At Haaretz, Coen brothers say that boycotting Israel is a mistake. Not much of an explanation:

Responding to a question about musicians and film makers who boycott the State of Israel because of its policies and actions, screenwriter and director Ethan Coen said, "People respond to real problems from the heart, and they think that's the right thing to do. We don't agree with that opinion, that that's how to deal with these problems."

Photo from Tel Aviv, January 2010.

Today, Commentary has been more or less liveblogging events, with 7 posts up about 'Nakba day' (as they too call it). Of course, there's little mention of the actual Nakba, but it's very clear from their flailing that they're very worried and want to cast these events in a negative light on Palestinians and Arabs. While they're not looking, however, they are being forced to broach conversations and address realities that they would really not want to.

Gharib tweeted about the Commentary posts here.

“If we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that theycan stop a nonviolent campaign by inflicting massive violence."  --1961, Diane Nash, Freedom Ride organizer

Alice Walker, one of America’s premier writers, poets and civil rights activists said this month, “The Gaza Flotilla is the Freedom Ride of this era.” Remembering growing up in Mississippi, Walker said, “We prayed for people to come to break through the Klan, the racist police, the white citizens’ councils, to come and see what we suffered with every day.” Walker added, “We must oppose oppression with every ounce of our blood. We must go and see what is happening and join our stories to their stories. We do this especially for the youth. It may take the rest of our lives, but we will start now.”

1961 Freedom Rides

Fifty years ago on May 4, 1961, 14 young Americans started off by bus from Washington, DC headed for New Orleans. They, and those who followed in the next months, were called Freedom Riders and they intended to challenge segregation and racist policies in the southern United States, particularly in bus, train and airport terminals, after integration of these facilities had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court, but not implemented in the south. 

On May 14, 1961, ten days after the first Freedom Ride began, a mob of Ku Klux Klansmen in Anniston, Alabama, attacked a bus carrying the Freedom Riders and the bus caught on fire. The riders were viciously beaten as they jumped out of the burning bus and many were hospitalized. 

White Southerners Attempted to Stop Freedom Rides with Violence but Failed

Southern whites were counting on stopping further challenges to their policies of segregation with brutal treatment of the Freedom Riders. However, despite the first Freedom Ride ending with the hospitalization of many Freedom Riders, student leader Diane Nash said, "It was clear to me that if we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop at that point, just after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that all you have to do to stop a nonviolent campaign is inflict massive violence." (PBS by WGBH (1996-2009). Freedom Riders. Biography)

So, the Freedom Riders did not stop! They kept on coming to the South in waves during the summer of 1961. Finally, four months later, after over 400 black and white Americans, trained in specific non-violent techniques, had been savagely beaten, assaulted, arrested and jailed by those upholding segregation, and with the jails in Mississippi overflowing with Freedom Riders, the Kennedy administration forced the integration of the interstate terminal facilities.

Violence against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla will not stop Citizen Activists

Now 50 years later, citizens from many nations are challenging the unjust and inhumane policies of another government. For a second time, they will ride in a flotilla of ships to challenge the State of Israel’s unlawful and unjust naval blockade of Gaza. This will be the second year that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla will bring worldwide attention to the Israeli siege on the 1.6 million people that live in the tiny Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on the planet, which has suffered for the past five years under the brutal Israeli land and sea blockade and a horrific 22 day Israeli military attack that killed 1440 and wounded 5,000. The flotillas follow the initiative of the Free Gaza movement that in the summer of 2008 sailed ships to bring attention of the world to the blockade of Gaza.

Israeli Violence Against Unarmed Civilian Ships in the Flotilla in 2010

Last year, in the early morning of May 31, 2010, the six ships in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla One were attacked by the Israeli military. Israeli commandos killed nine unarmed civilians and wounded 50 more on the 600 passenger Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara. Passengers on the other five ships were beaten, hit with paint bullets in the face and some tasered. All were arrested and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod where most spent several days in an Israeli prison before being deported from Israel for “entering Israel illegally.” 

Freedom Rides and Freedom Flotillas called “Provocative” by government authorities

On American television this month, fifty years later, the story of the incredible courage and bravery of the Freedom Riders is being retold. 

I have been struck that the reasons for going on these dangerous rides in the southern part of the United States in 1961 are very similar to the reasons that passengers on the U.S. ship to Gaza, the Audacity of Hope, have for their participation in the Gaza flotilla. 

Flotilla passengers, like the Freedom Riders of a half-century ago, want to bring international attention to illegal government actions and unjust treatment of human beings. Fifty years ago it was for the African-Americans in the American South and today it is for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The Freedom Flotilla riders want to end an unjust system that deprives Palestinians of their human rights, respect and freedom of travel. The Freedom Flotilla riders, like the American Freedom Riders, are exercising their right to travel, even to areas where governments do not want them.

The parallels in citizens attempting to changeactions of governmentsby non-violent action are fascinating. Fifty years ago, government officials in the American south called the actions of those on the buses challenging segregation of facilities in the south “provocative.” Today, the act of challenging the policies of Israel by taking ships to Gaza to break the naval blockade is also called provocative, not only by Israel, but by other governments that support Israel, including the United States.

On April 21, 2001 Israel's UN Ambassador Meron Reuben told a UN Security Council session that organizers aim at “political provocation and not to advance any humanitarian goal.” Reuben said Israel is determined to enforce the naval blockade of Gaza and 'stop additional terrorists from infiltrating the area.' He also urged the UN and international community to take all necessary measures to prevent the flotilla from occurring. The Israeli diplomatic offensive to stop the flotilla has been intense, with all countries on the Mediterranean Sea asked to refuse to let ships of the flotilla leave their waters.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said, “There are distinct mechanisms to deliver goods to Gaza and there are no justifications to sail directly to Gaza,” calling on the organizers to follow those mechanisms and urged member states to “use every legal means at their disposal to discourage additional flotillas to Gaza.”

