Prime Minister Fayyad: 60 Years Of Oppression No Reason To Celebrate
[Ma'an News Agency | Tuesday, 13 May, 2008.]
The Palestinian Prime Minister of the Ramallah-based caretaker government, Salam Fayyad, criticized Israel for celebrating their independence on the same dates that mark the anniversary of the Nakba (literally "Catastrophe,") the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes by Zionist forces in 1948. "I say to the Israeli people in particular, how can you celebrate while the people of Palestine are groaning under your settlements, the crimes of your settlers, the siege of your state and the occupation practices of your army," Fayyad said.
Fayyad's speech hinted darkly at the possibility of another wave of ethnic cleansing in Palestine: "We are addressing the international community which turned a blind eye to the Nakba, saying to them that 'today you can not turn a blind eye to what is happening in Palestine' … [Israel's actions] threaten what is left of the Palestinian lands and the life of the Palestinians. The intervention of the international community becomes more necessary than ever in order to prevent the addition of a new chapter to the Nakba."
Fayyad was speaking at the Cultural Palace in Ramallah at an event organized by the National High Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba. He added that "these activities is an expression of the collective willingness of the Palestinians to continue of their legitimate national struggle led by the Palestine Liberation Organization... The Nakba is not only the name of the expulsion, but also it became a unifying element for the Palestinians who want to end Israeli occupation and settlement, killings, arrests, home demolitions, uprooting trees, siege and the Separation Wall." (Full story here.)
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Commemorating Al Nakba - يوم النكبة
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Who has heard that in the 1930's Bagdad every 3rd citizen was a native Jew? The Sefardi (Safrati) Jews have a 400 year old history and the Mizrahi Jews over 2,500 year old history in the Middle East - outside the location of the state of Israel (Palestine).
Here's the statistics regarding not ONLY the expelsion of Jews from various Moslim countries in the last 60 years that Israel has been an independent state, but also numbers expelled from the Europe in a longer time interval. The Jews are no settlers of colonialism:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm
60 years of survival. This is statistics, not Zionism. When the military means have lacked the power, it is now a time of a media war to spit on the Jews and curse the Jewish Scriptures. Both the Old and New Testament were written by Jews. Although Jasser Arafat in his books claimed that there never was any Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and that Jesus was not a Jew, he could not deceive the honest spectator
As a matter of fact, the population of Arabs (my beloved friends and brothers, just like the Jews, our common fathers) under the Israeli government was increased ten-fold (10X) in only 57 years. The Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-1995. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-1090 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child deat rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-1988 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-1986 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 BKT from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen).
One-fourth of the judgements of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations strike Israel. Out of the incidences dealt in the Security Counsil one-third is having to do with Israel. I think this resembles the hysteria seen in the Black Plague in Europe, when the European Jews were accused of the pandemia and burned alive. The phobic mob was really scared and saw the peculiar Jews as a threat.
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com
Helsinki, Finland
PS. Statistics of the beneficial impact of Jewish population to the host country in terms of inventions, science and technology:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.html
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