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Global March to Jerusalem: An Act of Homage to a City in Danger
On March 30th a ground-breaking event will take place. I had not expected it would ever happen when I first heard about it. While teaching at the Summer University of Palestine last July in Beirut, I met a group of Indian Muslims taking the course. They told me they were organizing a people’s march to Jerusalem to bring to the world’s attention to Israel’s assault on the city’s history and culture, and its impending loss as a center for Islam and Christianity. They explained how they and their friends would set out from India, drawing in others to join them as they passed through the various countries on their way overland to Israel’s borders.
They seemed fired up and determined, and I could not but admire their zeal and dedication to try and rescue this orphan city which has been abandoned by all who should have defended her. But I thought their ambitions would be thwarted by the harsh reality of trying to implement their dreams. It would never succeed, I thought, but I was quite wrong. The movement they and their fellow activists spearheaded, called the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), is now in its final stages. A distinguished group of 400 advisers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Laureate, Mairead Maguire, are promoting the GMJ. The marchers will head for Jerusalem or the nearest point possible on March 30th.
This date also commemorates Land Day, a significant anniversary for Palestinians. On that day in 1976 six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces. They had participated in a peaceable general strike to protest against Israeli confiscations of privately owned Palestinian land, and paid with their lives for this act of non-violent resistance. Since then this tragic event has been commemorated annually by Palestinians everywhere. Today, it is a fitting reminder of Israel’s other confiscation of Jerusalem’s land, ongoing since 1967.
No one knows the exact numbers of marchers who will make it, but they promise to be large. Land caravans have been traveling for weeks from India, Pakistan and other Asian countries towards the meeting places in the countries bordering Israel. At the same time, marches towards Jerusalem will take place from within the occupied Palestinian territories. “Palestinians and their international supporters will attempt to get as close to Jerusalem as they can, whether at the borders of Lebanon and Jordan, at checkpoints in the West Bank or at the Erez crossing with Gaza”, the organizers have announced.
In tandem with this, solidarity protests and rallies are planned in 64 countries around the world, centered on Israeli embassies in each place. In London a mass rally is planned opposite the Israeli embassy. All the protests aim to be strictly peaceful, bearing in mind Israel’s brutal reaction on Nakba day in 2011, when 13 refugees were killed close to the border with Israel. This time the signs are that the army is preparing to behave similarly. Israel has already warned the neighboring states they must prevent protestors from reaching the border. Israeli troops have been deployed along the borders with Syria and Lebanon. The Israeli cabinet has met urgently to discuss security arrangements against the marchers at the borders and in the West Bank. In a sign of panic, they have accused Iran and Islamic fundamentalism of being behind the GMJ.
However it turns out on March 30th, it will have been a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience. Jerusalem is unique and irreplaceable, and its pillage and destruction at Israel’s hands ever since 1967 has been tolerated for far too long. Governments, institutions and official bodies have signally failed to halt Israel’s encroachment on the holy city. They must now make way for ordinary citizens to take charge and come to Jerusalem’s aid. That is why the Global March to Jerusalem matters and why it must succeed.
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8 Comments so far
Show AllBeautiful statement by an amazing woman.
Here is some of what's happening tomorrow Land Day .....
INTERNATIONAL ACTION:
http://gm2j.com/main/events-program/
NORTH AMERICAN ACTIONS:
http://www.gmj-na.org/localactions.html
Join or create an action in your area!
when the jewish people can say to the palestinian people, "you are our brothers and our sisters", at that moment the murderous soul-destroying thing, the state that hides itself behind the name, "israel", will disappear, falling back into the abyss in the human spirit from which it arose..
Ghada Karmi:
"An hour to suffer, a life-time to live." The thinking behind Tolstoy’s fallen protagonist in his short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Baited with greed, Tolstoy’s protagonist would succumb to the trappings of the human mouse trap.
In the end: His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.
If one came to visit us from a distant planet, one would easily deduce that immortality was something one mined in the mountains of the Sahara Desert and was in the hands of the governing powers; and having a monopoly on this commodity theirs sole reason for conducting wars of aggression.
Aime Cesaire:
For it is not true that the work of man is finished
That we have nothing more to do
But be parasites in the world
The work of man is only just beginning
And it remains to conquer
All the violence entrenched
In the recesses of his passion
No race has a monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of strength
And there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory
I have a feeling our visitor will be longing for home sooner than he arrived.
Thank you Ghada.
Jerusalem is supposed to be an international city, and is holy to three major faiths. Instead of a holy sanctuary, it has become an abattoir and a cesspit of human misery. Perhaps they should not only march, but occupy. We, the relatively silent majorities of all faiths, should stand up and stop letting the shrillest, loudest voices dominate the conversation.
It seems so reprehensible that Palestinians are refugees in their own land. Why does America support Israel in this? Perhaps one small reason is the good old boy network-- good old Christians and good Old Jews. America put her heathen savages on Indian reservations rather than Palestinian refugee camps. This is certainly not to say the Palestinians are godless, but the majority are neither Christian nor Jew. Finally it was fashionable to demonstrate about not being antisemitic after the holocaust fallout.
Have any of you commenters ever visited Jerusalem? I think not. And as for the Israeli's "confiscating" land, well, that "confiscation" was and continues to be done via the sale of that land by Arabs to Israelis. The SELL their land. Take the money and run. It is always surprising to me when otherwise intelligent people believe every word they read in the press. This is a teeny, tiny country roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. It defies all logic that this country is the root of all evils. Give me a break. What about what is going on in Darfur and Sudan? Is that Israel's fault too? If I were to read nothing other than this blog I would be brainwashed into thinking so. Go to Jerusalem. See how Arabs live amongst Jews enjoying full civil rights and freedoms.
It is you that said Israel is the root of all evil. Perhaps you had in mind the saying that love of money is the root of all evil. Since Israel has been immensely gifted with money from America, perhaps you may be implying that Washington is the root of all evil. Certainly, America is armed to the teeth, with all nations in the world paying homage to her military might as well as paying for American arms shipments. Israel, armed with American military largesse, is only following suit in her own little part of the world.
Boycott Israel, Divest and Sanction them also. http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/