On May 11, 2011, 36 members of the U.S. Congress in a bipartisan letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the Prime Minister to stop the 2011 flotilla from departing Turkey for Gaza. “Another so-called aid flotilla to Gaza is nothing but an attempt to provoke Israel. The Turkish government can help prevent violence by saying ‘no.’ We are urging Prime Minister Erdogan to actively work to put a stop to this and join with Israel in providing real humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” said Representative from New York, Steve Israel. Israel is a strong supporter of the State of Israel.

Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole who is from a predominately fundamentalist Christian state whose congregations contribute substantially in support of construction of illegal settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, said “Turkey’s…democratic leaders have a unique opportunity to prevent the turmoil that could result from allowing another Gaza flotilla to confront the Israeli security blockade. During this volatile time in the region, I urge Prime Minister Erdogan to work with Israel to avoid conflict and ensure legitimate aid is delivered without creating needless instability." 

Same Tactics– Call Them Names and Attack Them with Dogs

American racist southerners called the Freedom riders very disparaging names. The Israeli government calls the passengers on the Freedom Flotilla “terrorists.”

Israel's UN Ambassador Meron Reuben told a UN Security Council session on April 12, 2011 that individuals on the flotilla 'hold many ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations,' and that 'numerous participants engaged in the planning of this flotilla have made very troubling statements expressing their willingness to become martyrs in this effort.” but did not provide any documentation of alleged statements. He said Israel is determined to enforce the naval blockade of Gaza and 'stop additional terrorists from infiltrating the area.'

Use of Attack Dogs to Frighten and Intimidate

Other parallels between governments’ approaches to ending challenges to their policies include the use of attack dogs. Attack dogs were used by police in the American south against the civil rights activists to frighten them to stop the freedom rides, sit-ins and other forms of non-violent civil resistance to the segregationist policies. 

The Israeli government uses attack dogs against the Palestinians in the West Bank and is threatening to use attack dogs against passengers on the Gaza flotilla. Last week, the Israeli government used attack dogs against Palestinian laborers. According to the article, the B'Tselem human rights group has recorded seven dog attacks in the last few weeks, all from the same area. The article reported that earlier this week a number of laborers were injured when soldiers ordered dogs to attack dozens of Palestinians returning home at midday through the fence breach, following the border closure Israel had imposed. The IDF spokesman said to the Haaretz newspaper that soldiers who were using dogs on Palestinians were "taking adequate precautions to prevent unnecessary injury."

In April, 2011, in other incidents, attack dogs were ordered to attack more Palestinians in the West Bank.

In 2009, in an incredible assault, an IDF dog attacked a 99 year old man while he was in bed. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced in October 2010 that they are considering using attack dogs against the passengers on the next flotilla. The IDF spokesperson said, "They (the dogs) are strong and merciless, but in fact this is a non-lethal weapon that can certainly do the work (on the deck)."

Tragically, the Israelis soldiers are using of attack dogs on Palestinians in the same manner that the Nazis attack against the Jews. “Do we not remember why Jews of that generation hated dogs? Because the Nazis used them in precisely the same way the IDF is using them on Palestinians.”

US Boat to Gaza to Sail in the 2011 Gaza Freedom Flotilla Despite Israeli Threat of Violence

The US Boat to Gaza, named “The Audacity of Hope,” will sail in the international flotilla in the third week of June with fifty passengers from all over the United States, Americans from all walks of life-- teachers, nurses, students. More Americans will be on some of the other ships as well. All vessels in the flotilla will have international inspections as did the vessels in the 2010 flotilla. www.ustogaza.org

All passengers on the ships of the flotilla sign and commit to pledges of non-violence in the face of the most violent military in the region-the Israel Defense Forces. As Diane Nash said fifty years ago, “If we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that theycan stop a nonviolent campaign by inflicting massive violence." Threats of Israeli violence will not stop the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Two.

Also, join us in Challenging AIPAC, the Powerful Israeli Lobby, over the US Congress and the White House in MoveOver AIPAC actions May 21-24.

Ann Wright is a 29-year, US Army/Army Reserves veteran, who retired as a colonel and a former US diplomat. She resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She was in Gaza three times in 2009 after the Israeli attack on Gaza and was on the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla. She is an organizer with the US Boat to Gaza which will be in the 2011 flotilla. She is the co-author of the book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience." www.voicesofconscience.com 

Transcript of Alice Walker’s video statement on the importance of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla:

“Our past is pretty bloody and heinous and we would like to evolve out of it. And this is one of the ways that we can

By joining with other people who see the world similarly to us.

I grew up in the South and fifty years ago, there was hard core segregation, very similar to what is happening in Gaza and in the West Bank.

And we prayed for people to come to us. We prayed for people to break through the Klan, the racist police, and the white citizens’ councils.

We prayed for people to come and illustrate to the rest of the world what we suffered every single day.

So I see this venture as a continuation of the civil rights struggle, and I see it as a continuation, especially of the Freedom rides. This is the Freedom Ride of this era.

To get on this boat, to make it to Gaza, to the west Bank,

To understand your political lineage which is to oppose with every drop of your blood this kind of oppression of anybody, anywhere on earth

It isn’t right.

Those of us who have already been through those struggles and actually won a few of them, have an obligation to go and see where the same thing is happening to people. And to join our stories with their stories and to encourage them, especially the youth, to know that these oppressions can be ended. And that it may take the rest of our lives, but we are here to start.”

