Nazareth-Hebdomada adulationis ex ducibus mundi, ostentationes virtutis militaris et factiones platearum facta est. Moderatores civitatis humeros clarissimis virium Judaeorum die suo 60 natali die coluerunt, cum decies centena milia Israelis in silvas patriae recesserunt ut nationali lusu fruerentur: barbecue.

 

But this year’s Independence Day festivities have concealed as much as they have revealed. The images of joy and celebration seen by the world have failed to acknowledge the reality of a deeply divided Israel, shared by two peoples with conflicting memories and claims to the land.

 

They have also served to shield from view the fact that the Palestinians’ dispossession is continuing in both the occupied territories and inside Israel itself. Far from being a historical event, Israel’s “independence” — and the ever greater toll it is inflicting on the Palestinian people — is very much a live issue.

 

A cameras, quinta pars incolarum Israelorum — plus quam unum decies centena milia civium Palaestinorum — al-Nakba meminerat, calamitas anni 1948 quae Palaestinae populo evenit, ut status Iudaeorum in ruinis suae societatis aedificatus est.

 

As it has been doing for the past decade, Israel’s Palestinian minority staged an alternative act of commemoration: a procession of families, many of them refugees from the 1948 war, to one of more than 400 Palestinian villages erased by Israel in a monumental act of state vandalism after the fighting. The villages were destroyed to ensure that the 750,000 Palestinians expelled from the state under the cover of war never return.

 

But in a sign of how far Israel still is from coming to terms with the circumstances of its birth, this year’s march was forcibly broken up by the Israeli police. They clubbed unarmed demonstrators with batons and fired tear gas and stun grenades into crowds of families that included young children.

 

Although most of the refugees from the 1948 war — numbering in their millions — ended up in camps in neighbouring Arab states, a few remained inside Israel. Today one in four Palestinian citizens of Israel is either a refugee or descended from one. Not only have they been denied the right ever to return to their homes, like the other refugees, but many live tantalisingly close to their former communities.

 

Villae Palaestinae destructae vel quasi Iudaeorum exclusivae communitates reinventae sunt vel sub frondibus forestationis nationalis programmata a Fundo nationali Iudaeorum oppressa et pro eleemosynis caritativa ab Americanis et Europaeis Iudaeis solvebantur.

 

There have been many Nakba processions held over the past week but the march across fields close by the city of Nazareth was the only one whose destination was a former Palestinian village now occupied by Jews.

 

The village of Saffuriya was bombed from the air for two hours in July 1948, in one of the first uses of air power by the new Jewish state. Most of Saffuriya’s 5,000 inhabitants fled northwards towards Lebanon, where they have spent six decades waiting for justice. But a small number went south towards Nazareth, where they sought sanctuary and eventually became Israeli citizens.  

 

Today they live in a neighbourhood of Nazareth called Safafra, after their destroyed village. They look down into the valley where a Jewish farming community known as Zippori has been established on the ruins of their homes.

 

Hoc anno processio Nakba ad Saffuriya erat parva contumacia a civibus Palaestinis in vicum rediens, etsi symbolice tantum et paucis horis. Haec comminatio, quam Israelis perferens sensus propriae victimae exclusivae, revelata est per vim ultro emissam contra marches inermes, multos eorum filios.

 

Sicut alii multi, ibi fui cum puero - filia mea quinque-mensis-vetus. Fortunate eam et mea causa reliquimus fatigatam ab aestu tam diu, antequam labor incepit.

 

Relinquentes, res erant omnino pacificae. Nihilominus, sicut nos abiecimus, membra praecipui vigilum unitatis paramilitaris notae vidi sicut Yassam in suis motorbikes apparens. Yassam efficaciter sunt hit MANIPLUS, notae ad primum excutiendum et postea interrogandum. Semper sequitur tribulatio in uigiliis.

 

Eventus, qui post meridiem explicaverunt, in videos maxime domesticis factis, quae in interrete, interreti spectari possunt, capta sunt hic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-P4LI1ceGA). Contextus ad has imagines intelligendas providetur infra in rationibus a testibus ad oppugnationem vigilum:

 

 

Multa Palaestinorum milia, vexilla iactantes et carmina Palaestinae canentes, ad saltum in terras Saffuriyae consitae proficiscuntur. Senes, quorum nonnulli villas anno 1948 fugientes meminerant, iuvenes familias et complures duodecim Israelis Iudaeos sympathetici adiuncti sunt. Cum marchatores ad fontem Saffuriya tendentes, ab auctoritatibus saepibus metalli obsignati ante paucos annos ad vicani aquam colligendam obsistere, salutati sunt cum parva contra demonstrationem a dextra cornu Israelis Iudaeis salutati.

 

Accipiebant agros trans viam ad ostium quod nunc est communitas Iudaeorum Zippori. Vexilla Israelis agitaverunt et carmina nationis Hebraeorum cantabant, ut vigiles tumultus armatorum aciem viae direxerunt quae duas demonstrationes separavit.

 

Tareq Shehadeh, caput Nazarethanae Culturae et Consociationis Tourism cuius parentes Saffuriya expulerunt, dixit: "Fuerunt quidam demonstratores Iudaeorum 50 qui destinatum itineris finem occupare licebat. Eorum iura nostra sponte ficta sunt, licet apud nos essent mille et pauci eorum.

