On Nakba Anniversary

By: Mazin Qumsiyeh

In the past couple of days I had the privilage of an International conference and discussions in Italy as part of the mobilization to build an international movement against Israeli apartheid. This conference included famed professors Ilan Pappe, Tanya Reinhardt, Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, and poet Aharon Shabtai.

We were also privilaged to see a play on Rachel Corrie in the main theater of Biella. Attendees came from as far as Austria, Germany, and Israel-Palestine. The conference participants supported the Palestinian Civil Society call for divestments and boycotts http://www.badil.org/Boycott-Statement.htm On the anniversary of the Nakba (the Catastrophe, when over 500 villages and towns were completely depopulated as part of the planned and organized process whereby Zionists thought they could transform Palestine into a racist state for Jewish Zionists, see http://www.palestineremembered.com/ ) the Israeli high court narrowly (vote 6:5) rejected petitions from Israeli human and civil rights organizations and refused to reject the racist law passed by the Knesset that prevents families from living together i in Israel if one of the spouses is a Palestinian resident of the occupied territories and the other an Israeli citizen. The law has other provisions that are strictly discriminatory against Palestinians (Christians and Muslims). The law was condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission (UN HRC), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (UN CEDAW), the European Parliament, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch among others.

It is a symptom of Zionist power and callousness that became Israel's modus operandi since the international community remained silent about the original and first crime against humanity, the largest post-WWII: the theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestine precisely 58 years ago. Israeli historians documented )including from declassi9fied Israeli document) the sdome 33 massacres committed to induce the Palestinians to leave. Even Zionist Israeli historians acknowledge the level of ethnic cleansing but justify it. In the case of Israeli historian and Zionist Benny Morris, it was like the genocide of Native Americans (claimed neccessary for producing a developed and civilized America see: http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm) In a letter published in the New York Times in December 1948, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and other Jewish intellectuals warned against the slide to fascism represented by Menachem Begin )who later became Israeli prime minister) and his party Herut (later Likud and now Kadima): http://www.qumsiyeh.org/einsteinetalonbegin/ Here is an article from Counterpunch on "Why Viewing Israel as Indispensable Ally of the US is Deadly to Palestinians: The Stability and Value of Israel" by Michael Neuman http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann05132006.html

Timeline of Zionist colonization in Palestine: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/palestinetimeline/ To achieve peace, we must begin by understanding the "original sin" )the words of an Israeli writer) and begin to address it. Because from that comes all the subsequent ills and violence that continues to plague us to this day. Mazin Qumsiyeh http://www.qumsiyeh.org/