Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel speaking during a peaceful march in the western neighborhoods of Jerusalem, commmorating 60 years since the Nakba (photo by the AIC, 2008).
On Sunday, 11 May, a silent march took place in the western neighborhoods of Jerusalem to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba
The march began in front of the Jerusalem Theater, in Talbiyeh,
where Nakba survivors and a dozen Palestinian refugees explained to
the Palestinian and Jewish marchers what
life was like in this West Jerusalem neighborhood before the 1948 war, noting that until then the
different communities lived together in
peace.
Surrounded by a multitude of
journalists, the group began to walk
around the Talbiyeh and Baqa neighborhoods, where Palestinians and Jews lived together prior to 1948, stopping in
front of some houses that appeared as
the others, but which had a sad story to
tell. In some cases the houses had been occupied by Jews while their owners
were looking for a temporary safer place, never imagining they wouldn’t have
the chance to return to their own properties. In other cases, Palestinians were
taken from their homes and transfered to camps, leaving homes empty for
Jewish settlers.
"I am here to
remind Israelis that this was once a Palestinian neighborhood too,” remarked
Leena Dallasheh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. The Palestinian tragedy did
not begin in 1967 but in 1948, and Israelis must take responsibility for their
ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people."
After 60 years, the Israeli government still
denies the Palestinian legal owners and their families the right to claim what
belongs to them. Organized by Zochrot ("Remembering") a group of
Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, and by Nakba survivors, a group of Jerusalemites with the
same aim, the march touched upon
just a
few symbolic places, since is estimated that 10,000 Palestinian homes
were confiscated in 1948 by Israel in
West Jerusalem alone.
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