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Philadelphia-area Mid East Peace Activists cast a Shadow of Mourning over “Israel at 60” Celebration
by
Philly Al Nakba Coalition | 05.19.2008
As supporters of how Israel was created, were celebrating down the Ben Franklin Parkway, Palestinians and solidarity activists sent a cloud of 1000 black balloons into the sky to mark the 60th anniversary of Palestinian dispossession, when the Israeli military uprooted and killed Palestine's indigenous population to make way for the Israeli state. Sixty years later this occupation and dispossession continue. Today there is growing public recognition of this reality, which Palestinians have know all along. ALSO SEE: alnakba.org | phillyalnakba.org | Philadelphia SUSTAIN | Dissident Voice series (1, 2, 3) | Jewish Voice for Peace More Coverage of 60 Years: Nakba Commemoration On the Mall from DC-IMC | 60th Anniversary Protest from Seattle IMC | Architecture of the Nakba and Occupation: Carving Israel Then and Now from Rustbelt Radio | Radio Free Palestine Broadcasts 18 Hours of Al-Nabka from Boston Indymedia | The Establishment of Israel: The Part of the Story You Have Not Heard from Rochester IMC | VIDEO: Protest of Israel's 60th Anniversary from Seattle IMC | Remembering the Nakba from Indybay  These balloons carry our mourning for the loss of lives and land, our hope for the future, and the belief and dream of justice. Black balloons were released by Palestinians in the West Bank and by Palestinian refugees in other areas of the world to mark the day. In the West Bank 21,195 balloons were released - one for every day of the Nakba. **For those concerned with the environmental effects of balloon releases, let it be known that we did not tie strings to the balloons and that latex, made from natural tree rubber, is biodegradable. "They [Zionist militiamen] took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front of us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him--carrying my little sister Hundra in her hands, still breastfeeding her--they shot her too." --Palestinian refugee Fahim Zaydan, who was 12 years-old in April 1948 "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You don't even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you, because the geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either... There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." --Former Israeli General Moshe Dayan, 1969
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Comments
Good job!
Submitted by HansBennett on Mon, 05/19/2008 - 10:16pmI want to personally thank the organizers of this event for exposing the inexusable and racist criminality that is currently being celebrated here in Philadelphia and around the US by enthusiastic supporters of Israeli oppression of Palestinians....
Similar to how Adolf Hitler (and I don't throw Hitler's name around casually) was inspired by the US, Israel is only following in the footsteps of Manifest Destiny and the US' genocide of the American Indians.
Celebrating how the state of Israel was created is the same as celebrating Columbus Day, and every US tax-payer is complicit in this genocide.
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