Palestine: 68 Years On

Via: 1948: LEST WE FORGET.

Sixty eight years ago to this day (29 November 1947), the UN committed an act which no other similar organisation, under any law, would be allowed to do then, or today.

Like a great legal world body ruling the world and throwing its weight around to achieve justice soon after the end of WW2 – and only 2 years and 2 month after this world body (made up of 50 nations) came officially into existence, it perhaps needed to show some muscle and that it can exercise power over an issue which had been created by the world Zionist bodies and their allies; an issue so far away from the shores of New York where the UN stood, and where the Zionist lobbies practiced their tricks and used their power to twist arms and influence governments for the single most important of their objectives: the creation of the State of Israel on the land of another people.

So, the UN obliged them with UN Resolution 181 on the 29th November 1947 which resulted in splicing my country in half against my will and the will of my Palestinian brothers and sisters. With that single most criminal act, it was planting the seeds for a conflict that has been raging ever since and which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the dispossession of 750,000 indigenous Palestinians.

Even before the so-called State of Israel was established in May 1948, less than 6 months after that criminal act by the UN was committed, more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed, or literally erased from the Palestinian landscape.

This crime, christened by a body which has failed ever since to establish peace on this planet, was carried out by the same Zionist gangs whose ascendants have ruled this so-called State ever since 1948.

The western nations pamper this so-called State, and defend its actions no matter how gruesome they have become and claim it to be the only democracy in the Middle East.

Slogans, peace processes, ‘international agreements’ and shuttle diplomacies, will never alter the single most important fact about Palestine: Its land and its people are one; its historic boundaries are sacrosanct; its struggle for over 68 years will never be compromised by political manipulation and the just cause of our Nakba children will remain the hope and the light during their struggle to rid their land of the Zionist gangs.

All the so-called political dealings presumed to be aiming for a just solution, back then, and even today, will never achieve their objectives because their single core objective is the preservation of this colonial-settler Zionist State.

We have struggled for over 68 years – longer than any people in modern times; we have withstood the most powerful assaults by the 4^th largest military machine in the world; we have remained resilient under the most criminal, inhumane and brutal occupation (and that means the occupation of all of historic Palestine – not only the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza); if anyone needs proof that a just struggle is a winning one, take a look at the Palestinian people today.

Antoine Raffoul
Coordinator 1948: LEST WE FORGET

U.S. Wars and Aggression. Naji al-Ali

U.S. Wars and Aggression. As Naji al-Ali Saw It.

Naji al-Ali wrote: “The child Handala is my signature, everyone asks me about him wherever I go. I gave birth to this child in the Gulf and I presented him to the people. His name is Handala and he has promised the people that he will remain true to himself. I drew him as a child who is not beautiful, his hair is like the hair of a hedgehog who uses his thorns as a weapon. Handala is not a fat, happy, relaxed, or pampered child, he is barefooted like the refugee camp children, and he is an ‘icon’ that protects me from making mistakes. Even though he is rough, he smells of Amber. His hands are clasped behind his back as a sign of rejection at a time when solutions are presented to us the American way. Handala was born ten years old, and he will always be ten years old. At that age I left my homeland, and when he returns, Handala will still be ten, and then he will start growing up. The laws of nature do not apply to him. He is unique. Things will become normal again when the homeland returns. I presented him to the poor and named him Handala as a symbol of bitterness. At first he was a Palestinian child, but his consciousness developed to have a national and then a global and human horizon. He is a simple yet tough child, and this is why people adopted him and felt that he represents their consciousness.”

Read more about Naji al-Ali.

Video Info:
Art by Naji al-Ali.
Palestinian Folklore Song by May Nasr.
Editing: Palestine Diary.

