Blogger za3tar has organized Blog About Palestine Day on May 15, the anniversary of the Nakba and Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations. Bloggers around the world were invited to blog for Palestine, as noted by Global Voices here. Many bloggers chose to participate in the event; here is a selection.
za3tar, the organizer of the event, blogged about being Palestinian, sharing a story of his family and concluding:
For us Palestinians, only two things remained true during the past 60 years; First, life for ordinary people only gets worst every year. Second, from the minute you are born in Palestine, you are immediately a suspect, and you are continuously treated so for as long as you live. No one in the world can condone mass punishment of civilians, but punishing suspects is not a big deal.
We must be suspects, otherwise what explains 60 years of Israel’s direct violation of numerous UN resolutions without any consequences. We must be suspects, otherwise what explains our denial of basic human rights. For me and my family, the only crime that we are suspect of, is simply existing!
These stories are not unusual for Palestinians. As a matter of fact, i come from a blissed family, my parents were able provide us with food and shelter, and none of my relatives was killed. Unfortunately however, the stories of average Palestinians are much grimmer still.
Rebellious Arab Girl, a Canadian resident, also blogged about being Palestinian:
What do I represent?
I represent my self, a Palestenian with hot blood through my veins and a voice to speak about my existence. I am Palestenian. I will always be one. I was born as one, and will die as one.It has been 60 years since my home was taken away, isn’t that too much?
I may be one person. I am not a celebrity or someone who is famous and well known. However, I have the right to speak out when I say, “we had enough!”
Vivirlatino blogged about the Palestinian population in Chile:
Last month about 40 Palestinian families, refugees from Iraq, were welcomed into Chile.
“We hope that suffering will be a thing of the past, and Chile the source of your new happiness,” Deputy Interior Minister Felipe Harboe said as he welcomed the 16 adults and 23 children who had spent months stranded at a desert camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border.
The rest of about 117 refugees from this specific camp arrived in the Santiago neighborhoods of La Calera y San Felipe this week. They were welcomed with flags, dancing, and music.
While these homes in Chile, which come with the support of the Chilean government and all of it's resources (including a monthly stipend and counseling services), do not replace or erase the need of Palestinians to have a home in their homeland, the right to return, historically it makes sense. So many people left Chile after the 1973 U.S. backed military coup. So many lives lost and disappeared through state sanctioned violence. The links are there. The connection is there.
And Far Away blogged about the changing face of both Palestine and Israel, sharing fascinating photographs:
It’s been 60 years since the Palestinian Nakbeh. That means around four generations of Palestinians.
Of course, in these past 60 years, life for Palestinians for those still living in Palestine and the ones living in exodus have changed drastically. Thanks to ethnic cleansing, injustice, barricading, lack-of-educational means, poverty, bad health care, constant pressure, among other racist and unjustifiable actions, life has changed.
Life for “Israelis” has also changed.
The wheels have turned…
Bruised Earth wondered about the false hope being given to Palestinians…
So on this day of of the Nakba, the catastrophe, all this site can ask and ‘hope’ to encourage is the ongoing search for the truth. Hope more people can wade through the politics and media that filter what we all need to know; what we all must confront. Everyone must find that for themselves.
…and encouraged readers to seek the truth from outside sources:
Read other Web sites – beyond Fox, CNN, BBC, and Reuters. Forget about the 30 minute news updates – and instead piece together 30 minutes of real news from other sources every day.
Read the facts. Find more facts. Find more truth.
Syrian blogger Maysaloon discussed the Nakba:
In many ways, how we choose to commemorate May the 15th says a lot about us in the Arab world. Those of us who remember it as something from the past and, to put it biblically, with much “wailing and gnashing of teeth”, miss the point. The Nakba did not happen and end in 1948, it has continued to this present day. You can see the Nakba in Gaza, in the refugee camps and, dare I say it, it has expanded to Iraq. However, from the Nakba we also saw the birth of resistance. From the heroism and selflessness of al Husseini and the resistance in 1948, to the battle of Karameh in '68, Beirut in '82, Iraq today and the South of Lebanon in 2006. The struggle against occupation continues, as it does against those who collaborate. May 15th reminds us of the tragedy which befell a people, our people but also strengthens our resolve to resist and to push on. Am I the last person to talk about resistance from the comfort of my home, in a country which was Israel's midwife? Perhaps, but just as a first person is necessary in a set, so is the last, and it is belonging to the set and playing your role in anyway possible which is what counts. The only thing, the easiest thing, for us to do is to forget, to count ourselves defeated or irrelevant. Each of us has a moral duty to resist zionism, empire and neo-colonialism in all aspects of our lives and it will be a poor excuse to say, one day, that you were only being realistic. The enemies of Palestine know that every person they kill or bomb they drop only creates more determination to fight them, that their time is running out. Sixty years on, the dream of ending Israel is that little bit closer. Sixty years on, the struggle continues.
Finally, My Home Away From Home, who lives in Canada, shared her desire to go to Palestine, the country of her ancestors:
Palestine…it is my home that I have never set foot in, it is the land I love without boundaries.
My heart cries for Palestine, I want to touch its soil even once in my life. My heart and soul are always with Palestine, it is a part of my prayer ritual. I pray that one day we get our freedom we get our right to return. I pray for the gruesome murders and unfairness to stop, for children to start living like they are supposed to without fear, for mothers to be able to sleep the night without worrying that tomorrow or the day after she may lose some or all of her children. I pray for families to live together all in one place without a brother, a son an uncle in the isreali prisons for life. I pray that children can go to school or out to play and come back home safely. I pray that wives and husbands are not widowed too soon, and children are not orphaned when they are still young. I pray for people to live in peace and harmony and for all of us Palestinians born all over the world to reunite and meet in our homeland, a land who’s love was born in our heart…