IT'S CELEBRATION FOR ISRAEL BUT DISASTER FOR PALESTINE by Fardah

   Jakarta, May 15, 2008 (ANTARA) -  Israeli and its allies, US President George Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair, gathered in Jerusalem on Wednesday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel on May 14.
     Meanwhile, in Jakarta, also on Wednesday,  Indonesia's Parliament Speaker Agung Laksono opened an international conference on "Freedom and Right of Return: Palestine and 60 Years of Ethnic Cleansing (Nakba)",  to mark the 60th anniversary of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

     In Jerusalem, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reprimanded Israel on Tuesday (5/13) for triumphantly celebrating its 60th birthday before having reached a peace deal with the Palestinians.        
     "I direct my speech ... to the people of Israel, to say, 'How can you?'" Fayyad said. "How can you celebrate and the Palestinian people are suffering from your settlements and the crimes of your settlers and the siege of your state and the conduct of your occupying army?"
     Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted and thousands of others were killed during the 1948 war over Israel's creation. Palestinians call it "nakba" or catastrophe.
     Palestinehistory.com made a long list of massacres executed by the Zionists in  Palestine since 1947. The list included the massacres in Baldat al-Shaikh in 1947 when Jews Groups killed 60 Palestinians.
     The year 1948 was the most bloody year for Palestine when Jews mostly coming from Europe made a series of attacks in Palestinian villages to expel or kill Arab inhabitants, especially  women and children.
      The villages, where Jews massacred Palestinians 60 years ago, included Dair Yasin (254 Palestinians were killed), Abu Shusha (50), and Al-Led (426). 
     In West of Jerusalem Dair Yasin, on the night of April 9, 1948, inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed. The Irgun Zvei Leumi led by Menachem Begin surrounded the village of Dair Yasin.
     After giving the sleeping residents a 15 minute warning to evacuated, Jews attacked the village of around 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children and wounding 300 others. Some 150 captured women and children were paraded through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem who later were brought back to Dair Yassin and murdered
     Other massacres occurred in Qibya in 1953 where 67 Palestinians were killed, in Qalqalya Village in 1956, where Israeli Army murdered 70 Arabs, in Kufr Qasim in 1956 (49 Palestinians were killed), Khan Younes also in 1956 (250),  and Khan Younes in 1956 (275).
     In 1982, some 3,500 Palestinian refugees were massacred by Israeli Army in Sabra and Shatila Camps in Lebanon. In 1990, 23 Palestinians were murdered and 850 others were wounded to varying degrees by Israeli Army at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's second sacred mosque, in Jerusalem. And 109 Palestinians were massacred in Qana in 1996.
     Starting in the last months of 1947, and going on until the early part of 1949, about 700,000 Palestinians became refugees from the land that became Israel. Many were expelled by force or left because of the fear that they might be killed. Their houses were destroyed by Jews and they were not allowed to return.
       Israel's President, Shimon Peres, an aide to Ben Gurion in 1948, where most of the massacres and mass expulsion took place, told the BBC in an interview to mark his country's 60th anniversary recently, that it bore no responsibility for the exodus of Palestinians.
      The former Jordanian Foreign Minister, Hazem Nusseibeh, a Palestinian who was a journalist in Jerusalem in 1948, expressed surprise when the BBC put the Israeli president's words to him.
      "No responsibility whatsoever - Then what caused the exodus to happen - It was the Israeli massacre of the villages of people whom they encountered," he said. "I can count you the scores of massacres which happened all over the country. Do you think anyone would leave his home unless he was really threatened?" he told BBC recently.
     UNRWA, a United Nations Agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, has estimated that around 4.5 million Palestinians are  registered as refugees.
     The massacres have continued until this modern days. In 2006, Israel launched a major military operation that had gone on for more than four months and led to the death of around 350 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
     UNICEF as reported by the Associated Press said it was  estimated that more than 300 children were  injured in November 2006  by Israeli attacks.  For the year,  116 Palestinian children have been killed, compared with only  52 last year.  On January 15, 2008,  the Israel Defense Forces killed 17 Palestinians during incursions into east Gaza City. The Israeli army killed nine more in raids over the following two days.  
      Israelis and their closest ally, the United States, are celebrating  Israel's anniversary. While more than 1 million people in  occupied Gaza where civil infrastructure was destroyed by Israel causing power blackouts, food shortages and outbreak of diseases, are facing a food crisis so that they have to depend on food aid from international humanitarian organizations to survive.
     "They are celebrating the cruel attacks they have launched  against Palestinians, where many old people, children, women and  innocents were killed. So, this is their nature to celebrate the crimes, and at the same time they expect Germany to be ashamed of the so-called Holocaust," Dr. Zahra Mustafawi, coordinator of the international union of NGOs Supporting Palestinian Rights, said in the Jakarta conference.
    Indonesia has so far refused to establish diplomatic ties with Israel as long as Israel is still occupying Palestine, as the country's Constitution is against colonialism in any part of the world.
      "When the Palestinians, through a negotiation process, can establish an independent Palestinian state, then we will recognize and open diplomatic ties with Israel," Indonesian Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirajuda told the Indonesian press in Washington DC, late last year. - Fardah. May 15, 2008. - end