 

Magistratus dorsum habuerunt ad demonstratores Iudaeorum dum in processione Palaestinae obversae sunt. "Quasi dicerent: hic sumus propter utilitatem Iudaeorum, non pro vobis", dixit Shehadeh. “Monumentum erat, si opus erat, hunc statum Iudaeorum esse et nos etiam solito minus gratos Palaestinos convenire.

 

Profecti aversi sunt et ardui in silvas tendunt, ad defensionem ubi exules Palaestinae memorantur.

 

Cum res post meridiem finiretur, marchiones ad viam regiam et carros conversi sunt. In versione vigilum, Iuvenes Palaestinae viam clauserunt et lapides ad currus transeuntes iecerunt, ut magistratus vim ad ordinem componendum cogere cogerent.

 

Dozens mercatorum vulnerati sunt, in iis feminae et pueri, et duo membra Arabum Knesset, Mohammed Barakeh et Wassel Taha, batones vigilum sanguinei sunt. Vigiles in turbas ascendentes oneraverunt, dum tasque stupefaciunt et lachrymae in campis familiarum transeuntibus liberaliter accensi sunt. Octo iuvenes comprehensi sunt.

 

Shehadeh, qui erat proximus magistratus cum vexatione incepit, et multi alii marchatores dicunt se vidisse dextrarium Judaicum in eos lapides iacientes a tergo vigilum. Palaestinae iuuenes quaedam responderunt cius. Alii addunt vigiles Palaestinae vexillo iactanti a muliere lacessiti esse.

 

"Nulli magistratus quaerebant Iudaeos lapides iacere. Et etsi pauci Palaestinae iuvenes se ferant, eos persequeris et comprehendas, vigiles non mittis in equo insidentes in multitudinem familiarum incurrentes et flammas gas et tasque stupefaciunt. Prorsus indiscreta et temeraria fuit".

 

Nubes gasi familias tardissimas involvit, dum cum liberis suis in silva protegendis certabant.

 

Teresia Zbeidat, nationalis Batavica, quae ibi erat cum marito suo Ali Palaestinae et duabus teenage filiabus suis, Dina et Awda, experientias familiae suae appellavit et alios per "horrendum" vigiles.

 

“Usque ad hoc tempus revera familia fuit. Cum vigiles lachrymam accensus gas, duo prope nos erant propellentes iter saxea semita versus viam. Nubes vaporis ad nos veniebat. Homini dixi stroller excedere et in arduo currere quam celerrime apud infantem potuit.

 

“Postea inveni eos cum infantem retardantem, fluentem et suffocantem oculis. Fregit cor meum. Tot familiae cum infantibus erant, et crimen vigilum tam perspectum erat. Ex nihilo coepit."

 

Duodecim annorum boyfriend filia Zbeidat Teresiae Awdae inter eos captus fuit. "Primum tempus quovis nationis studio eventum" dixit. “Fuit cum matre sua, et cum in collem a vigilibus equo currebamus, offendit et cecidit.

 

“Iit ut eam adiuvaret et rei proximae globus circiter X vigilum ad eum directe cannistrorum gas lacrimam accendebant. Et apprehendentes eum iuxta collum eius et circumdederunt eum. Omnia quae faciebat, matrem adiuvabat!"

 

Postea Teresia et filiae eius putabant se in medio alterius criminis e diverso, iam per vigiles pedestres se in tuto collocare. Awda pulsavit ad terram et in crure calcitravit, cum Dina tristis denuntiavit ei qui dixit: "Confligam caput tuum."

 

"Fui in pluribus demonstrationibus ante cum magistratus foedam verterunt", Teresia dixit, "sed nihil vidi dissimile hoc. Infantes illi infantes, quidam vix titubantes, inter omnes qui parentes suos clamantes - quam viam libertatis notant diem!"

 

Jafar Farah, caput coetus politici lobbying Mossawa, qui ibi cum duobus pueris suis erat, locum tutum in silva invenit et declivis ad alios liberos ad salutem vadas adiuvandos decurrit.

 

Postero die curiam frequentavit, quam magistratus expostulavit ut octo homines amplius septem dies detinerentur. Tres, incluso diurnarius localis qui caesus erat et cameram suam per magistratus subreptam habebat, liberati sunt postquam iudex speculator video footage exercitatus a marchis captos.

 

Farah dixit de rebus independentiae diei: “Pro decenniis communitatis nostrae vetuit recordari publice quid nobis in Nakba populo acciderit. Praeceptores nostri direpti sunt. Nos Palaestinos ne nos quidem scire putamur.

 

“Atque praeterea, vigiles contra nos vim faciebant, ut locum nostrum docerent. Mense Octobri 2000, ineunte intifada, 13 adulescentes nostri inermes ad demonstrandum mortui iacti sunt. Nemo umquam imputatus est.

 

“Despite all that we started to believe that Israel was finally mature enough to let us remember our own national tragedy. Families came to show their children the ruins of the villages so they had an idea of where they came from. The procession was becoming a large and prominent event. People felt safe attending.

 

“At erravimus, ut videtur. Videbatur mihi valde similis huius impetus a vigilibus institutum esse. Auctores puto infelices circa processuum successus, eosque cessasse volebant.

 

"Adhuc vincere possunt. Quis parens liberos suos ad iter proximum annum adducet scientes se a vigilibus armatis oppugnaturos esse?

 

 

Jonathan Cook is a journalist and writer living in Nazareth, Israel. His most recent book is “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East”, published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

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