VIVA PALESTINA ARABIAExcerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett
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| Gaza |
The flag of Palestine has become a leitmotif for
humanitarians and for people around the world who care about justice.
Now, there are
attempts to reverse that development, to encourage people in the West, the
Middle East and around the world to avert their eyes from Palestine.
So another Convoy takes sail
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| Flag of Palestine Palestinians protest |
VIVA PALESTINA ARABIA
follows the great siege-breaking efforts of Viva
Palestina in Britain and of attempts to break the siege by sea and is scheduled
to reach Gaza on May 15, Nakba Day on
which Palestinians across the world commemorate the catastrophe that forced so
many of them, now a majority, into exile.
WHY the right of return convoy?
More than three years since Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’
that left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip the siege
remains.
The changes sweeping Egypt and the
Middle East bring the promise of finally lifting that blockade and of further
steps to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people. But promise alone
will not end the suffering now, nor address the reasons for it.
That is why Viva Palestina Arabia has organized an aid convoy to again break
the siege on Gaza. It is looking to the future. That is why it will carry construction equipment to rebuild the schools, clinics, public buildings and
homes that have been destroyed both by Israel’s attacks and by the effects of
the ongoing siege.
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| Gaza |
Its purpose is also to highlight in
each country it passes … the reasons for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
and the wider suffering of the Palestinian people.
Peace talks are stalled, yet illegal
Israeli settlement building in the West Bank continues, as does the driving out
of non-Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Conditions for millions of Palestinian
refugees in the camps in Palestine and neighboring countries remain appalling.
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| Flag of Palestine |
VIVA PALESTINA ARABIA
will be highlighting the rights of those refugees, enshrined in international
law and in UN resolutions. They have an inalienable right to return to the
homes from which they were driven.
With this convoy, VPA will be part of another international
effort to focus on these vital questions.
Sources and notes
“Whereas the Western world regarded the creation of Israel
in May 1948 as a triumph for humanity — the righting for Jews of the terrible
wrong of the Holocaust—Israel’s Arab neighbors saw the event as a catastrophe.”
[Richard B. Parker, Britannica]
“Last year saw international protests on Nakba Day which
brought the fundamental reasons for the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and in
the camps to world attention … This convoy [returns] to Palestine—the right of
Palestinians to return and returning attention to this central issue by
contributing to the construction, the rebuilding, of a Palestine for all
Palestinians, with Jerusalem recognized as its capital.”
http://www.vivapalestinaarabia.org/registration/index.html
http://www.vivapalestinaarabia.org/registration/
“Viva Palestina Arabia heads towards Palestine,” May 7,
2012, http://www.presstv.ir/Program/239971.html
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