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No Sirree, those considerate ~ Palestinians both Christian and Muslim ~ cheerfully left everything they owned, abandoned their homes and lands of untold generations and peacefully walked into the deserts to live in tents.
Internationally acclaimed Zionist psychotherapists state that such a largely held delusion as Nakba is the result of a dream so strong and shared by so many, that the whole world now believes it. They would know, wouldn't they?
To keep the world honest, Israel has declared public support of this imaginary Nakba should result in jail time because it is a sin to tell a lie.
And we all know how much Zionists care about Muslim and Christian souls!
At least Kissinger is honest about his dishonesty. This maggot-ridden piece of filth actually brags of his Talmudic tricks here.By Khalid Amayreh,
IOL Correspondent
Islam on Line
OCCUPIED WEST BANK Mohammed al-Saghir Abu Sharar was 37 when the Hagana and other Jewish terrorist gangs attacked al-Dawayema, a village located 18 kilometers northwest of Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1948.
"When they came they started killing the civilian population en mass, men, women and children," recalls Mohammed, now nearly 100-year-old.
"They killed anyone they saw. They broke the heads of children and cut open the bellies of women with bayonets. They even raped some women before murdering them."
"My wish has remained unchanged, it is to return to my village, to die and be buried there," Mohammed told IOL Mohammed said one of the bloodiest chapters of that day took place in the mosque. "It was Friday and many elderly people had already gone to the local mosque for the congregational prayer," he remembers.
"About two hours before the prayers, around 10:00 or 10:30 a.m., a number of vehicles carrying gunmen arrived. They sprayed everyone with bullets, killing all the 75 elderly people. Not a single one survived," he added with tears in his eyes.
"They then started going into the houses, killing entire families. The killings forced people to flee eastward. However, the Hagana men pursued the fleeing civilians, killing more people."
In his book "All That Remains," Walid al-Khalid, a Palestinian historian of impeccable credentials, wrote that al-Dawayema had a population of 3710 in 1945.
The world marks on May 15 the "Nakba Day," when Israel was created on the rubble of their country.
On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Menachem Begin's Irgun militant group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist militants and 70,000 Palestinians fled.
On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of Jaffa, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.
On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel, Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Zionist militants and only about 4,500 of its population remained.
No Shelter
Mohammed, who now lives with his family at the small village of al-Majd, about 7 kilometers southwest of al-Dawayema, says dozens of families had sought shelter at a big cave called "Turel Zagh".
"The Jews told them to come out and get into a row and start to walk. And when they started walking, they sprayed them with machinegun fire from two sides," he adds.
"One woman, the wife of Mir’ie Freih, survived the massacre by pretending to be dead."
Mohammed said the victims of the massacre were later buried inside the Bir al-Sahra and Bir al-Sil wells.
His testimony was corroborated by Israeli historians and researchers relying on the de-classified archives of the Israeli army and interviews with veteran soldiers.
Israeli historian Benny Morris had interviewed a participant in the massacre who told him that about 80 to 100 people, including women and children, were killed by "the first wave of conquerors."
In 1984, an Israeli journalist interviewed the former Mukhtar (village notable) of al-Dawayema, Hasan Mahmoud Ihdeib, and took him back to the site for the first time since the massacre.
Ihdeib told him about the people killed in the mosque and the families slaughtered at the cave, showing him the cistern where the bodies had been buried
A few days later, the Israeli journalist brought workers who dug and discovered bones and skulls.
In 1955, the Jewish settlement of Amatzya was built on the ruins of al-Dawayema.
Aharon Zisling, Israel's first agriculture minister, had likened the massacre, codenamed "Operation Yo’av", to Nazi crimes.
Living Memory
A few years ago, Mohammed and his family visited the ruinous cite of his village where his father, mother, grandfather and their ancestors are buried.
"I stood their crying. I saw our home, badly dilapidated. I saw the chamber where my father used to receive guests. I saw the abandoned wells of water."
The century-old Palestinian still hopes he would be allowed to live in his old home village.
"My wish has remained unchanged, it is to return to my village, to die and be buried there."
Asked further if he would accept compensation for his lost property, he lapsed into a moment of silence before answering.
"It is not a matter of property and compensation," he said.
"This is my country, my history, my home, my childhood memories. My forefathers and foremothers are buried there. Would you trade the grave of your father for all the money in the world?"
CAIRO ~ The Israeli government's decision to push through parliament a law banning its Arab citizens from marking Nakba, the day Israel was set up on the rubble of Palestine drew immediate rebuke from Labor ministers, Arabs and Israelis alike.
"This law will increase the isolationism and alienation in society and will strengthen the extremist minority among Israeli Arabs," Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog, Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon and Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman said in a statement reported by Haaretz on Monday, May 25.
Those found in violation could face up to three years in prison.
Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims mark on May 15 the "Nakba Day," when Israel was created on the rubble of their country.
