After decades of resistance, 2018 marks 70 years since the Nakba. Palestinian and international voices echoed across countless media outlets and public gatherings all over the globe calling for a right oppressed for 7 decades in the most barbarian of approaches and atrocities, the Right to Return. Knowing the recklessness of the occupier and the corruption of Arab and world leaders, the outcry still lives to this very day and bursts louder with every second of this ongoing inhumane occupation.
Even though Palestinians were turned into an enemy and a threat in their own home and across the Arab world through wicked manipulation of politics to divert the people of the Middle East from the real threat and turn them against their own people; even though Arab leaders have today achieved a blatant failure in dealing with this core cause by either allying covertly with the occupier or turning a blind eye on the 70-year-occupation process; even though the resistance is constantly abused to systematically sustain the expansion of settlements and the momentum of an ethnic cleansing before the eyes of the whole humanity; even though the tactic of provoking Palestinians to frame them into the image of terrorists and traitors is consciously and perpetually overlooked by the international community for the favor of the occupier; hope yet remains and the right to return echoes louder and deeper despite every decent and indecent attempt to silence and dissipate it bargaining on time and amnesia of diaspora generations.
On the 15th of May, 2018, from Sydney Town Hall in Australia, Louisa Taouk echoes another breath of life to the “cause of the century” to join millions of voices refusing to be silenced or subdued by this monstrous occupation of Palestine and ethnic cleaning of Palestinians.
“I would like to first acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Kadigal people of the Eora nation. Everyone here today has come to know Israel in his or her own way. Some through a screen or a newspaper headline, others through a home reduced to rubble, or by the barrel of a gun.”
“I was introduced to Israel in the summer of 1967, as a young child playing outside in the neighbourhood. Israeli planes would fly recklessly over Lebanese air space, breaking the sound barrier and filling the village air with an awful sonic boom. Unfortunately, that loud burst of sound was not the last I heard of the Zionist state.”
“As time passed, the unjust stories of the Palestinian people and their struggles touched me deeply, and I started my journey of painful discovery. This is what I have discovered.
I have discovered that in 1916, while the Allied planes dropped leaflets down to the Arabs in WWI, encouraging them to fight against the Turks for their independence, Sykes and Picot sat together in a closed room planning how to divide the Middle East amongst them.
One year later, the Balfour declaration was announced promising Palestinian land to European Zionists who had not once set foot on it, stripping it away from its indigenous owners who were oblivious to this conspiracy against them.”
“The story of the Nakba, the catastrophe, is one of the most devastating events in modern history, the day on which the state of Israel was officially declared. The Zionist militias attacked and ethnically cleansed and destroyed over 500 villages, killing more than 15,000 Palestinians. Over 750,000 became stateless refugees, living in tents during the cold and bitter winter of 1948, comforted only by the keys of their homes, which they hung close to their hearts, and the UN resolution 194 which falsely promised a quick return to their homeland.”
“The Palestinians’ suffering however is not tightly tucked away in the events of yesterday. After 70 years, they are still surviving the Nakba, which carries on in the form of military occupation, massacres, destruction, collective punishment, judicial killing, home arrests, detention without trial and the confiscation of land and property to build new illegal settlements that destroy the link between the people and their homeland. Ethnic cleansing plans are now openly advanced by cabinet ministers of the occupiers under the guise of ‘transfers’ or ‘land exchanges’.”
“The Palestinians suffer today, and they will suffer tomorrow if change remains undelivered.”
“In 2011, the Zionist state passed the so called ‘Nakba law’, to conceal their blood-stained history by threatening the financial penalization of any public institution who marks the events of 1948. Justice however cannot be obscured by any of their concrete walls, or restrained by any of their petty laws.
Hundreds of thousands of unarmed Palestinian people have joined the Great March of Return on the Israel-Gaza borders since the 30th of March, protesting Trump’s irrational and insensitive decision to move the American embassy to Al-Quds, a violation of UN security council’s resolution 478. A decision that Netanyahu labeled ‘the deal of the century’.”
“The protestors are peacefully demanding that the Zionist regime cannot continue to occupy Palestinian land and deny Palestinian refugees the most basic human right to return to their homelands. There is no resolution in UN history more sustained and reaffirmed than the Right of Return of the expelled Palestinians to their homes.
“Any civilized governmental responses to demonstrations in the scale of ‘The Great March of Return’ should be that of negotiation and tackling the contributing social and political factors. Instead, the Zionist regime, in an attempt to squash the protests, responds with a show of military power. With the aid of tear gas, rubber bullets and snipers, Israel murdered over 50 unarmed protesters and seriously wounded more than 9000
“Amongst the dead, two journalists; Yaser Murtaja and Ahmad Abu Hussein, who were both killed while wearing clearly labelled “PRESS” jackets.
“Enough is enough.”
“The Zionist regime cannot continue to impose its racist policies and apartheid on the Palestinian people. We must join, support and expand the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction campaign.
We urge the International community to stop the delivery of arms and military equipment to the Zionist state, and put pressure on the Israeli government to end the occupation, and stop their continuous violation of the International Law. We urge the Australian government to show leadership by taking a stand against Israel.”
“Outcomes such as the right of return and self-determination for Palestinian people, recognition of the Palestinian state, the release of political prisoners and an end to the construction of illegal settlements on stolen land can only be achieved with the aid of political pressure.
But as we are standing here today to commemorate the Nakba, we are also celebrating the resistance of the Palestinian people who have proven to the world that their land can no longer be compromised.”
“I wish to honor the countless heroes who have lost their lives defending their land and their people in resistance of the occupation.
I would like to pay my respect to the innocent Palestinian children whose lives were snatched away from them before they had the chance to accomplish their dreams.”
“I salute the political prisoners in the military prisons.”
“I salute the resilience and determination of the Palestinian women who carry within them a painful history of resistance and suffering. These are the women who experience the pain of the Nakba every day and witness their precious children disappear as they are taken away in the early hours of the morning for interrogation, or lose their life to Israeli guns. I salute the women who bravely carry on to support their families with strength and dignity when they are forced by the unjust killings of their husbands to raise them alone.”
“I salute the people who have proven that the Palestinian story is not a tale of tragedy or despair, but a narrative of relentless hope, strength and resistance.”
“LONG LIVE PALESTINIAN WOMEN”
“FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE”
