Independence, or a day of catastrophe

Source: Aljazeera, 16-5-2006
On May 15, 1948 "Israel" was created Palestinians mark 1948 Nakba tragedy.
For "Israelis" it is known as Independence Day; but for Palestinians and Arabs it is al-Nakba, or The Catastrophe.
The commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the "catastrophe" or Nakba in Arabic came as the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmud Abbas, was in Russia in an effort to shore up international financial and political support for his people.
From the late 19th century until 1948, thousands of Jews traveled from around the globe to settle in what was then Palestine initiating a sweeping change in the country`s demography, turning the Arab majority into a minority.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1900 the area that is now "Israel" was the homeland for 600,000 people, 94% of them Arab.
In 1948 the population had risen to 1,900,000, with 68% being Arab, and 32% were Jews.
Expulsion
About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their land after the creation of "Israel" in 1948 and the ensuing Arab-"Israeli" war.
An additional 200,000 Palestinians underwent a similar fate during the 1967 Arab-"Israeli" war.
Palestinian MPs held a special session of parliament to mark Nakba Day which began with a minutes silence.
"Our first priority is to lift the economic and political siege imposed on our people, then to end the occupation of our land once and for all, and to establish our independent Palestinian state," Abbas said in pre-recorded televised address.
The European Union and United States have cut direct aid to the Palestinian Authority since the Islamic movement Hamas formed a government in March.
Demonstrations took place across the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as well as in refugee camps around the region.
Aziz al-Dwaik, the Hamas speaker of parliament, said the killings of six Palestinians by "Israeli" soldiers in the northern West Bank on Sunday conformed to a pattern that stretched back to 1948.
"The Zionist occupation must be held fully responsible for all the things that have befallen the Palestinian people," he told the policymakers.
"What happened yesterday in Jenin illustrates how the "Israelis" are continuing the aggressions that we have seen from the Nakba until today."
Today Jews constitute about four-fifths of "Israel`s" seven million people. "Israel`s" population has doubled seven times since 1948, a ratio well above standard population growth.
World restructuring
In 1948 the Jews celebrated the creation of a Jewish (Zionist) state, and meanwhile thousands of Palestinians fled their homes to the safety of neighbouring Arab countries.
Yehezkel Yacubi, an "Israeli" journalist and chat show host, told Aljazeera.net that one reason why "Israel" considers May 15 a day of independence is because on that day it defeated the Arab armies and got rid of the British mandate.
"We managed to declare our independence after fighting several Arab armies which attacked our country jointly and simultaneously, and also after getting rid of the British mandate," he said.
Yacubi also says Jews were living in Palestine thousands of years ago, and are an indigenous people.
"Jewish people have lived in Palestine until 70AD. This is something we believe in and teach to our children in schools. This is our land and we have returned to it," he said.
Yacubi said the Jews in Jerusalem were attacked twice by the Greeks and Romans and those two attacks widely contributed to the Jewish diaspora.
However, Abd al-Bari Atwan, chief editor of the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, says the independence term falsifies history.
"The Arab armies were let down by British-backed Arab rulers at that time," he says.
"They were equipped with inadequate arms and came to drive the Jews out of a land they occupied, not to launch an aggression against people living peacefully in their own country.
"How can people occupy a homeland and throw its people out and then celebrate that day as an independence day?"
"The Jews claim they were in Palestine some 2000 or 3000 years ago, and they just returned to their homeland.
"I would like to tell the West, who has been supporting "Israel" in this, if they really believe in this, then all Caucasian Americans must go back to Europe, Turkish people must leave Turkey and go back to central Asia. In other words the whole world must be restructured."
Right of return
In Gaza City, several thousand protesters gathered outside the local branch of parliament with banners demanding the right of return, maps of historic Palestine, wooden keys to former homes, and flags.
"We will never abandon the right of return," they shouted, criticising Olmert`s border project in the West Bank and standing around a refugee tent erected in protest outside parliament.
The fate of the original refugees and their descendants, who are scattered throughout the occupied territories, neighbouring Arab countries and other parts of the world, has been one of the thorniest issues of the Palestinian-"Israeli" conflict.
"Israel" steadfastly opposes their right of return, aware that the demographics of the state could be overturned if all Palestinian refugees and their descendents move to modern-day "Israel".
The UN estimates that there are more than six million Palestinian refugees in the world today, four million of which are registered with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), with a third of that number living in refugee camps.
Living conditions in neighbouring Arab countries vary a great deal, with Lebanon - where Palestinian refugees are banned from working in most jobs or owning property - being the worst example.