Photo credit: Alan Gignoux
Date taken: 2004
Location: Burj Al-Barajneh refugee camp, Beirut, Lebanon
Zeinab Al-Saqqa, a refugee living in Burj Al-Barajneh refugee camp in Lebanon, is shown in this portrait wearing the wedding dress she wore before being evicted from her home in the Palestinian village of Al-Nahr. The dress is the only possession she brought with her when she fled for her life. [Read more...]
By the looks of it, yesterday’s Land Day commemoration will go down in history as yet another bloody day of protest. Mirroring the events that unfolded exactly thirty-six years ago in 1976, Palestinian protestors faced both the front end and the butt end of the gun. Tear gas flooded their eyes and burning rubber flooded their lungs. One protestor was shot and killed and dozens more were injured, arrested, or both.
And on the other side, Palestinians battled the rubber bullets, the gas canisters, and the excessive use of force with rocks and Molotov cocktails.
There was violence from both sides today, and as journalist Joseph Dana notes, “this is . . . the reality of this conflict”. When asked who is to blame, each side will undoubtedly point the finger towards the other, and with the news convoluting itself with politicized semantics, it’s virtually impossible to determine, with evidence, who struck the first blow and what the term “first blow” even entails.
But one thing is for certain: no occupation, no Land Day. If Israel didn’t maintain a military presence in the West Bank, if it respected international rulings and dismantled its wall, if it applied itself to the human rights standards it demands from the world, there would be no reason to ask who struck the first blow because there likely wouldn’t be any reason to clash, as the news puts it, in the first place. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Mohamad Ballan
Palestinians remember dates. For a country with such a rich heritage, this is an unsurprising fact. Over 17 civilizations have risen and fallen in Palestine in the last three millennia. It would almost be expected for such a people inhabiting an ancient land to remember some of the key dates which shaped the Palestinian people into who they are today. However, unlike other nations, which have the privilege of commemorating their accomplishments or historic milestones, Palestinians have the sad honor of recalling tragedies, not victories. For a population whose grandparents were subjected to imperial brutality, parents forced into exile, and children forced to endure one of the longest military occupations in modern history, it is no surprise that the Palestinian national calendar is devoted to remembering the martyrs that have fallen. For the sake of brevity, let us recall some of the dates which are now etched onto the Palestinian collective memory. November 27th: the illegal partition of Palestine against the wishes of its indigenous population. April 9th: the brutal massacre of 250 men, women, and children. May 15th: a day appropriately termed the “Day of Catastrophe,” commemorates hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages that were either extinguished from existence or systematically emptied of (over 750,000 of) its ancient inhabitants by Zionist paramilitaries, a process the world euphemistically terms “ethnic cleansing.” I wish to turn now to another date, no less important than those above but less understood. March 30th. Land Day. Yom al-Ard. Yom ha-Adama. This date carries its own significance. In addition to marking a historical event, it also represents a historical process and symbolizes the experience of an entire people. [Read more...]
