Palestinian in Exile

Land Day
Today is Land Day. Thirty one years ago, Palestinian citizens of Israel went out in the thousands to protest Israeli confiscation of their land. On that day, 21,000 dunums were marked for confiscation from Arab owners to be transfered to the State in order to build Jewish Industrial villages, one of Israel's continuous attempts to shift the demographic balance in the Galilee. Although it is Illegal in any democracy for the Army to get involved against citizens (except in cases of National Emergency), The Israeli Army went into the Arab towns in Israel, Killed 4 of the demonstrators and the Police assisted it by killing two others. From that day in 1976, March 30th became known as the Land Day, and is commemorated widely by Palestinians inside Israel, West Bank and Gaza and abroad.The day is an opportunity to speak of the continuous discrimination Israel practices against its Arab citizens, particularly in the area of Land. In 1950 Israel passed the 'Custodian of Absentee Property Law- 1950'. As is the case with oxymoronic Israel, replace custodian by thief, and you get an understanding of the function of this custodian. Basically Absentees are defined as any persons who on the eve of the creation of Israel (14.05.48) were not in their original places of inhabitance. Any property these people owned, was transferred to the Custodian/Thief. As you might expect, no documented cases are available for such transfer of ownership affecting the Jewish citizens of Israel (how democratic!).Even Internally displaced people (IDPs) who are Arab and who were forced to leave their villages and take refuge in other villages/towns within the 1949 armistice lines were subject to this law. In common Arab political discourse these are known as the present absentees (another oxymoron), they compose around 200,000 citizens.To completely change the shape of the terrain. After the Custodian was created in 1950, Israel transferred the ownership of 3,000,000 dunums from the ownership of the Custodian/Thief to the ownership of the Keren Kiemit LiYesrael/JNF in 1951. The aims of this step were:1. KKL is not a government body, therefore it can use its property as it wishes and is not obliged to abide by equality between Jews and Arabs since it is at the service of the Jews. Transferring land ownership to it would mean that this Land becomes earmarked as "Jews-only" without it being considered state discrimination.2. As there was continuous pressure in that time for the Implementation of UNGA resolution 194, which calls for the return of the refugees to their properties, and was the main condition upon which Israel was admitted into the United Nations, Israel hastily created the custodian office, and hastily sold its property to the KKL in order to be able to claim that these properties are legally not owned by the state and therefor cannot be confiscated and given to their original owners.