Palestinians in Shatat Say NO to Resumption of Negotiations: Sign On

The following statement was initiated by Palestinian activists in North America:

SIGN ON: Email NoToNegotiations@gmail.com or use the form: http://bit.ly/NoToNegotiations

We, the undersigned Palestinians and Palestinian organizations in shatat and exile, write today to express our firm opposition to the resumption of bilateral Israeli/Palestinian negotiations under U.S. auspices in Washington DC, today, July 29.

For twenty years, the negotiations have not served Palestinian interests. Through countless sessions of futile negotiations, Israeli settlement construction has escalated, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are held behind bars and Palestinian rights – including Palestinian refugees’ right to return – are no closer to implementation. While the Netanyahu government is planning the massive dispossession of Palestinians in the Naqab via the Prawer Plan, the negotiations serve only to provide a thin veneer of legitimacy to the aggressive policies of Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Our rights – the rights of the Palestinian people – and our land – the entire land of Palestine – are not for sale or bartering at the negotiations table. That this process is presided over by the United States government, which provides $3 billion annually in military aid to Israel, and specifically by Martin Indyk, former research director at infamous Israel lobby organization the America Israel Public Affairs Committe, only adds insult to injury and makes clear that these negotiations will bring nothing of value or benefit to the Palestinian people.

Today, we say: PA President Mahmoud Abbas does not represent us! Our rights cannot and will not be bargained away at a negotiating table in Washington, DC.

Instead, we affirm that the Palestinian people are one people and our cause is one cause. Our people have struggled for 65 years in order to achieve the liberation of the land and people of Palestine and the implementation of the right of Palestinian refugees to return their homes.

As Palestinians in shatat/diaspora, we are not being represented here, and we demand to reclaim our voice and role. We do not accept these negotiations, and our rights, our people and our land are not for sale!

SIGN ON: Email NoToNegotiations@gmail.com or use the form: http://bit.ly/NoToNegotiations

Initiating Signatories

Al-Awda NY – Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Canada Palestine Association
Canadian Students’ Coalition for Palestine
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Students for Justice in Palestine at Florida Atlantic University
Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College
Students for Justice in Palestine at Hunter College
Students for Justice in Palestine at College of Staten Island
Students for Justice in Palestine at John Jay College
Toronto Students for Justice in Palestine
US Palestinian Community Network
Voice of Palestine

Abdullah Khalifeh, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Amani Barakat, Moorpark, California
Amer Taha, Houston, Texas
Amin Husain, New York City
Aya Dama, London
Dr. C. Nureddin Awad, Cuba
Cynthia George Taha, Bellingham
Dina Omar, New Haven, CT
Fadi Shbita, Montreal, Canada
Falastine As-Saleh, Palestine
Faten Toubasi, Toronto, Canada
Feras Al-Hefnawi, USA
Fuad Abboud, Calgary, Canada
Ghada Talhami, Evanston, Illinois, US
Ghasan Taha, Bellingham
Ghassan Al-Sahli
Gihad Ali, Chicago, IL
Haitham Salawdeh, Wauwatisa, WI
Hanaa Yosef, Lebanon
Hanna Kawas, chairperson, Canada Palestine Association and co-host, Voice of Palestine
Hatem Abudayyeh, Chicago, IL
Hazem Ghanam, Coquitlam, BC, Canada
Ida Audeh, Colorado
Imad Shalbak, Bayshore, NY, USA
Issam Al-Yamani, Toronto, Canada
Jadallah Safa, Brazil
Khaled Barakat, Vancouver, Canada
Lamis J. Deek, J.D., NY/ Huwarra Nablus Palestine
Marsilio Salem
May Abboud, Bethesda, MD, USA
Mazin Al Nahawi
Monadel Herzallah, California
Nahla Abdo, Canada
Rabab Abdulhadi, California
Rajai Ghattas, Vernon, BC, Canada
Rami Alsaqqa, Vancouver, Canada
Randa Kamal, San Francisco, California
Rena Zuabi, Palestine
Sabrina Azraq, Toronto, Canada
Salma Abu Ayyash, Cambridge, MA
Sana Ibrahim, USA
Suleiman Hodali, Los Angeles, CA
Talal A. Kanaan
Yara Erian, London, Ontario
Yasmeen Daher, Montreal, Canada
Ziyad Zaitoun, Seattle

Al Nakba and Canada

By: Mazin Al Nahawi.