Video of Palestinians and Syrians entering Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. (h/t Ali Abunimah)

Red Crescent: 1 dead, 182 injured in Nakba protests
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 15 May 20:50 -- One Palestinian was killed, 182 injured and 149 suffered the effects of tear-gas inhalation, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a detailed report on injuries sustained by Israeli forces on Sunday.  The injuries were those treated by Red Crescent medics, and cataloged in the field, the report said, noting the highest number of injuries in the Gaza Strip. At a demonstration in northern Gaza, a teenager was killed, 35 struck by rubber-coated bullets and another 100 hit with shrapnel, the report said

Teen killed in Gaza protest marking Nakba
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 15 May 19:32-- An unidentified 18-year-old was killed and 125 others injured by Israeli fire during a march of Palestinians in Gaza toward the separation fence and Erez border with Israel on Sunday.  The group, estimated to number almost 1,000, marched in commemoration of the Palestinian expulsion from homes and villages in 1948 that accompanied the declaration of the state of Israel. The march began in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun toward the Israeli border. A medic told AFP that several hundred people had bypassed a Hamas checkpoint just south of the border, and came within a few hundred meters of a concrete border barrier installed by Israel near the Erez checkpoint when shots were fired ... Medics told Ma‘an that at least 82 demonstrators were injured by artillery shells and gunfire. The injured were mostly children, and some were critically injured, medical officials said. One journalist was also injured. They were taken by ambulances to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip ... Most of the people who fled to the Gaza Strip in 1948 were from the city of Jaffa, south of what is now Tel Aviv, and the towns and villages between Jaffa and Gaza City, as well as from areas in Beersheba and the Negev.

Video: Gazans mark 'Nakba Day' amid Israeli attacks
PressTV 15 May -- Marching towards the Erez crossing, over 1000 Palestinians faced Israeli soldiers opening fire on them. Dozens of marchers were injured including a journalist who is in critical condition as they tried to return to their original homes in historical Palestine. In a prayer sermon, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah continued to stress the importance of resistance against the Zionist regime.

Haniyeh: Nakba marked in changed region
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 15:04 -- Speaking after dawn prayers in Gaza City, Haniyeh said the rallies demonstrated that Palestinians would not forget their homeland. "This is the first year crowds will march to Palestinian borders, annulling the old saying that elderly people die and younger generations forget the past."

Ramallah medics put injured count at 150 during Nakba Day protests
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 15 May -- Medics have put the count of those injured during Nakba Day protests in Ramallah and Al-Bireh in Ramallah province at 150.  20 of them were injured critically, 30 were hit by gunfire, and dozens suffered severe breathing difficulties after inhaling tear gas, sources in the Ramallah central hospital have said. Dozens have been arrested by Israeli special units. Witnesses said that the most volatile clashes took place at the Kalandia military crossing south of Ramallah, the main entrance leading to Jerusalem. Violent clashes erupted there as Israeli soldiers opened fire at Palestinians.

In Pictures: Palestinians mark anniversary
BBC 15 May 14:15 GMT  The BBC's Jon Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year's Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa. [Ramallah, with short clips from other places]

Clashes erupt as Nakba Day protests sweep Palestinian territories
Haaretz 15 May 17:26 -- ...Israel fired two tank shells and several rounds from machine guns as dozens of Palestinian protesters approached the heavily fortified border in the Gaza Strip over the course of the day, wounding at least 45 people, a Palestinian health official said ... Across the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets, waving flags and holding old keys to symbolize their dreams of reclaiming property they lost when Israel was created on May 15, 1948 ... In a West Bank refugee camp and on the outskirts of Jerusalem, IDF troops fired tear gas to break up large crowds of stone throwers.

Clashes at Qalandiya see 40 seriously injured
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 15 May 19:28 -- Violent clashes broke out at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem Sunday, as Palestinians marched in the area demanding the right of return for refugees exiled in 1948 ...  Estimates put the number of protesters close to a thousand, and witnesses said young men were attempting to take down parts of Israel's separation wall at Qalandiya, where it is built more than five kilometers into Palestinian territory ... Medics said 55 were evacuated from the protest in ambulance, and witnesses estimated six had been detained. Medics told AFP that at least one was badly injured, hit in the head with a rubber-coated bullet. A doctor with the Palestinian Authority's Civil Defense Crews told Ma‘an that 250 had been treated for injuries and tear-gas inhalation, noting 40 had been marked as seriously injured from bullet wounds ... Treating an 80-year-old woman from the adjacent refugee camp, medics told Ma‘an the tear-gas being used was different from the regular variety used by the military, and had caused at least 20 to go into seizures, with about half of those losing consciousness for at least half an hour. [goes on to discuss protests elsewhere in  the West Bank]

Video: Demo in Tel Aviv 14 May
Return to Jaffa: the march of young Arabs 48 on the eve of Nakba, Palestine 14/05/2011 Flags flutter in the skies of Tel Aviv for the first time since the establishment of the Zionist entity [and not all the participants are Palestinians]

In Pictures: Nakba Day across Palestine
from various news agencies

Dozens injured in Al-Khalil marches on Nakba anniversary
AL-KHALIL, (PIC) 15 May-- Dozens of Palestinian citizens suffered suffocation and various injuries in Al-Khalil on Sunday during violent confrontations with Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba. The PIC reporter said that the IOF troops attacked a march in Shalalde street with gas canisters and rubber bullets injuring eight civilians. IOF soldiers were seen on rooftops and chasing school students on the streets, he said, adding that similar confrontations were reported in Arub refugee camp ...
In Beit Ummar village, IOF troops violently quelled the peaceful marches wounding a 19-year-old in his foot and a 9-year-old girl. 
The IOF soldiers burnt tens of cultivated land lots in Fawar refugee camp when they tossed sonic and gas bombs at citizens who responded by throwing stones.
Other confrontations were reported near the villages of Yatta, Doura, and Beit Awa.

