The Birds Shall Return

Beauty is truth, truth Beauty,
That's all ye know on Earth,
And all ye need to know. John Keats"


A land without a people for a people without a land," the usurpers dissembled.


And Fadwa Toqan retorted:

Never! Not with our red streams flowing forever,
not while the wine of our thorn limbs
fed the thirsty roots,
Arab roots alive tunneling deep,
deep, into the land!


And Mahmoud Darwish joined in;

I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is borne, I have a mother
and a house with many windows.


As Golda Meir bellowed:

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist."


And Fadi Abu Sada was scared because seqestered in his Bethlehem house he thought that the noise from the firecrackers of the settlers celebrating their independence were bombs destined for his house, and the metaphor is apt...they dance on our graves.

Do these settlers care about the effect of their revelry on the indigenous population?
Do they feel remorse for actions of the past and present Zionists?
No!


When the hurricane swirled and spread its deluge of dark evil
othe good green land
'they' gloated.


They would be wise to heed the words of Dr. Salmon Abu Sitta:

In the years to come, I think the history of the Jews will probably not be marked by their historical role in the fate of Jesus Christ. That was a matter of religious interpretation of an event which took place 2000 years ago.

The history of the Jews will also likely not be marked by the Nazi atrocities in the Second World War. That was a black chapter in European history in which millions of many nationalities died in the heat of the war. It all stopped after the war.

Any reckoning of Jewish history will be indelibly marked by what they have done to the Palestinians. Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians, seized their homes and property and obliterated the landscape -- both historical and physical -- that they had inhabited. For more than half a century this has been done during both war and peace, not by individual criminals but systematically by the state. It is still being done. There is no remorse, no atonement. On the contrary, there is more and more of the same. The tragic history of the Jews seems to have contained no lessons. It is as if their own suffering was in vain.


The old will die, and the young will forget, speculated David Ben Gurion.


But Laila Halaby and Rashid Hussein answered,"

Teach the night to forget to bringdreams showing me my village."
And teach the wind to forget to carry to me
the aroma of apricots in my fields
And teach the sky, too, to forget to rain."
My father closed his eyes."
Only then, may I forget my country."


And Abdelnasser Rashid echos his elders:

Palestine is my land, and I won’t let you take it – and while you put the world to sleep, I try to wake it.

And Fadwa Toqan elegantly concurs:

When the Tree rises up, the branches
Shall flourish green and fresh in the sun
the laughter of the Tree shall leaf
beneath the sun
and birds shall return Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.
The birds shall return.


# posted by umkahlil @ 9:31


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From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948
by Walid Khalidi 1971, with a second printing in 1987

1947 UN Partition Plan
Anti-Semitism and Zionism
British Mandate period in Palestine
Historiography of the Israel/Palestine conflict
League of Nations and Palestine
Nakbah/Naqba (Arabic, "the catastrophe") -- expulsion of Palestinians in 1948
Palestinian refugees
Ethnic cleansing (euphemistically called "transfer")
United Nations and Israel/Palestine
Brith Habirionim or Brit HaBiryonim (Hebrew "the Covenant of Thugs")

Timeline event(s) mentioned in this item:
31 Aug 1945:
Truman asks Attlee to admit 100,000 Jews into Palestine
29 Nov 1947:
United Nations General Assembly approves UNSCOP partition plan for Palestine

Commentary: Book published by Institute for Palestine Studies; ISBN: 0887281559; (Second printing, October 1987). This is an anthology edited by Walid Khalidi. Authors of the articles included in the anthology are: Ilene Beatty, Alfred Guillaume, Burhan Ad-Din al Fazari, Miguel Asin, Cecil Roth, Stanley Lane-Poole, Elmer Berger, Zia Al-Khalidi, Oskar K. Rabinowicz, L. M. C. van der Hoeven Leonhard, Herbert Sidebotham, Edwin Montagu, Leonard Stein, Frank E. Manuel, J. M. N. Jeffries, Chaim Weizmann, Arthur Balfour, Louis D. Brandeis, Eustace Percy, Felix Frankfurter, W. F. Stirling, C. R. Ashbee, Chaim Arlosoroff, Michael Ionides, Vincent Sheean, Sir John Hope Simpson, Kingsley Martin, Alan Bullock, Ernest Main, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Nevill Barbour, Michael F. J. McDonnell, R. J. Manning, Sir Alec Seath Kirkbride, Frances E. Newton, Mahatma K. Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Leonard Mosley, A. Granott, Thomas Reid, Jon Kinche, David Kimche, Robert Briscoe, Stephen Wise, Morris L. Ernst, William Ernest Hocking, William A. Eddy, Kermit Roosevelt, Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Morgan, Francis Williams, Robert A. Divine, James V. Forrestal, Walter T. Stace, Abba Eban, Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, General Carlos P. Romulo, Arnold Krammer, Lieut.-General Netanel Lorch, Jacques de Reynier, Harry Levin, Major R. D. Wilson, Lieut.-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, General aage Lundstrom, Erskine B. Childers, Hans Kohn.Abstract: From the Book Description: Now a classic in its field, From Haven to Conquest is a unique compendium of difficult-to-obtain or out-of-print material on Zionism and the history of Palestine to 1948. Eighty documents and first-hand accounts are supplemented by an introduction by Professor Khalidi, 22 maps and 30 pages of appendices providing detailed demographic and military statistics.

Extracts available online include:
On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government, by Edwin Montagu, August 1917

To refer someone else to this item, use this URL: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=1184

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Right Of Return

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PALESTINIAN REFUGEE INFORMATION
Over 5 million Palestinian refugees scattered all over the earth demand the right to return to their homes in Palestine! Existing international law is solidly on their side.

Please read: The Palestinian Refugee's Right Of Return Under International Law
Let us return home, let us return home!!!!

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(10 December 1948)
Article 13.2

- Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
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United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948

Article 11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations. See full Resolution HERE
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The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966
Article 12.4 - No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.
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Our strength is in the camps & No peace without an end to exile

Article: The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined
Palestinian Refugees Right to Return and Repatriation
Open letter from Dr. Salman Abu Sitta to Yasser Arafat Regarding Dr. Sari Nusseibeh's Challenging The Palestinian Right Of Return
Debate Between Salman Abu Sitta and Michael Lerner of Tikkun on The Right of Return
Holding on to hopePalestinians keep dream of return aliveLaila El-Haddad
ON-LINE BOOK: "Palestinian Refugees and their Right of Return"
Al Awda Colorado - Palestinian Right of Return Coalition