It is a shame that John Baird and his boss Stephen Harper haven’t learned yet from Canada’s colonial past.

For over a century, the Palestine question has been described as the most complex political issue of our modern time. A very “complicated” equation that after a half of a century of Zionist colonization to set up and establish a colonial “Jewish state” in Palestine, a mathematician, none other than Einstein himself, had something to say about the crimes committed in his name as a Jew, and in the name of Judaism.

In a letter by Einstein to the Zionist, Shepard Rifkin, executive director for “American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”, dated April 10, 1948 (the date is very important, it’s only a month before the illegal creation of the Zionist state in Palestine.)

Mr. Shepard Rifkin
Dear Sir:
When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks.
I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed, ‘A. Einstein’)

It didn’t require more than three lines to solve this “complex” matter, and it seems that Einstein was very confident in naming the culprits for the “catastrophe in Palestine”, as he precisely described it.

One month after that letter, the Palestinian Arabs began to call the day of the creation of the Israeli occupation state, which consisted of the robbery of their homeland and existence as AL NAKBA (Cataclysm or Catastrophe). That was 65 years ago.

When Israeli Denial of Palestinian Existence Becomes Genocidal

Via: The Electronic Intifada.

By Ilan Pappe.

In a regal interview he gave the Israeli press on the eve of the state’s “Independence Day”, Shimon Peres, the current president of Israel, said the following:

“I remember how it all began. The whole state of Israel is a millimeter of the whole Middle East. A statistical error, barren and disappointing land, swamps in the north, desert in the south, two lakes, one dead and an overrated river. No natural resource apart from malaria. There was nothing here. And we now have the best agriculture in the world? This is a miracle: a land built by people” (Maariv, 14 April 2013).

This fabricated narrative, voiced by Israel’s number one citizen and spokesman, highlights how much the historical narrative is part of the present reality. This presidential impunity sums up the reality on the eve of the 65th commemoration of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine. The disturbing fact of life, 65 years on, is not that the figurative head of the so-called Jewish state, and for that matter almost everyone in the newly-elected government and parliament, subscribe to such views. The worrying and challenging reality is the global immunity given to such impunity.

Peres’ denial of the native Palestinians and his reselling in 2013 of the landless people mythology exposes the cognitive dissonance in which he lives: he denies the existence of approximately twelve million people living in and near to the country to which they belong. History shows that the human consequences are horrific and catastrophic when powerful people, heading powerful outfits such as a modern state, denied the existence of a people who are very much present.

This denial was there at the beginning of Zionism and led to the ethnic cleansing in 1948. And it is there today, which may lead to similar disasters in the future — unless stopped immediately.

Boston Bombings. By Mazin Qumsiyeh

Via: Popular Resistance.

At first I thought I should not comment on the Boston bombings as it is obvious that we in Palestine, under siege and regular bombardment would clearly sympathize with the victims. But then I saw the usual pundits on mainstream media trying to spin the tragedy to serve racism.

The Israeli Consul-General in Boston told the Jerusalem Post that “Boston is a very quiet and calm place, especially when we come from Israel…..Still, the Jewish community and the consulate are on alert and security has been increased”.  He speaks as if he represents Jews of Boston (and only them) and insinuates as usual that problems in Palestine (‘Israel’) are because of the native “Arabs” not because of the Zionist colonization.

CNN gave extensive time to the Zionist ex-congresswoman Jane Harman who claimed this terrorist attack is likely linked to AlQaeda Islamists while trying to connect herself to victims when she supports terrorism herself. Besides her appalling record in voting for more weapons and money to Israel to kill Palestinians, she was unashamedly more pro-Israel to the point of challenging US interests on several occasions.