Israeli military kidnap peace activists in Walaja
IMEMC 15 May -- Israeli soldiers detained 11 peace activists as they attempted to reach the old village of Al-Walaja near Bethlehem. Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a peace activist and Chairman of the Board of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People, the mother organization of IMEMC News is among the kidnapped civilians, among them a number of international peace activists including Kevin Murphy, an IMEMC volunteer.
The peace activists joined villagers from Al-Walaja who were trying to reach the lands of the old Walaja village. Israel does not allow the villagers of Al-Walaja to enter their lands and claims it is an Israeli territory.

Nakba Day - Syrian, Lebanese, Jordan, Egypt borders

14 said dead on Syrian, Lebanese borders by Israeli fire
JERUSALEM (AFP) 19:35 -- As many as 14 were said killed by Israeli fire in incidents on the Syrian and Lebanese borders on Sunday, as Palestinians marked the 63rd anniversary of the expulsion from their homes. Two people were killed and four critically hurt by the gunfire after protesters from Syria entered the occupied Golan Heights, a Druze doctor who tended them told AFP, while other reports said four had been killed ... The protesters, part of the Syrian Druze community separated from their families when Israel occupied the southern half of the Golan heights in 1967, breached the border, crossing almost a kilometer of minefields at the border zone.  The United Nations patrols the area, which was illegally annexed by Israel. Border crossings remain closed between Israel and Syria, making visits between families separated by the border almost impossible ... Channel 1 television reported that its correspondent in Majdal Shams, a Druze town on the Golan, said he had come across 30-40 infiltrators in its main square, some of who said they were Palestinians from Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus ... Israeli gunfire killed ten people and wounded 112 others at the country's border with Lebanon, a medical source in southern Lebanon told AFP, revising an earlier toll.

And more from a historic day from Today in Palestine:

Al Jazeera video: Shooting on Israel-Syria border
15 May -- Syria's state TV says four Syrian protesters were shot dead by Israeli troops during a demonstration on the Syrian side of the border with the occupied Golan Heights. Dozens were injured by the shooting after hundreds walked across minefields, overwhelmed border guards and attempted to cross the border near the village of Majdal Shams. Eyewitness Salman Fakhreddin describes the scene to Al Jazeera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5oIkDzrwZLM

Last infiltrators return to Syria after day of bloody clashes on northern borders
Haaretz 15 May 19:46 -- The last of the protesters who infiltrated across the border into Israel from Syria on Sunday have been returned to Syria by Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Israel police.  Two demonstrators were killed in the incident near Majdal Shams on the Syrian border and between three and 10 people were killed in Maroun a-Ras on the Lebanese border ... According to Lebanese security sources, at least 10 Palestinian protesters were killed at the demonstration in Maroun a-Ras. The sources said more than 100 people had been wounded.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/last-infiltrators-return-to-syria-after-day-of-bloody-clashes-on-northern-borders-1.361905

Palestinians killed in 'Nakba' clashes
AJ 15 May 15:10 -- Several killed and dozens wounded in Gaza, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun and West Bank, as Palestinians mark Nakba Day ...  Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday ... There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed up to 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel. Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the town, told Al Jazeera that he saw at least two dead Palestinian refugees. "Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli soldiers," he said
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011515649440342.html

Nakba Day protests - in pictures
The Guardian 15 May 18:48 BST Violence breaks out as Palestinians march on Israel's borders on Nakba day
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/may/15/palestinian-territories-israel

Video: Several Palestinians killed in Catastrophe Day anniv.
PressTV 15 May -- Carrying Palestinian flags and chanting "we want our lands back", tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon flocked to the southern Lebanese town of Maroun Al-Ras to protest the day Israel destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages and expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their own land in order to occupy them.  The number of Palestinian refugees gathered at the southern Lebanese border on the 63rd anniversary of Nakba Day has been unprecedented.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180086.html

In Pictures: Ahead of the Nakba
Al Jazeera - E. Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon. Cairo
http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/20115141283124773.html

Video: 'Nakba Day' marked in Madrid
PressTV 15 May -- Hundreds of Spaniards and Palestinians gathered in front of the Israeli embassy in Madrid to commemorate the anniversary of "Nakba Day" or the day of catastrophe.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180058.html

Egypt and Jordan prevent protests

Jordan police use force to stop activists from reaching Israel border
dpa/Reuters 15 May -- Jordanian security authorities used force on Sunday to disperse hundreds of people planning to proceed to the Israeli-controlled border with the West Bank to mark Nakba Day. The activists, belonging to the May 15 Youth group, gathered at Karameh village, a few hundred meters from the border, but were barred for the second day in a row from reaching the King Hussein crossing point on the Jordan River.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/jordan-police-use-force-to-stop-activists-from-reaching-israel-border-1.361929

Rafah convoys turned back; activists protest at Israeli embassy
15 May -- CAIRO: Convoys carrying activists and aid heading to the Rafah border were turned back at Ismailia on Sunday as hundreds protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo to support the "Third Palestinian Intifada." Activists said numerous checkpoints were set up on the road towards Rafah and no one was allowed to pass unless their national ID identified North Sinai as their residence. A number of participants were arrested by the military, activists told Daily News Egypt. "All convoys were blocked on Friday and Saturday at Al-Salam Bridge and Ahmed Hamdy Tunnel and were forced to turn back by the army. However, we decided to organize a protest in front of the Israeli embassy instead," said Mohamed Al-Hadary, an activist who was part of the convoy that moved from Tahrir Square on Friday.
http://thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/rafah-convoys-turned-back-activists-protest-at-israeli-embassy-dp1.html

