Lieberman Slams Arab Israelis over Nakba Protest
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday denounced as a "fifth column" thousands of Arab Israelis who joined a demonstration calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Around 10,000 protesters, many waving Palestinian flags, joined a rally in northern Israel on Tuesday to remember 530 villages from which some 760,000 people fled or were expelled following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
The rally took place as Israel marked its 66th Independence Day, with Lieberman accusing the demonstrators of being traitors.
"Those who marched with flags of the Palestinian Authority demanding that it not give up on the right of return, are a fifth column whose aim is the destruction of Israel," he told army radio.
He also addressed the demonstration on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
"To those Arabs that took part today in the 'Nakba Day' procession and waved Palestinian flags, I suggest that next time they march directly to Ramallah and they stay there," he wrote.
But he acknowledged that those who joined the Nakba demonstration were only "a minority" among Israel's Arab minority, who make up just over a fifth of the overall population of 8.2 million.
At the rally, which took place in a small village in northern Israel, the protester marched under the slogan: "Your 'independence' day is our Nakba" - the Arabic for catastrophe.
More than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes when Israel came into being in May 1948. Today, with their descendants, they number an estimated 4.8 million.
Around 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind and took citizenship in the newly-established state, becoming known as Arab Israelis. Official figures published last week show they now number 1,694,000 people, or 20.7 percent of the population.
Lieberman, a hardliner within the ruling right-wing coalition, is an open proponent of the controversial concept of "transfer" -- transferring densely-populated Arab Israeli areas to the control of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in any future peace deal.
07 May 2014, 11:41
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Lieberman was born in Moldova and yet he denounces Palestinians who are born in what is now Israel for demanding that Palestinians who were evicted be allowed to return! Lieberman, go back to Moldova.
07 May 2014, 15:45
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What about the 700-800,000 Jews who were expelled from the Arab States in 1948.
Someone should also listen to the recordings from 1948 of the kadis and muezzins at the mosques telling the Arab population of the Galilee to leave their homes so that the Arab armies can annihilate the Jews and they would then be able to return home in triumph.
07 May 2014, 21:02
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As for Arab-Jews, there has been many instances of discrimination and attacks because what was happening to Palestinians by Zionist Jews. However the picture is more complex than you let it be. Zionists had active recruitment in Arab countries to encourage Jews to immigrate (and to supposedly fulfill their duty to "ascend"). When that failed, they actively encouraged the community through a series of bombings (Iraq). In other places, they did so via lies and deceit and collaboration with corrupt leaders (Yemen). When in some Arab countries, there were move to prevent such a wholesale immigration (Iraq, Syria and Egypt, hell broke loose with accusations of attempted genocides, etc... In Algeria, most left as a result of the war of liberation against the French. So please spare us your nonsense.
07 May 2014, 21:02
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Phillipo - Please stop the lies. There has been numerous studies done on cause of the Palestinian refugee problem and they come down to: (1) expulsions (2) terror inflicted by Zionist forces (3) Mis-information campaigns by Zionist forces (4) Fear of real and alleged Zionist atrocities.
07 May 2014, 17:56
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Southern - what would you call the Palestinian State, whose President, Abbas, has declared on more than one occasion, that there will be no Jews living in his state?
07 May 2014, 18:03
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Southern - An apartheid state? One that has an Arab Judge on the Supreme Court, and many other District Court Judges, one that Arab Officers in the Nilitary and Police Forces, one that has Arab Doctors and Nurses in all the hospitals and Health Centres around the country, one that has Arab (Moslem, Christian and Druze) members of Parliament, one that has thousands of Arab Lawyers, University Lecturers, Teachers and all the other professions.
Which Arab State can claim to have so many minority persons in senior positions? yet they are not called Apartheid States.
07 May 2014, 21:07
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Phillipo - It is an apartheid state which discriminate against people. Lieberman, a Jew from Moldova, is allowed to immigrate there while a Palestinian who comes from what is now Israel is deprived of that right. What do you call that? Indeed, with all of its crime. apartheid south africa was better to blacks. They, at least, did not expel the blacks to create an artificial Jewish majority.