The Case Against Israel
The Case Against Israel If you ever had the chance to get in an argument with a Zionist enthusiast, and if the argument takes an intellectual level, and if you both come to the importance of the most essential human values: freedom and justice, and if that Zionist is someone who reads, he is most likely going to suggest one book for you to read: The Case for Israel. To me, the book’s title sounds as if it was cut off one of the cheap tabloids you see at the news stands’ but never get to know their name. Anyway, since I used four, next to impossible ifs (for, as a Palestinian you are very unlikely to be in the same street as an Israeli Zionist- that’s illegal, it is very likely for any potential argument to take an intellectual turn, for the slurs and “terrorist”, “Al-qaida”, “Suicide bombings” and all this flow of useless labelling and attaching of the Palestinian struggle to international terrorism would make you want to end right there and then, It is highly unlikely that a Zionist enthusiast would have a clear understanding of what justice and freedom are so long as they don’t relate to Jews. I would not like to make the fourth generalisation, for I am sure Zionists read, it is just that so many of them are so indulged in that utter nonsense propaganda, which makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.) I want to move on to my main concern, the Case Against Israel.You see, nations exist by virtue of their belief of themselves as a nation. To me, there is no other determinant so long as a group of people decide to call themselves so. However, the right to a state of their own is different. Personally, I believe nation states were the worst development in Europe since the middle ages. The post-Westphalian political system, allowed for the establishment of such states that were totally unfamiliar to us in the East, it reinstated the concept of Cuius regio, eius religio a concept totally familiar to us in the East. However, that system considered the whole world to be centred in Europe, “Cuius regio, eius religio” only gave two choices: Catholicism and Lutheranism, the nation state sovereignty was only a European matter- from then on, colonialism fever swept across Europe like a plague of an unforgotten time. So Zionists took up the idea, as it suited them. The elites of the Jewish people in Europe found that their interests are best protected by a nation state of their own. So they embarked on creating a nation for their envisioned state. This quest, of course, found fertile ground in anti-Semitic Europe of the time. When they came to Palestine, there was no Palestinian state, that is true. It is also true that to a large extent Palestinian nationalism was only in its infancy. However, the people who nowadays consider themselves Palestinians were living on that land. They owned it, and lived of it, regardless of their way of life. Regardless if, in Europe, it was consider uncivilised to live as nomads, or to make a living almost absolutely of agriculture. Regardless, also, if these people have not got their way around colonising enough countries to steal enough cotton to create enough mills to constitute an industrial revolution. Regardless of everything, a group of people lived in Palestine. Of course, they were not satisfied with the Ottomans. They were not satisfied with the tax laws. The low educational attainment was not satisfactory. They were not satisfied with the almost feudal power of a handful of elite families. But they continued to live there.When the Zionists made their first arrivals in the late 19th century, these people lived and owned most of the land. The Zionists, who wanted a national homeland were oblivious to the existence of another people in the land. They established their yeshuv, literally, the settlement, a totally Jewish society that ran parallel to the existing Palestinian one. When the presence of so many Zionists with a plan to create a “Jewish Homeland” in Palestine became a visible reality to Palestinians (who by then considered themselves so), they had to demand assurances from the British that such a plan would not be implemented. Such demands took various forms, some were violent, others were not. However, there is no reason to assume that such protest is not apt. For in no custom, except in that of colonialism, did the ownership of less than 7% of the total land area entitle a people for national sovereignty over the whole land. The British were more Catholic than the Pope on this one. It was them who had earlier given the Balfour declaration, a promise to the Jews of Europe to National Homeland, in an area neither of them has control over or owns.So contrary to all customs and traditions in international relations, the Zionists established a state of their own, having constituted less than a third of the total population, they occupied more than three quarters of the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. To top it, they forced the displacement of over half the population of Palestine, and dispossessed them of their property. Not only that, but they gave this property a Jew-Only tag when it was hastily transferred to Keren Kiyemet LiYesrael- The Israel arm of the Jewish National Fund.Once Israel was established, and although it committed itself to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”, it continued to oppress its remaining non-Jewish citizens (Arabs) by enforcing Pass Laws, and stripping them of civil liberties and political rights.Israel has thus been established based on a colonialist supremacist ideology that viewed its main beneficiaries to hold a higher status than others. It was a primarily elitist idea created in 19th century Europe thousands of miles away from the place it sought to establish its state in. It was primarily established on the ruins of another society, and its current inhabitants, while might not be directly guilty of the massacres committed on their behalf, and while they might not support the current and ongoing crimes committed by their state, they continue to benefit of the plight of others. Israel continues to oppress a whole nation, on the assumption that Jewish need for a safe haven is far more important than that of the Palestinians.The nature of Israel, as a Jewish state, does not enable it to be even remotely responsive to the needs of non-Jews in its society.I think the question that begs to be asked is what does it say about a Nation and a Society that has been built on decades of occupation and to be blunt, as a jailer of another Nation?Don't mistake my question for anything other than what it is. I'm not Anti-Semite, and I state that because I know many tend to revert to that label as a counter-Argument. I am opposed to Zionism if it means achieving gains through pogroms and Aparthied style tactics. 60 years of propaganda have been tremendously succesful at obfuscating the truth That’s why, when I cry out loud that I don’t support Israel’s right to exist, I am not anti-Semitic. I am not a criminal or a terrorist. I am not calling to drive the Jews into the sea. I am only seeing what others refuse to see, what everyone else is turning a blind eye to. That is: Israel’s right to exist is primarily, and most importantly, its right to dispossess and oppress another people. And if you are really supportive of justice and freedom, then you also will renounce this right- it is not a crime to renounce what is rotten at its roots. That, simply, is my case against Israel.

Birds of a Feather

I am Not in the mood to write, but i Found the following breaking news headline on (AP):20:12 Bosnian Serb leader says wants Alan Dershowitz to represent him at The Hague for crimes against humanity and war crimes (AP)Alan Dershowitz is a Zionist American lawyer author of the book "The Case for Israel"Really, birds of a feather flock together!

