May 2006

Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA)

P.O. Box 215, Nazareth 16101, Israel

Tel: 972-4-6561923 , Fax: 972-4-6564934

Weekly Review of Human Rights Violations of the

Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel

No. 272 / April 28 – May 5, 2006

Also available at:

Commemoration of the Nakba after 58 years:

A march back to the village of Umm al-Zinat

Hundreds of Arab citizens in Israel commemorated 58 years of the Nakba on May 3 with a march to the uprooted village of Umm al-Zinat. The Nakba, which in English translates to 'catastrophe', was when thousands of Palestinians were expelled and uprooted from their lands in 1948. The march began on the main road leading to Daliat al-Carmel, and was decorated with Palestinian flags and signs that bore the names of the approximately 400 destroyed Palestinian villages. The march concluded in Umm al-Zinat with a number of speeches. [1]

In al-Birweh, al-Hajj Mustafa Mohammad Khalid al-Suhri, 71, who visited his village with wife, kids and grandkids, accompanied by a large number of al-Birweh villagers, said, "I was expelled from al-Birweh when I was 12. I remember that it happened after the Jews occupied 'Akka and the surrounding villages of al-Maker, al-Jdeideh, and Tamra at the start of the harvesting season. The Jews were shooting at whoever tried to care for the land. We were terrified of the Jewish Haganah gangs who forced al-Birweh villagers to camp overnight in the mountains and neighbouring villages and return back home only in daylight, for fear of being attacked in the dark. I remember also that the Haganah gangs killed a young woman, Fatmeh Mahmood al-Hawash, 17, when she was in the fields for harvest. This was days before we were expelled. I remember how the expulsion coincided with the flowers in bloom".

In the village of al-Damoun, which neighbours al-Birweh, al-Hajjah Fatmeh Mahawish al-Zeidani, 81, told her story. "After occupying our village, I was expelled with my husband and family to Lebanon when I was 27 years old. I was carrying my child Mohammad, who at the time was just a day old. We lived in the refugee camp of Lubna for 9 months. One night we secretly made an attempt to return to our country in the hope of going back to our hometown; until today, I still live with this hope. After 58 years of al-Nakba, I still remember everything in the village – the location of the mosque, the church, the well, and the neighbourhoods. I hope they will let me live in a hut in al-Damoun. I visit the village always and recommend that all the families from the village continue visiting to keep alive the memory so as to tell their children and grandchildren the village's story until the return".[2]

MK Avigdor Lieberman calls for the death of all Arab MKs

MK Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of Yisrael Beitenu, the radical right-wing party, made an attack on Arab MKs – calling to prosecute and pass the death sentence on them similar to as was done in the Nuremberg rulings following the Second World War.

Lieberman said, in his first speech at the opening of the new Knesset on May 4, "We must find punishment for the Arab MKs that collaborate with the enemy and meet the Hamas leadership. Even after WWII, the court in Nuremberg ruled for the death penalty not only for the criminals, but also for the collaborators. I hope that this will be the fate of those collaborators found doing the same in the Knesset.

"We requested that the government, through writing so in the coalition agreement, punish the inciters and collaborators of terror that sit in this house – those that meet Hamas and Hezbollah and travel to Lebanon, as well as those that rose the black flags on the independence day of Israel and considered it their Nakba day; they must be prosecuted like terror should be prosecuted".[3]