Arabic media were uncharacteristically reticent ahead of Tuesday’s “Nakba Day,”
hinting that this year’s commemorations may be tamer than last, when more than a
dozen people were killed trying to rush Israel’s northern
borders.
Lebanese news outlets reported that unlike last year, no
protests are expected to be held at the country’s frontier with
Israel.
Issam Halabi, director-general of the League of Palestinian
Refugees, told Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper that calls like last year’s to
“march on Jerusalem” have been largely absent from Palestinian camps in
Lebanon.
The paper reported that this year’s Nakba Day – when
Palestinians and other Arabs mourn Israel’s creation in 1948 – will be limited
to communities north of the Litani River in a bid to avoid a repeat of last
year’s bloodshed. Commemorative activities are reportedly also planned for
Martyr’s Square in the coastal city of Sidon.
The mother of Imad Abu
Shaqra, one of the protesters killed on the Lebanese border last year (it
remains unclear whether Israeli or Lebanese fire was responsible), told the
paper she had encouraged her son to join the rally.
“If another march to
the border is organized, I’ll be the first one to take part,” she
said.
Muneer Makdah, a senior Fatah official in Lebanon, said that the
Lebanese authorities did not give permission to Palestinians to march toward the
border with Israel, citing “security reasons.”
He said that rallies will
be held only inside Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to avoid friction with
the Lebanese army.
Over the last week, Al Jazeera ran a steady stream of
feature programs under the heading “The ongoing Nakba,” often tying them into
the weeks-long hunger strike waged by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
None of the reports, however, suggested plans were in place for large-scale
protests in Arab cities or along Israel’s borders.
Social media was also
comparatively quiet. In March, pro- Palestinian activists called for a
million-man “Global March to Jerusalem,” taking to Facebook and Twitter to drum
up support among tens of thousands of people around the Arab world. No similarly
ambitious Facebook or Twitter campaign was launched for this week’s
events.
Still, calls to mark Nakba Day were aired Monday in places as
geographically remote from the Israeli-Arab conflict as London and
Pakistan.
On Sunday, a few dozen people gathered outside the British
prime minister’s residence bearing placards calling to “Free Palestine” and
“stop the Judaization of Jerusalem.”
On Monday in Karachi, the “Palestine
Foundation of Pakistan” (PFP) called for protests across the country on Nakba
Day, including at the United Nations office in the city. On Tuesday they also
intend to run a commemorative seminar in the city’s Federal Urdu University
titled “Palestine, a Country of Palestinians” and presided over by the
Palestinian ambassador to Pakistan.
“For the past six decades, the
Palestinians are faced with hostilities at the hands of the Zionists,” PFP
leaders told the Pakistani daily The Nation.
“The United States, Europe
and international community, through their actions and policies, proved that
they are enemies of the Palestinians.”
Ziad Asali, founder of the
American Task Force on Palestine, wrote this weekend that commemoration of the
events of 1948 need not serve as a barrier for future Middle East
peace.
“Palestinians must recognize and accept Israel, which is a
legitimate member state of the United Nations,” wrote Asali, born in Jerusalem
in 1942, for the blog “Open Zion.”
“The Arabs were unable to prevent the
Jewish people from establishing the State of Israel in 1948. But Israel cannot
incorporate the Palestinian territory and population conquered in 1967 without
losing both its Jewish and its democratic character,” he wrote.
“Tuesday
is Nakba Day 2012, [and] 64 years after I lost my home and suddenly found myself
a refugee at age six, the task before us is to make sure that no further nakbas,
no more pogroms or unspeakable horrors, ever occur again.”