Israeli reactions

Netanyahu: Israel is determined to defends its borders, sovereignty
Haaretz 15 May 20:20 -- PM says that the Nakba Day protests are not about 1967 borders but rather about 'undermining the very existence of Israel.' ... It's important that we see the reality and know who and what we are dealing with," he said.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-is-determined-to-defend-its-borders-sovereignty-1.361915

IDF: Unrest along Israel's northern borders bears Iran's 'fingerprints'
Haaretz 15 May -- The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday accused Iran of orchestrating two waves of fighting along its northern borders, as Palestinian protesters tried to infiltrate from Syria and Lebanon during demonstrations to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the "catastrophe" of the creation of the State of Israel. [oh, right, just as many claimed at the time that the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the U.S. was the work of 'outside agitators', not African Americans]
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-unrest-along-israel-s-northern-borders-bears-iran-s-fingerprints-1.361870

Right-wing group publishes Nakba denial booklet / Yossi Gurvitz
972blog 14 May -- Right wing group Im Tirzu published a new propaganda document (Hebrew PDF) earlier this week, which refreshingly does not claim to be anything else. It is called "Nakba Harta," literally "Nakba Bullshit," and is written jointly by IT’s CEO, the convicted criminal Erez Tadmor, and Ar’el Segal, a noted right-wing writer; the document purports to be an expose of the truth about the destruction of Palestine, and is full of the usual Im Tirzu mixture of sleight of hand, fiction, and deceit ... At the end of the day, what Segal and Tadmor are doing is a sort of holocaust denial
http://972mag.com/rightwing-group-publishes-nakba-denial-booklet/

Other news

1 killed, 16 hurt as truck plows into cars, pedestrians in suspected Tel Aviv terror attack
Haaretz 15 May 17:15 -- Incident occurs on busy Tel Aviv street at tail end of morning rush hour; 22-year-old from Kafr Qasem arrested, denies any attempt to cause accident.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1-killed-16-hurt-as-truck-plows-into-cars-pedestrians-in-suspected-tel-aviv-terror-attack-1.361806

Egypt FM Nabil Al-‘Arabi named Arab League chief
CAIRO (AFP) 15 May -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Al-‘Arabi was unanimously elected Arab League chief on Sunday, an AFP correspondent at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387934

Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk asks court to cancel his Jewish status
Haaretz 15 May -- The author Yoram Kaniuk is expected to ask the Tel Aviv District Court this morning to order the Interior Ministry to permit him to "leave the Jewish religion" by altering his entry under the heading "religion" in the Population Registry. Kaniuk wants any official state document on which he appears as "Jewish" to be changed to "Without Religion." An earlier request to the Interior Ministry was turned down and Kaniuk explains in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a "Jewish Iran" or belong to "what is today called the religion of Israel."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-author-yoram-kaniuk-asks-court-to-cancel-his-jewish-status-1.361720

Analysis / Opinion

Nakba Law: Inside Pandora's box / Eitan Bronstein
972mag 14 May -- The Nakba Law that passed at the Israeli parliament recently has a single primary goal: to categorically hide the Nakba: Hide it, do not learn about it, do not remember it, and do not take responsibility for its consequences. Put it, word and memory, back and deep into the Pandora box from which it emerged during this past decade in Israel. The illusion in passing this law is that it is possible to lock it away and bury the key at the sea along with other threats buried there recently. Paradoxically, this law, in its overbearing stance, had actually significantly increased public interest in the Nakba. The language of the law refers in its written clause only to the “public” or “state supported” institutions organizing events to mourn at the Israeli Independence Day, but within its message it aims  to create an atmosphere of terror against anyone who dares to touch the event that established the Jewish state. This law does scare people; it terrorizes them.
http://972mag.com/nakba-law-inside-pandoras-box/

Why Jews need to talk about the Nakba / Noam Sheizaf
972mag 14 May -- A personal journey. A childhood memory: A group of kids and their teacher on a school trip. They are walking through excavations, listening to explanations from a tour guide about their ancestors who lived there two thousand years ago. After a while, one of the kids points to some ruins between the trees. “Are these ancient homes as well?” he asks. “These are not important,” comes the answer. Growing up in the seventies and the eighties you couldn’t miss those small houses scattered near fields, between towns and Kibbuzim and in national parks. Most of them were made of stone, with arches and long, tall windows. In other places they had cement walls. Sometimes all you could see was part of a stone fence, a couple of walls with no roof, or the rows of Indian fig [prickly pear, a New World plant] that Palestinians used to mark the border of an agricultural field (it is one of history’s ironies that the Hebrew name of their fruit – the Sabra – became the nickname for an Israeli-born Jew).
http://972mag.com/why-jews-need-to-talk-about-the-nakba/

Israeli Jews should mark Nakba Day too / Gideon Levy
15 May -- Were Israel a little more confident of the righteousness of its case, and were its government a little more open, then all schools in Israel, Jewish and Arab alike, would today mark Nakba Day. A few days after the celebrations of our own Independence Day, in which we lauded the bravery and the achievements that we are rightly proud of, we could offer a lesson in citizenship. It would be a different heritage lesson, the kind that includes the story of the other side, the one that is denied and repressed. Not a single hair from our head would be lost were we to do this today. Sixty three years later,with the country established and flourishing, we can now begin telling the entire truth, not only the heroic, convenient part of the story ... We must know that under nearly every patch of Jewish National Fund forest rest the ruins that Israel was keen to erase, to ensure that they not serve as evidence of a different heritage.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israeli-jews-should-mark-nakba-day-too-1.361741

