Amid Israel’s independence festivities, Arabs mark Nakba

As Israelis across the nation marked the country’s 67th year of independence Thursday, thousands of Arab Israeli citizens gathered in the Galilee to mark the Nakba — the “catastrophe” of the creation of Israel.

The procession, an annual event titled “The March of Return,” has been held since 1998. Each year organizers choose the location of a different Arab village ruined in the War of Independence and march there, calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes. Former villagers who are now displaced inside Israel are invited to come and tell stories of olden times.

On Thursday Arab Israeli members of Knesset joined protesters in marching towards the abandoned village of El Hadetheh, 12 kilometers southwest of Tiberias, waving Palestinian flags and calling out against the destruction of Arab homes.

Police were situated at the entrance to the village to maintain order, though no arrests or incidents of violence were reported.

MK Ahmad Tibi of the Joint (Arab) List was in attendance. He posted several photos from the march on his Facebook page.

Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the Nakba — the defeat and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the 1948 war in which Israel gained its independence. Many of those refugees and their descendants, now numbering several million, live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or in neighboring Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Thursday’s march, organized by the Association for the Defense of the Right of the Internally Displaced, together with Zochrot, a Tel Aviv-based political group dedicated to promoting acknowledgement of the Nakba, came a few weeks ahead of the official day.

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The march also came a day after Israeli-Arab journalist, Lucy Aharish, was among the 14 Israelis to light a torch in the official Independence Day ceremony on Mount Herzl.

MK Basel Ghattas of the Joint List told Channel 2 the demonstration sent the government a clear message that despite Aharish’s participation in the ceremony, true coexistence is still far from reality.

Balad MK Basel Ghattas (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

“While the State of Israel attempts to sell the world a false pretense of coexistence and equality, by having individuals who have internalized the defeat to the point of worshiping their oppressors light an Independence Day torch, tens of thousands of protesters today are conveying a clear message to the Jewish State,” he said.

Aharish, 33, a Muslim Arab whose parents hail from Nazareth but who was educated in Jewish institutions, instantly became a target of far-right criticism when it was announced earlier this month that she had accepted the honor of lighting a torch at the state Independence Day ceremony. Some left-wing critics said her accepting the honor constituted an agreement to serve as a fig leaf for the government.

According to Ghattas, Arab Israeli citizens continue to be oppressed and unfairly treated on a daily basis. “Today, as the destruction of homes in the Negev and Galilee continues, the oppression of the Arab minority continues, and the control of the Jewish State is rampant in all aspects of our lives.”

Israeli Arab journalist Lucy Aharish lights a torch at the Independence Day Ceremony on April 22, 2015 (screen capture: Channel 2)

Aharish was teary-eyed when she took her turn at the ceremony, saying she was lighting the torch “for all human beings wherever they may be who have not lost hope for peace, and for the children, full of innocence, who live on this Earth.

“For those who were but are no more, who fell victim to baseless hatred by those who have forgotten that we were all born in the image of one God. For Sephardim and Ashkenazim, religious and secular, Arabs and Jews, sons of this motherland that reminds us that we have no other place. For us as Israel, for the honor of mankind, and for the glory of the State of Israel,” she said.

Aharish, the only Arab lighting a torch in the ceremony, also spoke in Arabic, saying: “For our honor as human beings, this is our country and there is no other.”

AP and Jonathan Beck contributed to this report.