Earth Day / Palestine

Daniel Mabsout,

Today is the 37th commemoration of earth day that started in year 1976 and has been celebrated every year since. Originally the uprising started after the Israeli government – headed then by Rabin with Peres as a minister of defense- decided to confiscate 21000 hectares of Arab Land from Galilee to build Jewish settlements on them.

… The Protests started in Historic Palestine and spread to the West Bank , Jerusalem , Gaza where people rallied in support of each other . Also joined Palestinians from refugee camps in Arab countries, and Palestinians scattered everywhere in the world .The Israeli army imposed carefew and attacked the people destroying the shops and the homes. Six Palestinians fell martyrs during this uprising . Thus, the Palestinian Earth Day is commemorated each year on the 30th of March .
This year, this unity and this standing together will be missed among Palestinians and what we witness nowadays is something totally different . Gaza , the PA and the other multiple organizations and the refugees in Arab countries and those exiled in foreign countries have lost their capacity to come together and Israel succeeded in keeping them apart and has been working on this issue of setting them against each other .

According to Palestinian writer Tayseer al Khatib – who was interviewed on Nour radio station for the occasion – Palestinians need to go over their history and evaluate what has happened to them and what has happened to the cause and give an assessment of the whole situation in order to be able to proceed further . This assessment should cover the whole situation up to the present moment . If this assessment is not done and if the causes of the failure of the Cause are not defined and diagnosed it will be impossible to get anywhere . .Because of this, Tayseer al Khatib invited the leadership – mainly the Palestinian Authority – to speak openly to people , to Palestinians , about what has been done and why have we failed and where and what to do in order to go around these failures .
It is up to Palestinians – said Tayseer al Khatib – to decide what is the next step to get out of this dead end . Other wise the whole Palestinian endeavor will remain divided and the Popular Resistance that is being carried on by Palestinians in the West Bank will remain confined to certain areas and localities and will not be able to spread .

One short look at the policy of annexation carried on by the Zionists on this Earth Day is enough in order to see the extend of the damage . Israel will resume building settlements and 300 units are expected to be built South of Jerusalem , while 900 units are expected to be built in West Jerusalem, not to speak of the !500 units decided for the West Bank in the area called E1. Israel has already destroyed 60 houses owned by Arabs in Jerusalem, and 20000 other houses are expected to be leveled down which will leave 60000 Palestinians homeless .

Israelis have already withdrawn 10 thousands Jerusalem identities from people and one hundred thousands Palestinians living in Jerusalem had been isolated from the Holy City. And while Arabs are busy arranging and rallying for the so called Syrian Revolution and conspiring against Assad ,and while Palestinians are coordinating with Israeli affiliated NGOs and carrying on dubious functions unrelated to them and to their cause, and while HAMAS has fallen in the sectarian pit arranged for her by Israel and while the Palestinian Authority has reached an unimaginable level of corruption, Zionists continue successfully -undisturbed -their mission of confiscating the land and dispossessing the .people
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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