Israel's Nakba Law: Is it time for civil disobedience? / Dahlia Scheindlin
978mag 14 May -- The discourse around the Nakba law–which tries to stop public institutions from marking the Palestinian disaster, through funding cuts–feeds Israel’s persecution complex. Trying to legislate history out of existence means losing touch with reality ... Palestinian citizens of Israel feel every shot fired at them, literally and symbolically, by the state of Israel. With Jewish-Arab relations in a free fall, this bill communicates to them: "The state rejects you and will deny your history however possible." If there was any doubt, the discourse from the hate-spewing Israel Beitenu surrounding the law, quoted in Ynet, makes it very clear: "Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem explained in a speech before the plenum that 'when we are at war against a harsh enemy, we will legislate laws that will prevent him from hurting us.'"
http://972mag.com/israels-nakba-law-is-it-time-for-civil-disobedience/

Time to replace the memory of expulsion with the reality of return / Khalid
MEMO 13 May -- This year's commemoration of the Nakba (catastrophe) is like no other. For the first time in many decades the Palestine issue has truly found its way to the top of the Arab political agenda; that's a long overdue achievement. Palestinians in the historic homeland and the diaspora recognise the changes taking place around them. As part of the wider Arab family of nations they are determined to play their part to regain their usurped rights. The Nakba is not simply an isolated one-off event that occurred on 15 May 1948; it is an on-going process which seeks to destroy Palestinian society, Palestinian humanity and Palestinian dreams of freedom.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/commentary-and-analysis/2346-time-to-replace-the-memory-of-expulsion-with-the-reality-of-return

An Ethiopian teen's principled refusal to join the IDF / Dimi Reider
972mag 14 May -- “Y.E.S. – Young Ethiopian Students” have published a letter from one of their readers, an 18-year-old  about to join the IDF. The story of the Ethiopian community in Israel is one of the most profoundly shameful chapters in the history of the state, which deserves a separate post; but I will only say the Ethiopian community is among the worst discriminated minorities in Israel, competing in underprivileged only with the Bedouins of the Negev (the situation of the community of migrant workers and refugees is quite beyond comparison on any local scale). Nevertheless, the state has no qualms about recruiting young Ethiopians to the IDF – almost exclusively as grunts to the military police, border police and the infantry, presenting it as a first step on the scale of social mobility – more often than not a bare-faced lie. The letter is also remarkable in how it distills so many horrors of the Ethiopian experience in Israel into a handful of lines: The contemptuous housing company, the violent police, the racist teachers, the parents – in all probability, the first-generation immigrants – forced to rely on the help of their 18-year-old son; and everywhere, the ever-present racism. 
http://972mag.com/ethrefuse/

Border incidents took IDF by surprise and may take heat off Assad / Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz 15 May -- In recent days, the IDF extensively prepared for Nakba Day disturbances in the West Bank and East Jerusalem but was caught off-guard by the incident in the Golan Heights border area ... Although there is a high level of IDF forces on the Golan Heights, the number of soldiers along the border is relatively light. During routine times, relatively few soldiers operate in the area and most effort is invested in means of intelligence gathering on the hills along the border. It is not clear how many soldiers were in the position above Majdal Shams, which overlooks the "Shouting Hill" in front of the town, but usually there are only a few soldiers under the command of a sergeant or platoon leader.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/border-incidents-took-idf-by-surprise-and-may-take-heat-off-assad-1.361885

Occupation & Nakba: Interview with Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir / Joseph Dana
Professors Adi Ophir and Ariella Azoulay have been at the forefront of academic research regarding Israel’s maintenance of the West Bank and Gaza Strip Occupation.  In 2008, they co-authored the definitive Hebrew text on Israel’s occupation; This Regime Which is Not One: Occupation and Democracy between the River and the Sea (1967- ). Recently, Professor Azoulay was the subject of a tenure battle at Bar Ilan University, where she has been a lecturer in the department of Philosophy for the past 11 years. The author of 10 books and numerous articles, it is understood that she was denied tenure at Bar Ilan based on her political opinions. Last week, I interviewed Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir about their book, the Nakba and Israel’s occupation regime in the West Bank and Gaza. Joseph Dana: What are your thoughts on the recent legislation ‘banning’ public commemoration of the Nakba within Israeli society? Adi Ophir: The legal banning of public commemoration of the Nakba is a welcome contribution to the critique of the dominant Israeli discourse
http://972mag.com/occupation-nakba-interview-with-ariella-azoulay-adi-ophir/

www.theheadlines.org (archive)

The NYT's front page leader propagandistically claims (emphasis added):

"Israel's borders erupted as thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank on the anniversary when Arabs mourn Israel's creation."

NewYorkTimes Front Page, Nakba Day, 2011

I call this a distortion because Palestinians actually mourn the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Can you imagine what it would be like if the NYT stated this honestly and plainly? Palestinians mourn the personal and collective impact -- lives, homes, and land lost, refusing their right to return. By framing it as mourning "Israel's creation" - shifting the focus from legitimate Palestinian suffering to the debatable merits of Jewish state-centric nationalism - the NYT promulgates the Zionist frame of "they want to destroy the state of Israel." 

Also note in the story, Ethan Bronner fails to mention UN Resolution 194 or international law in general. Res. 194 "resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date..."

