From THE JERUSALEM POST, Mar. 30, 2008, by Yaakov Lappin:
Thousands of Israeli Arabs waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in praise of "martyrs" during a march in Sakhnin to commemorate Land Day on Sunday.
A picturesque Galilee backdrop of green hills was punctured by megaphone shouts in Arabic of "Do not worry, mother of martyr, your son did not die in vain," "We are with the youths who throw rocks," and "We do not fear Israel, the terrorist state."
Police kept a low profile, monitoring the event from a helicopter high above and manning a checkpoint at the entrance to Sakhnin. In Hebrew, marchers chanted slogans against Defense Minister Ehud Barak, shouting, "Barak, how many children did you murder today?" ...
.... hundreds of participants shouted, "Palestine is Arab and the Golan is Syrian!" ...
...Basher and Sahab, two young men from neighboring Nazareth, said they considered "suicide bombers from Gaza to be martyrs...." "This is a holy day for us, a day of struggle," Basher said. "Every Israeli government has taken land in the Galilee and the Negev, and we're fighting against that. We want to remind the world that we're under occupation."
Said Hasnen, an editor at the weekly Israeli-Arab newspaper Kul al-Arab...called into question the historical attachment of Jews to Israel, saying, ".... We are the permanent ones here, Israel is the visitor."
His friend, Hussein Kalaila, added, "Why should we be Israelis? I have a Palestinian identity. We are Palestinian Arabs in every way. This land is called Palestine."
A statement released this week in honor of Land Day by the NGO Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said: "This colonial regime has now been in existence for over 60 years, on the basis of a Zionist ideology to control the 'Land of Israel'... The apartheid regime was overthrown in South Africa... such regimes have no place in this century."
No comments:
Post a Comment