May 14, 1948 - The British Mandate in Palestine, a colonial venture that betrayed European promises to the Arab leaders of the Hijaz made during World War I, officially ends. Israel is declared a state.
May 15, 1948 - A provisional Israeli government is handed power at the moment British formally end the mandate.
...the rest is history.
Israelis call May 15 Independence Day. Palestinians and Arabs call it al-Nakba, The Catastrophe.
It's all about perspective right?
But here's how the Israeli government celebrated their Independence Day, May 15, 2011 -
Daily Star - Israeli massacre at Lebanon border
Thousands of peaceful protesters came from Lebanon and marched to the Israeli border, with flags saying "We will return" and an adapted Palestinian version of the cry that's been used in all the revolutions of the Arab Spring - "al-shab yureed...al-'aooda ila filistine" "The People want...to return to Palestine!" They wore kuffiyehs and waved Palestinian flags. Some tried to climb a barbed wire fence, some through rocks from a distance.
The IDF responded by opening fire on the crowd with their automatic weapons.
They killed 10 people, including a fourteen year old boy, and wounded over a hundred.
Happy Birthday, Israel.
Reading the above article from the Daily Star, I'm struck by how prejudiced, hypocritical, enraged and hateful nearly every party quoted sounds. "The march aimed at reminding the new generation that out parents and grandparents were displaced from their land which was taken over by Jews," says one of the demonstrators. Saad Hariri, the recently resigned prime minister of Lebanon, is quoted talking about his "Palestinian brothers" and their right to a homeland, when his policies and his father's policies have helped keep those displaced Palestinians in Lebanon living in abject poverty in refugee camps for over 60 years. And the Israelis speak only with their bullets. You don't need a voice in the discussion when you have guns.
Here's The Economist's take on how the "Arab Spring" is effecting the Palestinian situation -
Here comes your non-violent resistance.
J Street and J Street U, which are usually so good at sending emails about all Israeli news, haven't been in touch yet. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami posted a statement on the website, saying "J Street is deeply alarmed by the serious outbreaks of violence in and around Israel" and calling on "Palestinian leader and the Israeli government to work to minimize further violence and casualties and to prevent further escalation" and calling on "President Obama to step forward this week with a concrete set of ideas and parameters for breaking the present diplomatic impasse." Read the full statement here - J Street reacts to violence in and around Israel.
It seems to me that the best way to "minimize further violence" is to demand in strong and condemning terms that the Israeli army stop killing peaceful protesters.
Egypt is opening its Gaza borders; Netanyahu is traveling to the US to gather support and make new deals; the Israeli government is doing what all the Western governments did in the beginning and putting the blame for these protests on Assad and Ahmadinejad, rather than allowing that maybe Palestinians, especially the youth, can think for themselves and have identified Israel as their enemy; Obama is feeling pressure to take a new stance on Israel-Palestine in light of the changes sweeping the Arab world and the world as a whole, and meanwhile the Palestinians are trying to ride the tide of the Arab revolutions, demanding that justice be served and fighting for their right to a homeland, a citizenship and their human rights - and apparently, their lives.
May 15, 1948 - A provisional Israeli government is handed power at the moment British formally end the mandate.
...the rest is history.
Israelis call May 15 Independence Day. Palestinians and Arabs call it al-Nakba, The Catastrophe.
It's all about perspective right?
But here's how the Israeli government celebrated their Independence Day, May 15, 2011 -
Daily Star - Israeli massacre at Lebanon border
Thousands of peaceful protesters came from Lebanon and marched to the Israeli border, with flags saying "We will return" and an adapted Palestinian version of the cry that's been used in all the revolutions of the Arab Spring - "al-shab yureed...al-'aooda ila filistine" "The People want...to return to Palestine!" They wore kuffiyehs and waved Palestinian flags. Some tried to climb a barbed wire fence, some through rocks from a distance.
The IDF responded by opening fire on the crowd with their automatic weapons.
They killed 10 people, including a fourteen year old boy, and wounded over a hundred.
Happy Birthday, Israel.
Reading the above article from the Daily Star, I'm struck by how prejudiced, hypocritical, enraged and hateful nearly every party quoted sounds. "The march aimed at reminding the new generation that out parents and grandparents were displaced from their land which was taken over by Jews," says one of the demonstrators. Saad Hariri, the recently resigned prime minister of Lebanon, is quoted talking about his "Palestinian brothers" and their right to a homeland, when his policies and his father's policies have helped keep those displaced Palestinians in Lebanon living in abject poverty in refugee camps for over 60 years. And the Israelis speak only with their bullets. You don't need a voice in the discussion when you have guns.
Here's The Economist's take on how the "Arab Spring" is effecting the Palestinian situation -
Here comes your non-violent resistance.
J Street and J Street U, which are usually so good at sending emails about all Israeli news, haven't been in touch yet. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami posted a statement on the website, saying "J Street is deeply alarmed by the serious outbreaks of violence in and around Israel" and calling on "Palestinian leader and the Israeli government to work to minimize further violence and casualties and to prevent further escalation" and calling on "President Obama to step forward this week with a concrete set of ideas and parameters for breaking the present diplomatic impasse." Read the full statement here - J Street reacts to violence in and around Israel.
It seems to me that the best way to "minimize further violence" is to demand in strong and condemning terms that the Israeli army stop killing peaceful protesters.
Egypt is opening its Gaza borders; Netanyahu is traveling to the US to gather support and make new deals; the Israeli government is doing what all the Western governments did in the beginning and putting the blame for these protests on Assad and Ahmadinejad, rather than allowing that maybe Palestinians, especially the youth, can think for themselves and have identified Israel as their enemy; Obama is feeling pressure to take a new stance on Israel-Palestine in light of the changes sweeping the Arab world and the world as a whole, and meanwhile the Palestinians are trying to ride the tide of the Arab revolutions, demanding that justice be served and fighting for their right to a homeland, a citizenship and their human rights - and apparently, their lives.
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