What does it say about the NYT that their editors accept an article with such a drastic elision? Especially when written by a Zionist whose son serves in the very army that shoots to kill refugees who wish to return and live at peace, as many Palestinian refugees in fact desire? I spoke to some in the Dheisheh refugee camp. They don't want to destroy Israel. They want to rebuild their villages.

The Nakba briefly appears in Tom Segev’s magisterial history of Israel and the Holocaust, The Seventh Million. In a single (very long) paragraph, Segev tells the story of how survivors of a genocide were transformed by the Zionist enterprise into participants in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Segev writes on pp. 161-62:

Then the War of Independence broke out, and tens of thousands of homes were suddenly available. This was what Shaul Avigur called ‘the Arab miracle’: Hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled, and were expelled from their homes. Entire cities and hundreds of villages left empty were repopulated in short order with new immigrants. In April 1949 they numbered 100,000, most of them Holocaust survivors. The moment was a dramatic one in the war for Israel, and a frightfully banal one, too, focused as it was on the struggle over houses and furniture. Free people–Arabs–had gone into exile and become destitute refugees; destitute refugees–Jews–took the exiles’ places as a first step in their new lives as free people. One group lost all they had, while the other found everything they needed–tables, chairs, closets pots, pans, plates, sometimes clothes, family albums, books, radios, and pets. Most of the immigrants broke into the abandoned Arab houses without direction, without order, without permission. For several months the country was caught up in a frenzy of take-what-you-can, first-come, first-served. Afterwards, the authorities tried to halt the looting and take control of the allocation of houses, but in general they came too late. Immigrants also took possession of Arab stores and workshops, and some Arab neighborhoods soon looked like Jewish towns in prewar Europe, with tailors, shoemakers, dry goods merchants–all the traditional Jewish occupations.

The post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal's blog.

It looks like the changing public discourse is beginning to affect Walter Russell Mead in the American Interest, but he's unsure of how far he can go without being "revealed" as an anti-Semite.  He actually says--and this is shocking for him:

I happen to believe that such a freeze would be a smart move on Israel’s part — but what I think and you think isn’t the issue.  It’s what the Israeli government thinks that counts.

America’s great advantage as a peacemaker flows from our special relationship with Israel.  Israel trusts America more than it trusts any other power; as long as that is true it will be more forthcoming in American-led negotiations than in any other forum.  America can get Israel to make more concessions than anybody else — but that power derives from the confidence Israel has in our backing.  The Arabs value the US because we can get Israel to agree to compromises they can’t get on their own; our special relationship with Israel is not an obstacle to US outreach to Palestinians — it is the key to our ability to work with them.

President Obama does not and never did have the power to make Israel deliver the total freeze he unwisely commanded.

The Northern Ireland peace process held out the hope for better lives for almost everyone involved; many Palestinians do not see a two state agreement with Israel as something that will make their lives better.

The similarities between the Northern Irish conflict and the Israel-Palestine fight are superficial; the differences are deep and profound.  First, both of the nationalist movements in Israel-Palestine are expansionist and unsatisfied.  In Ireland, the Ulster Protestants just wanted to keep what they had; they didn’t want to build new settlements in Dublin and Cork and they didn’t want the restoration of British rule across the whole island. In Israel, there are many people who think that the Zionist task is unfinished until the entire land is redeemed.  On the Palestinian side, there are also many people who think the 1949 boundaries are wrong; they want the whole thing back, not just the West Bank and Gaza.

Photo from Twitpic of Qalandiya in the occupied territories. And this is from Joseph Dana's twitter feed:

Some demonstrators tried to pull down a part of the wall... Just spoke with a doctor on the scene. Over 80 injuried with 20 requiring hospital in #qalandiya

Israel is showing the world how it responses to unarmed protest....with violence..

I just saw a 14 year old kid totally unconscious from tear gas in qalandiya..

Dark and heavy clouds hanging over the west bank like Shakespeare was writing Nakba day this year.

Dana writes to friends: I am on the ground in Qalandiya twitting all day @ibnezra. It has been bordering on chaotic all day. Over 90 injured, 20 serious. It feels like the army is on the verge of killing an unarmed protester which will set this part of the west bank ablaze.

Dana says that a 17 year old shot by Israelis in East Jerusalem yesterday has died. Video: 17 year old killed during Nakba demonstrations in East Jerusalem http://bit.ly/jiiplU

Juliano was born on Nakbah Day and murdered on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Juliano Mer Khamis (left) and Udi Aloni (right).

Forty days have passed since the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis. Juliano –freedom fighter, cultural hero, actor, director, clown, teacher, husband, lover, tyrant, servant, father, (something of a mother), provocateur, gourmet, wild intellectual, and more than all that and encompassing all that – a soul-friend. Demons chased Juliano for years, until he taught them to bow to his will. He caught and tamed them like wild horses and harnessed them to the chariot of freedom, on which he galloped to far, inspired realms. He rode off in search of liberty and the meaning of its boundaries, and generously took us along on his fascinating journey.

Forty days have passed and I could not write a word. What language does one choose to say Kadish for a Shahid who came from a Christian family and was, himself, a Communist. So I was moved in the funeral when, in lieu of Kadish, a harmonica played the traditional tune of that song which seemingly was written for and about Jule: “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?” So I wrote nothing for forty days, but I did function. I functioned like a man possessed, as though the spirit of Jule had come into me – and there was no one like Jule for functioning in a crisis. There is much to say about the days following the murder: about the loneliness, the melancholy, the tensions. About the family, bereft of a father, husband, and friend, that will have to have to shoulder the unbearable burden.

