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Resistance celebrated, Occupation castigated

20/05/08

éirígí joined with the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) in Belfast to remember The Nakba (Arabic for ‘the catastrophe’) on Saturday May 18. The rally, attended by over 300 people marched from Writers’ Square, Belfast, to the City Hall. It was held in memory of the horrific events during 1948 when the State of Israel was formed and 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands in one of the biggest Middle Eastern population shifts of the last century.

60 years on and now 6 million Palestinians live as permanent refugees in the surrounding territories and within Palestine itself. The rally was held as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people and as a condemnation of Israeli policy, which has culminated recently in the erection of an apartheid wall further carving up the already fractured Palestinian lands.

John McCusker, Chairperson of the IPSC, Belfast and éirígí activist, commended those who had travelled to the event and similar rallies across the world, and also gave scathing criticism of the Israeli regime:

“Its great to see so many comrades and friends from all over the country and further afield having made this trip today to lend their voices to the international condemnation of the ongoing massacre, dispossession and forced refugee status of millions of Palestinian citizens.

“I think that one of our earlier speakers, Eamonn McCann, summed it up well when he said that the battle for Palestine is THE battle against imperialism. Anti-imperialists across the world should see a victory for Palestine as a major step towards a just and fair world for us all.

“It is a cruel and twisted irony, and an indication of where allegiances lie, that Eamonn McCann and those who took a stand at the Raytheon complex in Derry against the ongoing slaughter across the Middle East now find themselves up on charges within the so-called Justice system in the Six Counties.

“It is an indication of how the West can, not only turn a blind eye to the deaths of millions, but how those in power in states in the West are benefiting from the plight of these people and will do nothing to jeopardise that.

“However, we know the truth. A complicit media cannot hide it from us, and we cannot be prevented from acting as our conscience tells us too. Today we and others across the world, and most importantly the Palestinians themselves have re affirmed the Palestinian right to self-determination.

In 60 years of bloodshed and brutality the Israeli regime, with the assistance of the most wealthy states on earth, have not been able to break the Palestinian will to be free and to resist their destruction. For as long as the injustice of the Nakba exists so will human rights activists protest it, and so it is today.

“As Zionists all over the world celebrate the ‘birth’ of the state of Israel, we celebrate too. We celebrate 60 years of resistance by a steadfast, proud and brave Palestinian people, and we stand side by side with them and will until their day of justice.”

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