NOVANEWS
by Mazin Qumsiyeh
3 July 1919: Syrian Arab Congress (attended by 15 delegates from Palestine)
emphasizes Arab Unity and rejection of colonialism.
July 1920: The World Zionist Organization meeting in London establishes a
new financial arm to raise money called Keren Hayesod. Since then
donations were collected from Jews around the world to help dispossess the
native Palestinians to transform Palestine to a Jewish state.
13-14 July 1922: General strike throughout Palestine opposing the British
occupation and the Zionist project.
14 July 1920: France demanded that King Faisal in Damascus end conscription
and surrender his garrisons to French troops. He was forced to concede
against the wishes of his people, but the French still betrayed him and
forced him out of Damascus
24 July 1922: The League of Nations voted to approve the British Mandate of
Palestine formalizing complicity of Western powers in the rape of Palestine.
22 July 1946: A Jewish Zionist underground group blow-up the King David
hotel in Jerusalem housing also the British civil administration. The bomb
killed 28 British, 41 Christians and Muslim Palestinians, 17 Jewish
Palestinians, and 5 others while injuring over 200. This was in a string of
terrorist attacks from underground forces whose leaders later became
Israeli Prime ministers (Shamir, Begin etc).
9 July 1948: Start of Israeli operations labeled Dani and Dekel that broke
the truce and continued the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages and
towns
24 July 48: Ijzim massacre by Zionist forces and the ethnic cleansing of
the village. http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/Ijzim/ (and click on
pictures)
31 July 1951: Israeli High Court of Justice, ordered the Israeli military
to allow the villagers of Iqrith to return to their village. To this day
this order has not been implemented because Israel did not want to set a
precedent of villagers allowed to return (even if these are technically not
refugees).
July 26, 1956: Despite imperialist and Zionist threats, Egypt nationalized
the Suez Canal.
6 July 1958: Palestinian conferences were held simultaneously in Nazareth
and Akka and were attended by about 120 Palestinians (40 others were placed
under house arrest, preventing their participation). This heralded the
beginning of organized political structures among Palestinians in the 1948
areas after the Nakba.
July 16, 1958: American Marines landed in Lebanon, to begin a string of US
invasions of Arab countries.
July 18, 1958: Iraqi people overthrow the British installed Hashemite
dynasty
15 July 1963: General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW) founded in Jerusalem
July 25, 1967: Israel conducts a census of the occupied territories it just
conquered (WB, Gaza, Golan, Sinai). All people outside (students studying,
those who left because of eh attack, business people, others) are denied
return. 300,000 new refugees were thus created to add to millions created
earlier.
July 1968: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an
El-Al airplane. The new PLO under leadership of Fatah denounced the action.
July 11, 1970: Attempted assassination of Dr. Wadi Haddad, PFLP commander
in Beirut injring his wife and son.
July 23, 1970: President of Egypt Jamal Abdul Nasser accepted the Rogers
proposals for peace in the Middle East.
July 1971: Hashemite monarchy in Jordan drives the last of the Palestinian
guerrilla fighters from Jordan and consolidates its grip on power in this
country, home to the largest population of Palestinian refugees,
July 1971: The first Socialist Republic was declared in Sudan but quickly
crushed by dictators Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Moamar Qaddafi of Libya.
They restored Numeiry to power and instigated a communist/socialist
witch-hunt in the three countries.
8 July 1972: Famous Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani murdered by an
Israeli car bomb in Beirut
30 July 1973 Aref Al-Aref dies. He is a famous Palestinian leader
(including mayor of Jerusalem) and intellectual
5 July 1974: Palestinian leader in the 1930s, Haj Amin Al-Hussaini died in
Beirut
11 July to 6 August 1975: Hunger strike among Palestinian political
prisoners that heralded significant changes and set a precedent for mass
protest in Israeli jails; a form of popular unarmed resistance among
hundreds of others (see Mazin Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A
history of Hope and Empowerment, Pluto Press, 2011)
July 1977, President Jimmy Carter tried to convince the newly elected Likud
leader, Menachem Begin, to freeze settlement activity as part of the peace
agreements with Egypt. Instead, Begin allocated Ariel Sharon to the task
of drafting a program for accelerated settlement activity.
31 July 1985: The Israeli Knesset amended the Basic Law on elections by
adding that “A list of candidates shall not participate in Knesset
elections if any of the following is expressed or implied in its purpose or
deeds: 1) Denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of
the Jewish people, 2) Denial of the democratic character of the State, 3)
Incitement to racism”. This effectively bars any party that promotes
changing Israel to a secular and democratic state of its citizens from
running in the elections.
July 1987: Assassination of cartoonist Naji Al Ali (of Handala fame) in
London by the Israeli Mossad.
7 July 1988: First major raid on Beit Sahour because of its tax-revolt
during the intifada
30 July 1988: During the peak of the intifada (uprising of 1987-1991), King
Hussein of Jordan reluctantly ends the “unity” between Jordan and the West
Bank and declares that the PLO is responsible for that territory under
Israeli occupation.
14 July 1992: In the New York Times, Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Minister
(and terrorist) states: “The Jewish State cannot exist without a special
ideological content. We cannot exist for long like any other state whose
main interests is to insure the welfare of its citizens.”
July 2000: Camp David Summit brought on by US President Clinton and Israeli
PM Ehud Barak to force Arafat to accept apartheid as a final settlement.
9 July 2004: International Court of Justice rules that the apartheid wall
and Jewish settlements inside the West Bank including in Jerusalem are
illegal per international law and must be dismantled.
9 July 2005: Palestinian Civil Society Call to Action that includes call
for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel
July 2006: Israel war on the civilian population of Lebanon destroying many
villages and damaging infrastructure. US vetoes a UNSC resolution to stop
the aggression (the sole no vote at the Security Council).
July 2010: Israeli government under Netanyahu orders that archives that
were to be declassified after 50 years will remain sealed for another 20
years. These attempts at hiding dirty secrets including war crimes and
crimes against humanity of Israel’s formative years continue.
July 2010: Israeli forces demolish a Palestinian village in the Jordan
valley (Al-Farasiya), demolish other homes in other towns, and kills and
injures many Palestinians in a familiar ritual of occupation and
colonization done with western (especially US) support.
July 2012: In pre-election maneuvering, US President Obama and the US
congress decides to give more of US taxpayer’s money to Israel and his main
Republican Challenger declares illegally occupied Jerusalem as “capital of
Israel”. Both Republican and Democratic parties to receive each >$100
million in donations from Zionists (a cheap investment considering billions
that go to Israel yearly). Meanwhile Israeli forces cap the month with more
home demolitions and murder of Palestinians.
