Path: Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-1.nntp.ord.giganews.com!nntp.supernews.com!news.supernews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 May 2024 14:09:42 +0000 From: John Larkin Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling,rec.arts.tv,uk.comp.sys.mac,edm.general,sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: The Right of Return to Free Palestine Date: Sat, 18 May 2024 07:07:46 -0700 Organization: Highland Tech Reply-To: xx@yy.com Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 3.1/32.783 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 235 X-Trace: sv3-083/amcx6FaYax7rBoowJYj7g6dWCcZ7wNXeWgwBWzPJmSwamDD7+vNIHaGGNNN/BT7FLm7kgdT4FFR!6jEK6/jySek8UmQFwCVrp84cgFYVCe2cThvhZlxiJlpTgpDBNRDt1QINI6TRWNtyQpjdenO/YGoi!h8zrqg== X-Complaints-To: www.supernews.com/docs/abuse.html X-DMCA-Complaints-To: www.supernews.com/docs/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Bytes: 11019 On Sat, 18 May 2024 00:13:17 -0600, Sharx335 wrote: >On 2024-05-17 9:41 p.m., NefeshBarYochai wrote: >> [ Editor’s Note: The following text was prepared as a speech to >> present to the Global Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine held in >> Johannesburg, South Africa on May 10-12, 2024. ] >> >> Dear Friends in South Africa, >> >> I have the honor to address you today. As millions of Palestinians, we >> have the greatest gratitude and admiration for South Africa, which >> among 193 UN member states, was the only one to stand before the >> International Court of Justice and charge Israel with the heinous >> crime of Genocide. South Africa, like us, knows the meaning of >> Apartheid, colonization, ethnic cleansing and erasure of a nation from >> its homeland. >> >> We all remember what Nelson Mandela said, “Our freedom is incomplete >> without the freedom of Palestinians”. >> >> There are many common features of our histories. >> >> The Israeli Genocide in Gaza is deeply rooted and well planned for >> more than a century. You heard the myth propagated in Europe a century >> ago that Palestine was a land without people. It turned out to be a >> Zionist plan to make it so, a land without a people, to empty it, to >> expel its people and kill them. In 1940, Yousef Weitz, the Zionist >> colonist under the British Mandate, declared, before Israel was >> declared, that “not one [Palestinian] village” will remain in >> Palestine. That was the plan for Al Nakba >> >> In 1948, 530 cities and villages were attacked and depopulated by a >> Zionist European army of 120,000 soldiers in 9 brigades which carried >> out 31 military operations and committed 90 massacres, occupied 78% of >> Palestine. They made its people refugees till to today. They are now 9 >> million Palestinian refugees. >> >> The hypocritical West cries that the hostages must return home. They >> send bombs to kill, they cast veto to kill international law, they >> prevent entry of food and medicine, they aid and abet total >> destruction of Gaza. >> >> All this is in order to release captured East European settlers “to >> return home”. >> >> I fully agree that all hostages must be freed to return home. >> >> But who are the real hostages? >> >> They are two million Palestinian refugees in Gaza Concentration Camp, >> from 247 towns and villages in southern Palestine expelled by Israel >> in 1948, through dozens of massacres. They are crammed in a >> concentration camp called Gaza Strip at a density of 8000 persons/km2. >> Its area is 1.3% of Palestine, or 365 km2. Their homes are in the >> southern district of Palestine, which is 12,500 km2. >> >> Who occupies their home now? >> >> East European settlers from Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Their >> number is only 150,000, at a density of only 7 persons/km2, one >> thousand times less than the owners of the land, the refugees in Gaza. >> >> So, who are the real hostages? >> >> Are they the 150 European settlers held in Gaza for 200 days? >> >> Or, are they the two million Palestinian refugees held in Gaza camps >> who are attacked by land, air and sea and blockaded for 76 years, or >> 27,000 days? >> >> I ask you. who are the true hostages? >> >> I maintain without reservation: All hostages should be free to return >> home. Palestinians to Palestine and Settlers with foreign passports to >> wherever they want to go. >> >> For 76 years, the Palestinians never stopped claiming their Right to >> Return home. >> >> The UN resolution number 194 calling for the Right of Return has been >> affirmed by the UN more than 130 times, the longest in UN history. >> >> International law and a myriad of UN conventions support the Right of >> Return. >> >> Shall I tell you some of these? >> >> Fourth Geneva Convention art 4. The Universal Declaration of Human >> Rights art 8 and 13. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal >> Court, art 7 and 8. The International Convention of the Elimination of >> All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art 5 and 6. … and many more. >> >> Why are the Palestinian still not allowed to return home? >> >> Because the original perpetrator of the crime and his cohorts are >> still doing it. These are the Western powers which created Israel, >> which recently vetoed the ceasefire resolutions three times. They are >> still supplying Israel with bombs to kill and political protection. >> >> The original crime is still going on. >> >> In the face of all this, the Palestinians are defiant and resolute. >> They have no intention of giving up their Right of Return. They do not >> want to remain refugees forever. >> >> So we have a duty: to plan for their Return. >> >> First, we see who and where the refugees are. >> >> Next, we see who occupies their land in Israel? >> >> We made a detailed study, village by village, city by city, to find >> how many Jews live in Palestinian lands and where. >> >> We found a startling result: >> >> There are 246 Palestinian village lands which have no Jews today. >> >> There are 272 village lands which have few Jews, less than 5000. >> >> So, if we now repopulate Palestinian villages by the return of the >> refugees, we do not find any appreciable problem of Jewish >> displacement. >> >> In Galilee, the Little Triangle in the center and in Beer Sheba, there >> is already a sizable Palestinian population, ready to welcome their >> kith and kin. >> >> Then, where are the Jews in Israel? >> >> Generally, Jews live in 924 listed localities with a total population >> of 5,509,778 (year 2020) within the armistice line of 1949. But this >> large number may be misleading. Only 14 of them have a population of >> over 100,000; 12 have a population between 50 and 100,000, and 29 >> localities between 20 and 50,000. >> >> That means that 87% of Jews live in only 55 localities, or five >> percent of the total number of localities. The area they occupy is >> 1,400 km2 or 6% of Israel’s area. >> >> The conclusion? The return is feasible and of course legal. To >> Palestinians, it is also sacred and inevitable. >> >> We can plan the return of the refugees from their camps. We know >> exactly where they come from. The route to return home takes from 15 >> minutes to 45 minutes and it is never longer than 45 km. In Gaza they >> do not need busses, they can simply walk home. >> >> When they arrive home, they will find the debris of their destroyed >> homes. The debris is covered by the trees planted by the Jewish >> National Fund to hide the crime. >> >> Now they can start rebuilding their homes. >> >> We gave this task to young Palestinian architects as their graduating >> project. We hold an annual competition among them, now in its 8th >> year. The competition is judged by international jury in London. >> >> So far 270 young Palestinian architects participated in the >> reconstruction of 60 villages, distributed all over Palestine. >> >> Once again, the young people are leading the way to liberation. >> >> Justice will be made at last. >> >> But all this needs the implementation of one basic principle. This >> principle is essential, just, non-negotiable and inevitable. It is the >> abolishment of Zionism and all its components: war crimes, >> dispossession, occupation, Apartheid, racism, discrimination AND >> GENOCIDE. >> >> After the passage of 76 years, we Palestinians never lost the >> determination to return home. As you see, the Right of Return is >> sacred to all Palestinians, its legal in every chapter of >> international and it is feasible and surely inevitable. >> ========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========