On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of Jaffa, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.
On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel, Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Zionist militants and only about 4,500 of its population remained.
The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a NGO working for Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel, criticized the Nakba bill.
"The refusal to acknowledge the historical narrative of Arab citizens will not diminish the importance of the issue to them, but it will make the path to reconciliation, compromise, and building a shared future for Jews and Arabs of the state more difficult."
According to statistics released by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Palestinians who stayed after the creation of Israel on the rubble of their country in 1948 and their decedents are estimated at 1.5 million or 20 percent of Israel's 7.3 million people.
Violating Rights
Labor ministers stressed that the Nakba bill would damage freedom of expression and freedom of association. Dr. Eyal Gross, a constitutional law expert at Tel Aviv University, believes the same.
"To what level of stupidity can they sink?" he wondered.
"It's the kind of law that tries to make everyone think the same way. I don't know of any similar laws in any democratic country."
Sami Michael, the President of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, agrees.
"Marking Nakba Day is no threat on the State of Israel's security, but the legitimate basic right of every person, group or people to express their pain following a catastrophe," he stressed.
"This is not just about the rights of the Arab minority but about safely crossing all lines towards the brutal oppression of everyone's freedom of expression."
Hadash Party Chairman Mohammed Barakeh, an Israeli Arab, vowed to challenge the bill.
"Commemoration of the Nakba, which will continue regardless of this bill, does not represent a threat to Israel's existence," he told Haaretz.
"It is a way to mend past injuries inflicted upon the Palestinian people.
"This bill belongs, as do others, in the trash. Laws cannot rewrite a history in which crimes against peoples were committed, including the Palestinian Nakba."
HOMES TELL THE HISTORY OF NAKBA
The Palestinian district of Talbieh in west Jerusalem is now called the Lovers of Zion. (Photo through Google)
CAIRO
The two-storey Hallak house in the smart district of Talbieh in west Jerusalem tells the story of a people who not simply lost their homes but their country with the creation of Israel in 1948.
"There were fruit trees, a nice apple tree. There was a swing where we used to play. There was an open veranda where we used to sit with all flowers around," Wilhelmine Baramki, a 73-year-old Palestinian Christian woman, told The Guardian in an interview published on Tuesday, May 6.
Her family built the house in the early 1930s and named it after her grandfather Hanna Hallak.
"On Palm Sunday they used to pick all the nice flowers they had to make our palms," remembers Baramki who was 13 in 1948.
"We used to love going there. Those memories were something for us."
Then life turned into a nightmare after Jewish gangs drove through Talbieh with a loudspeaker instructing the Palestinians to leave their homes immediately.
The family grabbed a bag and left quickly, seeking refuge in the family's other home in Baqa.
"Every night there were bombings, every day it was almost the same," Baramki recalls bitterly.
"They left to stay with another aunt who lived in the Old City in east Jerusalem. Just for a few days we thought."
The family eventually they took refuge from the fighting into neighboring Lebanon where they stayed for a year and a half.
By the time they got a chance to return the west part of Jerusalem, including both Talbieh and Baqa, was already under the control of the nascent Israeli state.
Ours, Not Yours
The Baramkis were forbidden to enter to their home, district or city.
Israel labeled them "absentee" and gave their houses, like the houses of nearly all the other 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced out in 1948, to newly arrived Jewish immigrants.
The house is now owned by Reuven Tsur, a Hungarian who immigrated with his parents to the newly established state of Israel when he was just 16.
"I only saw the palm trees from the outside and I said: 'This must be a mistake. It couldn't be that beautiful,'" Tsur told The Guardian.
Tsur and his wife bought a three-room apartment that was part of the larger flat in which Baramki's grandparents had been living a decade earlier.
They admit that they didn't think of its former occupants.
The Baramkis, meanwhile, stayed in east Jerusalem until 1967 when the six-day war.
Victorious Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Syrian Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, which it later annexed.
"Now we are present-absent. We are present here to pay taxes and everything, but absent to get back our property. This is the rule that they have," said Wilhelmine.
But that gave them a chance to go back to Talbieh district, now called Hovevei Zion (the Lovers of Zion), and look at their former homes.
"Sure enough after a few weeks comes a very prominent gentleman wearing an English suit and he said: 'OK, my parents lived here and I would like to see the apartment,'" remembers Ilana, Tsur's wife.
The gentleman was Wilhelmine's late uncle, Victor Khoury.
There were more visits from the family in the months and years that followed.
The Tsurs say they would give up their apartment in Hallak house if it truly meant peace would come and if they were given a comparable apartment in return, an offer rarely heard in today's Israel.
On May 15, Palestinians, whether inside the occupied territories or in Diaspora, commemorate the Nakba Day, when Israel was created on the rubble of Palestine.
"It's our land," insists Wilhelmine. "We have a right to come back to our home."
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