But I spent the days after the murder with Jule’s students, the students whom I had learned to know and love over the past year. I could tell stories about the students’ feelings of persecution, about their sense of being the disciples carrying forward his legacy, about the sense of helplessness before the faceless violence that took him from our small world. Two days after the murder we decided, the students and I, to go to Ramallah, to find a space where we could cry, mourn, remember, and become reenergized. We sought refuge far away from the place of the trauma, from the place where he, this man who turned a group of outcasts into a troupe of talented actors, was murdered. Now the students walk the streets of Ramallah and Jenin with their wounds exposed, for all to see. Sometimes they are fragile, sometimes powerful, seeking a healing balm or a holy rage to pacify their pain. My friend Adi Khalifa, a Palestinian stand-up artist from Haifa, gave a workshop on how to laugh at Jule. And so we sat there, a grieving troupe, and we could not stop laughing and crying for seven days and seven nights.

Truth be told, we became refugees from a refugee camp, and then were expelled from the hospice that had given us refuge in Ramallah. We were expelled by an administrator with a German accent, because I am an Israeli Jew. But there – faced with expulsion – twelve young Palestinians from the Jenin Refugee Camp stood angrily against the Christian-European administrator, shouting in unison that if she would not respect an Israeli Jew who came to support the struggle for equality and justice she was a racist… Hallelujah! What an amazing education Juliano gave them; he was truly ahead of his time. He brought the spirit of the Arab Spring and of Tahrir Square to his students. He kept challenging and re-challenging them, in a sort of ongoing pop-quiz about the spirit of freedom – beyond religion, beyond nationality, and beyond gender.

Hard work and unending talent turned Jule into an artist-leader, who began to create real change with revolutionary power in the whole space between the Jordan river and the sea. Unlike the project run by his mother, Arna, he was not only there to help the children in the camp. He chose to establish a professional theater in the most impossible place, the place that seemed most unprepared, to produce an atomic-dialectic explosion of uncompromising ideologies. In Jule’s world, universal values and particular tradition clash swords with fundamentalism and decadence. In the Freedom Theatre we thought that only a true ideological explosion would manage to ignite the engine of Palestinian culture. Only from this position could we expose the fact that Muslim fundamentalism and the decadence of Ramallah are both on the side of the failure of the revolution. In the same spirit, Jewish fundamentalism and the decadence of Tel Aviv are both on the side of the occupation.

I have great contempt for those journalists who were in such a hurry to rejoice about the fact that he was probably murdered by a Palestinian. Their mantra was “here is this wonderful man, come to help the natives, and they murdered him.” Strange, I do not remember those same journalists rejoicing when a Jew murdered Yitzchak Rabin in the name of the ideology which today rules our country. An ideology served by those same journalists.

Today it is Nakbah Day, and I mourn alone the never-again-to-be-celebrated birthday of Juliano. Jule came to the Nakbah refugees in Jenin to share their struggle and their fate. He tried to offer a nonviolent means of resistance. Zakaria Zubeidi had faith in him and lay down his arms to help develop the Freedom Theater. Zakaria knew that by taking this path he could lose his own life, but he did not imagine that he would lose the life of his beloved friend. After the murder I got a middle-of-the-night SMS from Zakaria: “It’s really hard without Jule” – and tears filled my eyes. People liked to say that Juliano was a Jew in Palestine and a Palestinian in Israel. But Jule was a Jewish-Palestinian everywhere and a human everywhere. He wanted to free the Palestinians from the Israelis, the women from the men, the poor from the rich, and people, in general, from their internal bonds.

Juliano, I am so lucky that you generously opened wide the doors to your home, made the theatre my home, and made its people my family. You taught me the practice of binationalism, step by measured step. We worked in the theatre night and day to create our cultural bomb, but we were not sufficiently careful, and it went off in our laps and took your life at the height of its bloom. Kafka wrote, and I quote from memory, “martyrdom and suicide do not exist at the same level of consciousness; martyrdom is more like a bridegroom approaching his wedding.” Happy birthday, habibi, Jule. It’s really hard without you.

P.S. A quote from Juliano’s vision document, sent a year ago to Freedom Theater supporters and friends:

“We aim to create a theater of the highest professional level, that will become the leading force in revival of Palestinian culture – not just a local theatre to benefit camp dwellers, but rather a theater that stretches boundaries beyond the very borders. We believe that we can create a joint force that will strengthen the links between advanced technology, women’s rights, and education in promoting nonviolent struggle for culture, justice, and liberty. As a troupe we will advance the theoretical and practical artistic vision of our pathfinders, philosopher Edward Said and creator Mahmud Darwish, to try and create a community that will attempt to free itself from the bonds of the Israeli occupier, simultaneously with the internal bonds of Palestinian Society.”

Translated by Dena Shunra. For more on from Udi Aloni's Brooklyn-Jenin column about his experience living between New York City and the Jenin refugee camp, where he is teaching a film production class at the Jenin Freedom Theatre see here.

From Haaretz's coverage of the eight killed today in Nakba demonstrations at the borders. My headline is thanks to Noam Sheizaf -- 972mag has a lot of great Nakba coverage today.

Four people were reportedly shot dead by Israel Defense Forces troops Sunday as they opened fire on large numbers of infiltrators trying to breach Syria's southern border with Israel. Another four people were said to have been killed on the Lebanese side of its shared frontier with Israel, as Palestinian protests for the annual Nakba Day. which mourns the creation of the State of Israel, took hold across the region. 

In Majdal Shams, which runs along the Israel-Syria border, scores of Palestinian refugees from Syria spilled into the town. The Magen David Adom rescue service said about a dozen others had been wounded. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed opening fire on infiltrators.

About 70 people, most of them Palestinian refugees, managed to cross the border, according to local residents. Initial reports had put the number of infiltrators into the hundreds.