Hebron
Hebron is know to be one of the most volatile areas in the West Bank. It is a microcosm of the other areas but what makes it so special is the fact that it portrays the real Apartheid picture of Israel. In Hebron, Arabs and Jews live inside the city. But to the radical Jewish settlers, it is not a sign of possible coexistence, but rather and attempt to steal property and intimidate the Palestinians.The most recent issue arising in Hebron is the takeover of a Palestinian building by Jewish settlers. This has happened frequently in Hebron. Settlers would intimidate, harass and attack Palestinians until they are forced to leave the old city which Israelis want to take over. In Hebron's old city, Palestinian residents have to live under continuous curfew while Israeli settler walk under military protection as they like.Anyway, the house in question is owned by a Palestinian family. Israeli settlers claim that they bought it, and they took it over. In a decent democracy, this would not happen, as there should be a due process to resolve such matters in courts. However, in the Jewish 'Democratic' State, the settlers get military protection while they perform their theft. Of course, you can't expect Apartheid to act against its own superior group.The picture shows what have come to happen to Hebron's old city. The once flourishing market, is not virtually all closed down due to constant attacks on the Palestinians shops in which these shops are burnt by settlers. You just have to get a small walk down the old city to understand what it is like. The "Movit li Aravim"(Death to Arabs) slogans are the slightest of the concerns of Hebron's Arab majority.

Remember this term for it will serve you well! Israel, "the oasis of democracy in the Middle East" and the country which will serve as a "light unto the nations" of this world, is setting new standards. A new bill is waiting to be passed in the Israeli Knesset would give the state the right to strip citizens of their Israeli citizenship for "committing acts which constitute a breach of loyalty for the state". The loose "breach of loyalty" term can, as initial reports state, mean visiting a country classified as an enemy country!Similar laws did and do indeed exist! For example, the eccentric Niyazov have enacted a law that stripped Turkmen-Russians of their citizenship. Previously, the Nuremberg Laws come in starking resemblence to the current laws of Israel. On the one hand, Israel has recently enacted a law which in effect is similar to "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour" which prohibited mariages between Germans and Jews. Current Israeli laws don't allow for Israeli citizens to live with their Arab spouses who are not citizens of the state. On the second hand, this new law, is in effect similar to the second Nuremberg Law: The Reich Citizenship Law.Of course, I will not forget to mention here the classic copy case of Apartheid South Africa, which Apartheid Israel is so deligently trying to imitate. For, in 1970, The Union of South Africa Adopted legislation which allowed for the revoking of SA citizenship from natural citizens.Erdan's Bill will come in serious violation of International Law, and in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 15 of the UDHR states that everyone has a right to a nationality and no one should be deprived of his nationality. Ofcourse, applying this law would leave many Arab Israelis without citizenship of any country in stark contradiction with International Law. However, this is only one out of 30 other articles in the UDHR that Israel will violate- why should people care now!

Today, the Israelis are embarking on the destruction of the Magharbeh Bridge which connects the Western Wall plaza to the mount on which The Noble Sanctuary is built. This is causing many condemnations amongst Palestinians an other Muslims who believe this to be a part of a continuing Israeli campaign of excavations which Muslims believe is undermining the foundations of the Aqsa Mosque, and fear might cause its collapse.This area is actually of particular importance because of another incident, almost fourty years ago. Then, much of todays Western Wall Plaza was not so empty, and many of the building that surround it were not there, you can tell so from the difference in architecture and stones used in most of the building of the current Jewish Quarter. These look significantly new, in contrast with the centuries old buildings in the other quarters of the Old City.In the four days that followed June 5th War in 1967, Israeli forces have embarked on destroying all of Magharbeh Neighbourhood in Jerusalem. By the Evening of June 9th of that year, all of the quarter was destroyed and its inhabitants displaced.No one can deny that Israel is continuously trying to change the face of Jerusalem, and the rest of Palestine. Regardless if the Israeli excuses for their current operations are right or not, and regardless if they are taking adequate measures to preserve the existing structure from potential damage during the operation, it is clear, that there is an increase in the pace of activities aiming to change the face of Jerusalem.