Saturday 19 May 2018, Palestinians and solidarity activists gathered and walked together – reaching for peace – to remember The Nakba. The Nakba is ‘the catastrophe’, the year when the Israeli state forcibly expelled three quarters of the Palestinian population from their villages and homes. This was one of the first acts in an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing and dispossession of Palestinians from their lands.
The catastrophe continues, 70 years on, fueled this week by the inflammatory choice of the Trump government to move the US embassy to East Jerusalem, and then the killing of dozens and injuring of 2,400+ Palestinians gathered to protest the move and what it symbolises for their future. The UN proposed a motion for an independent inquiry into the Gaza violence… many countries abstained. Only two vote to oppose it: the US and… Australia. Why Australia? It seems telling that Naarm Melbourne should be at the walk in solidarity.
Occupied but unconquered. Long live the intifada!
I have to look that one up, intifada, and Wiki tells me its “an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, “tremor”, “shivering”, “shuddering”. It is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning “to shake”, “shake off”, “get rid of”, as a dog might shrug off water, or as one might shake off sleep,or dirt from one’s sandals”. This brings Matthew 10:14 to mind: If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave. There is no welcome, there is no listening, there is no where else for the people of Palestine to go. Intifada “is a key concept in contemporary Arabic usage referring to a legitimate uprising against oppression. It is often rendered into English as “uprising”, “resistance”, or “rebellion”.” Today, that resistance and strong spirit to live was carried in the hands and voices, and marching feet of Palestinians and their children. Today, hope was carried in the hands and voices, and marching feet of Palestinians and their children.
From here, in Melbourne Australia, it is difficult to comprehend what is happening in Gaza. It’s not a war of the military and armies (bad enough) – but non-combatant ordinary people trying to go to school and work and live life behind fences. It’s likened to apartheid in South Africa and comparisons drawn to the Berlin Wall, but we have not learned from these atrocities. What will be the story of how history remembers the Palestine-Israel conflict? Who will be seen as the oppressors and the oppressed? What might reconciliation and restorative justice look like in this land because I know my freedom is bound to yours. In this way Israel need to understand that their freedom is tied to Palestines’ and the freedom of Palestine to that of Israel.
From the front, a speaker says:
Palestinians are fighting for their lives, Palestinians are humans, we are humans, we are Palestine.
And I wonder whether maybe the solution is there somewhere… in the call to our common humanity.
itellyouarise 