On Nakba day, March 15, the writer of this article participated in a demonstration in the North of Israel 14 km from the Lebanese border. We were a group of about 400 who tried to reach the border with Lebanon, but we were forced to stop by the police. We were allowed to demonstrate for one hour and were then attacked by the policy with tear gas about 10 of us suffered for hours from this attack and 22 of us were arrested. However compared to other Palestinians and the few Jews who participated in the Golan Heights, Ras Maroun in Lebanon and Gaza, the price we paid for the right to demonstrate for the Palestinian refugees to return was negligible.
Israel is doing everything to erase the memory of the Nakba. It removes the fact from the rewritten official books of history
The “Nakba bill”, proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu, requires the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events marking the Palestinian Nakba Day.
The second bill, which passed by a majority of 35 to 20, formalizes the establishment of admission committees to review potential residents of Negev and Galilee communities that have fewer than 400 families..
After the passing of the bill the Knesset erupted in riots as MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al), refusing to limit himself to the comparison of the bill to South Africa’s apartheid, mentioned the Wannsee Conference in which the Nazis decided on the Holocaust’s “final solution” – or the gassing of Jews.
However, following yesterday demonstrations and the cold blood murder of number of Palestinians, the name “Nakba” become familiar for many people around the world. The Nakaba (catastrophe ) refers to the 1948 founding of Israel when the Israeli army expelled between 700.000 to 900.000 Palestinians to create a capitalist state with Jewish Majority.
At least one Palestinian was killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark the “Nakba” were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a “buffer zone” – an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday
Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh in his speech said :.
“Palestinians mark the occasion this year with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine,”
At the same time acting on the Fatah-Hamas new agreement .Hamas tried to prevent the demonstrators from reaching the Buffer Zone. According to one of the demonstrators interviewed by Al Jazeera “Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area.”
AFP has reported that Israeli gunfire killed 12 people and wounded hundreds in MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights occupied in 1967, as Palestinians marched on Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria and Gaza in a mass show of mourning over the creation of the Jewish state.
Israeli army radio reported that dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence. The demonstrators carried key of their houses that Israel has destroyed or gave to Israelis following the mass expulsion of the Palestinians
IDF spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav “Poli” Mordechai described the incident in which Palestinians demonstrators crossed from Syria into Israel as an “Iranian provocation”
Israeli government officials have blamed Syria for “intentionally allowing hundreds of Syrian Arabs who called themselves Palestinians to cross into the Golan Sunday.
Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees.
There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel.
In the southern city of Hebron, 12 people were hit by rubber bullets fired by Israeli troops as an estimated 2,000 demonstrators held a protest, medical and security sources said.
One of the biggest Nakba demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah.
In Jeruslaem there were many clashes with the Police, following the murder of Milad Ayyash, 16, on Saturday morning in East Jerusalem’ killed by shots fired from the Beit Yonatan apartment complex, inhabited by Jewish settlers, in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. Palestinian demonostrators attempted take over Palestinian houses given to Jewish setllers in Shiekh Jerah called now by the settlers Moscowitz housing project.
The main chant coming from the Palestinian demonstrators was : The Palestinian people want to return to their land that Israel has stolen. Many held keys to their houses that by now have been destroyed or given to Jewish settlers.
In Jordan, six people were injured as police tried to stop 200 students from marching on the border, while in Turkey, about 100 demonstrators held a protest outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, AFP correspondents said.
It is clear that the Palestinian revolution that is pushed forward by the Palestinian youth is part of the Arab revolution that engulfs the Middle East. All the attempts to isolate the Palestinians and prevent a popular uprising could not prevent the courageous demonstrators from raising the need for a revolution ..
The events yesterday have shown any one with eyes to see and ears to hear that a key question of the so called Israeli-Arab conflict is the Palestinian right of return.
The Israeli government has defended the killing of the Palestinians who tried to return to their land stolen by Israel.
In reaction to the killing of unarmed Palestinians that took place on Israel’s existing borders on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was determined to defend itself and its sovereignty.
Netanyahu said that the Nakba Day protests were not about the 1967 borders, but rather about “undermining the very existence of Israel.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday that Israel Defense Forces soldiers succeeded in defending Israel’s sovereignty when Palestinian refugee demonstrators breached the border with Syria and attempted to cross the border with Lebanon.
Netanyahu is right on one point. The demonstrations yesterday were not for a Mini Palestinian state alongside Israel controlling 80 % of Palestine. It was for the right of the refugees to return to their land. Once the refugees will be able to return the majority of the people living in this country would be Palestinians. For this reason Israel will be ready to kill thousands and thousands of Palestinians in an attempt to prevent such an outcome, and as long as Israel will exist the Palestinian refugees will not be able to return.
Thus, history has phrased the question the following: Either the right of the Israeli to rule Palestine and not allowed the right of self determination of the Palestinians or the right of self determination for the Palestinians that negate the right of self determination of the Israelis on Palestinian lands as all Israel is stolen land.
While Israeli Jews can live in security and equality in A Palestinian workers state and the Jewish workers who will join the revolution will be part of the ruling class in a workers state. the continuation of the Israeli state means not only the killing of Palestinians and Arabs but that Israel is a death trap for the Israelis..The clearest case demonstrating this fact is the refusal of Israel to release Shalit by releasing 450 Palestinian political prisoners.
We in the Internationalist Socialist League in Israel( occupied Palestine) in a leaflet we distributed yesterday said::For the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands, the only solution is a socialist revolution that will create a Palestinian workers state from the river to the sea as part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.
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