Notations On Our World (Friday Edition): On #Nakba In Palestine

Israel just celebrated 71 years of independence.    Palestinians, though, commemorated the Nakba (or catatrophe) and we hereby present this view from Palestine courtesy of the team at MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance)

Every year on May 15, Palestinians around the world commemorate the Nakba or “catastrophe”—the massive ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in order to create the state of Israel in 1948. This year marks seventy-one years since the original Nakba, but this ethnic cleansing continues. 

In Gaza, 304 people have been killed in by Israeli snipers and recent air raids, including children, medics, and journalists, since the Great March for Return began a year ago. More than 20,000 people have been wounded, many with life-altering injuries, as Israeli soldiers target the legs of young men. This is the punishment Israel inflicts on Palestinians for standing up for their rights.

For 14 months tens of thousands in Gaza have been protesting the twelve-year siege and demanding their right to return to their land and their homes. Meanwhile, Trump has given Netanyahu the okay to annex the Syrian Golan Heights, Palestinians in Jerusalem are threatened with demolition and eviction, and settler violence and arrests of children and adults are part of daily life. Deadly military raids and land theft continue in the West Bank.

The MECA staff like to share with you this video and article about the Nakba and Return.
 

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Poet and activist Remi Kanazi performs a beautiful poem about his grandmother who survived the Nakba.
We will return.
That is not a threat
not a wish
a hope
or a dream
but a promise.
 Watch 3-minute video

The return of Palestinian refugees is quite possible
...despite what Israel may claim."
By Ahmed Abu Artema
At this point, the only viable way forward that does not involve further violence and ethnic cleansing on either side is to re-arrange the current relationship between Palestinians and Israeli Jews on the basis of justice and equality as opposed to discrimination and dispossession.

Read more