'Even if it takes us a
million years,
the people will return'
SAFURIYAH: Arab Israelis marched Thursday for
the right of return for refugees who fled their
homes during the 1948 war that followed
the creation of Israel as the Jewish state
marked its 60th anniversary. The march,
attended by thousands of Arab Israelis from
northern Israel, was marred later in the day when clashes
broke out between some demonstrators and police and several
people were injured, police and other officials said.
Chanting "no alternative to the right of return," thousands of
people walked up a grassy hill toward a pine grove that covers
the ruins of the Arab village of Safuriyah.
As they made their way up a dirt path along a highway, they
waved Palestinian flags and the orange and red banners
of Arab Israeli political parties, chanting:
"With our blood,
with our soul, we sacrifice for Palestine."
"The crusaders were here for 150 years and then they left.
The same thing will happen with Israel," said
Suleiman Abd al-Majid, 73, who fled Safuriyah at the age of
14 and now lives in nearby Nazareth.
Leaning on a cane and breathing heavily as he made his way
up the hill, Abd al-Majid insisted that his 12 children and
40 grandchildren have the right to return to what was
once his home.
Hundreds of thousands of Arabs lost their homes in the war
that started immediately after Israel declared its independence
in May 1948. Scores more were expelled during later conflicts.
headscarf known as a kefiyah, still remembers the fateful
night when Israeli forces seized the village.
"That night the planes came and bombed the roads, and then
the tanks came into the town and they occupied it. We fled
to the olive groves. I hid there with 50 other people, all
women and children," he said.
Demonstrators of all ages took part in Thursday's
protest, staged as Israel celebrated its birthday with
military displays, beach parties and fireworks.
"I came here with my children so they could remember.
It's important to come back again and again,"
said Khalil Zidan, 40, as he and his three small children
stood in the shade of the pine trees watching the rally.
"Anything is possible. The Jews came back after a million years,"
he says, sarcastically. "Even if it takes us a million years, the
people will return."
Clashes erupted at the end of the protest,
Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab Israeli lawmaker, blamed
the police for provoking the clashes by trying to make the
demonstrators lower the Palestinian flags they were carrying.
Barakeh also told AFP that police used clubs and tear gas to
break up the protest, injuring some of the demonstrators.
Hours earlier Zidan had said that tensions remained
between the two communities living in the lush, green
Galilee. "There is still a war between Jews and Arabs here,
over every centimeter of land."
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians also marked six
decades since the "Nakba" - Arabic for
catastrophe. In Bethlehem, several hundred Palestinians
chanting "the right of return is sacred" staged a march
around a truck carrying a 10-ton metal key symbolizing
the homes people lost in 1948.
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