NOVANEWS
Living with the Nakba revisionists- our sunshine is not for franchise.
by Tim King
THE NAKBA REPRESENTS 63 YEARS OF ISRAELI OCCUPATION
(SALEM, Ore.) – Each year as we approach 15 May, Palestinians and humanitarians all over the world but particularly those in Palestine, observe the Nakba (Catastrophe) Day that marks Israel’s 1948 creation in historic Palestine.
This happened 63 years ago. Fleeing the events of the Holocaust in Europe, those behind the establishment of Israel displaced more than 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them into different Arab countries, the West Bank, Gaza, and into graves.
More than 500 historic Palestinian villages were razed during the Nakba and the destruction of private property in Palestinian hands continues frequently to this very day. This behavior of Israel’s led to almost five million Palestinians becoming refugees, many among them fully destitute,
Westerners regularly observe the tragedy represented by the Holocaust that wiped out human beings in Europe and Asia by the million.
There are endless movies, museums, school programs, and lists of resources for those who want to study the Holocaust and learn about this terrible time for Jewish people and many other cultures.
However in Israel if you seek to honor the Nakba event, the resources are limited to a pair of shiny silver handcuffs, though they might just use those terrible tie things that they like to bind the wrists of Iraqi citizens with.
Israel Rewriting History?
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
The ‘Nakba bill’ levies state fines against local authorities and state-funded bodies that organize or fund events commemorating the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s creation in 1948.
I agree that the numbers regarding the Holocaust could be different from what many claim, but nobody will ever convince me that it isn’t the most atrocious catastrophe in world history. There is no way to put our minds around that kind of cruelty, and we believe this because we have been educated, the facts and figures and images have made us all an indirect witness to the Nazi savagery.
The Israeli government is outlawing observation of the Nakba, and I have to say that the connections between Nazi doctrine and Israel’s politics are startling.
The obvious intent of this Israeli law is the denial of education, and let’s just come out and say it: a dismissal of facts.
But what Israel would like to throw to the wind, refuses to take flight. The Palestinians will no more let this history slide into obscurity, than the Jews let the Holocaust fade from our minds.
It typifies the disrespect that the Palestinian population there is afforded. It doesn’t amount to much. We already know that there are separate laws and roads and other governmental services for Jews and non-Jews, and that bigotry does not begin or end with the Palestinian Arabs.
Also in the gun sights of Israel ‘hasbara’ policy are Christians, and Jewish people who don’t subscribe to the madness of Zionism. (Zionist Jews believe that they have a right of return to Israel through Biblical prophesy, and it is ironic because they in turn deny Palestinians the right of return)
Matters like this should never arise. They frustrate and aggravate and fail to address responsibly or adequately, the terrible tragedy of the theft of Palestine, based on Israel’s establishment.
On the 23rd of March this year, Israeli media reported the Israeli parliament’s passage of two bills that ban events commemorating the Nakba and restrict residency in the Galilee and Negev.
The ‘Nakba bill’ levies state fines against local authorities and state-funded bodies that organize or fund events commemorating the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s creation in 1948.
The bill was criticized for vague language that prohibits any activity “which would entail undermining the foundations of the state and contradict its values.”
The bill, proposed by lawmakers from the right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, was revised from a three-year prison sentence to a fine of three times the event’s cost, which would double if it is violated again within two years.
That is not the only proposed change to existing law. A second bill establishes ‘admissions committees’ for communities of less than 400 families in the Galilee and Negev.
Ma’an News Agency writes:The committees are legally authorized to reject potential residents based on a number of criteria, including failing to fit in with the community’s “socio-cultural” character.
The bill was also revised from its original form, proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu and opposition party Kadima, in which its provisions were not restricted to the Galilee and Negev, nor a maximum size of 400 families. An amendment was added banning rejecting residents based on “race, religion, nationality or physical handicap.”
The Nakba bill was supported by 37 members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and opposed by 25, and the residency bill passed by 35 to 20.
The bills sparked furious debates on the Knesset floor, with United Arab List parliamentarians slamming the bill as racist and uproar over allusions to Nazi persecution of Jews, with Knesset member Uri Ariel of National Union yelling at UAL lawmakers, “Go back to Ramallah,” according to reports in the Israeli press.
After the bill passed, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel immediately filed a petition claiming the bill sanctions discrimination against Arabs, Mizrahi Jews, amongst others, referring to cases in which members of these communities were rejected by admission committees without explanation.
The following Sunday, more than a dozen Israeli intellectuals issued a statement criticizing the Nakba bill as against “the principle of separation of powers.”
