherwise there wouldn't be a Gaza or West Bank via the law of the bible.

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[Scurrilous]

41. Rights groups accuse police of brutality during Nakba protest

<snip>

"Activists and Arab rights organizations are accusing the Israel Police of brutality against protesters during a procession marking Nakba day 10 days ago in a pilgrimage to the abandoned village of Saphoria in Tzipori.

Nakba day, meaning "day of the catastrophe" is an annual day of commemoration for the Palestinian people of the anniversary of the creation of Israel in 1948 (on the same day Israelis celebrate independence), which resulted in their displacement from their land.

At a press conference held Monday, the activists presented video footage and photographs showing police officers beating journalists and even smashing the head of one of the protesters who was already handcuffed and sitting on the ground.

The police officers and the protesters clashed toward the end of the procession. Officers fired tear gas grenades into the crowd, which, in turn, hurled stones at the officers and passing vehicles.

According to the Arab organizations, the conflict began when the police officers tried to steer the protesters, who were carrying Palestinian flags, away from the shoulder of the road. Eye witnesses told Haaretz that this occurred after several verbal requests to stay away from traffic went unheeded.

Thirteen Israeli Arab citizens were arrested in connection to the clashes at the demonstration, and they were all later released without charges. In the remand hearing of the one of the detainees, the court rejected police allegations that Saada Abu Hatoum hurled stones at police officers before he was arrested, saying that a video tape presented by Abu Hatoum's representatives disproves the police claims. "This tape refutes the version presented by the petitioners and therefore I don't think that there is sufficient suspicion to justify his arrest," the judge wrote."

more


Arab rights organizations to sue police for Nakba riots

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3545296,00.html

Arab groups claim they have proof of incitement by police present at Nakba assembly turned riot, which resulted in several officers, protestors injured. Police blatantly breaking law, they say

<snip>

"Ten days after the clashes that took place during the Nakba (Palestinian day of mourning for the 1948 events that led to the establishment of the State of Israel), the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Arab Human Rights Association (AHRA) are claiming that police acted unlawfully and attempted to instigate a riot during the day's demonstrations.

The two organizations plan to demand that the Police Internal Affairs Bureau investigate several senior Northern District officers. Adalah also said they would bring civil suits against the officers that caused harm to demonstrators or their property.

"Israel Police has forgotten what criminal recourse is, breaking virtually every section of the statute," said attorney Orna Cohen of Adalah, said Monday.

Hundreds of people participated in the Nakba assembly at Tzippori junction, during which violent clashes developed between police and demonstrators. Five police officers were wounded, as were some of the demonstrators, among them Knesset Member Wasil Taha (Balad)."