Today, May 15th marks 65 years since the Nakba (day of Catastrophe) the dispossession, forced exile and ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians from their land before and during the creation of the State of Israel.
Sixty five years later, Palestinians still face an ongoing Nakba as Israel continues to deny the right of return of displaced Palestinians and to illegally colonize Palestinian lands. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have now lived under a brutal Israeli military occupation for nearly 46 years in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and Palestines in Israel live under apartheid where more than 50 laws enshrine their status as second-class citizens based on their ethnic and religious identity.
More details here:-
http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-Database
Zochrot:- http://zochrot.org/en
an organisation which aims to promote awareness of the Nakba in Israel, has put together an activity creating a large scale map of the Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel. Participants are given cards that represent each of the villages destroyed, which are then returned to their correct location on a map. Participants can personalise their cards or decorate the map using chalk, coloured stones,stickers, ribbons etc. You can find more information here:- http://zochrot.org/en/content/were-map
Destruction of Palestinian homes
May 15 - 2012
Even the word 'Nakba' was banned by the Israeli Minister of Education in 2009, and was removed from school textbooks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayah said at the time that the word was tantamount to spreading propoganda against Israel. But the word Nakba is the term that about a fifth of Israel's population, the Palestinians use to describe this day.
This is the Palestines history, it is essential we should be allowed to talked about. It is it not wrong to question, when other regimes oppress, we question them too, we have a duty to critisize and condemn, when fundamental freedoms and rights are violated. Any state that acts aggressively is open to criticism. All human beings are entitled to human rights.
Today refugees are still waiting to have their homes and lands returned to them, after all these years, of living in camps, being displaced. Under daily occupation they are forced to daily endure the humiliation, demonisations, metered out to them Today illegal settlers and settlements still removing people from their homes, with seperation walls, humiliation and discrimination.Today the Palestinians world is still being stolen, as occupiers daily steal all that they possess, the tears of yesterday forge today's resistance.Israel to this day have refused to recognise the Palestinians right of return as expressed in the UN General Resolution 194, Article 11,
Information here:-.
http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
This is why I do not forget them and why many others like Stephen Hawkings last week are responding to the Palestinians calls for Boycott and disinvestment, questioning Israels continuing suffocation and elimination of the Palestinians society and culture.The Palestinians struggle for self determination has become one of the great international moral issues of our time. That is why it is important not to forget, and to realise too that Israels current policies make sure that for many Palestinians that the Nakba is still a living experience.
Many Palestinians still have a key on a chain around their necks. These are the keys to homes in Palestine which they were forced to abandon in 1948, 1987, or at any time since.
This is a narration without an end, untill opression is vanished, human rights restored, Gaza and the West Bank reunited, after 65 years of forced exile, return is their destiny.
A Tribute to the Depopulated Villages
and towns in the Nakba
A very IMPORTANT Map showing the massive destruction of Palestinian villages and Cities
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story1261.html
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