I found this documentary from Al Jazeera very moving. It was posted on twitter as a rebuttal to some moron who tweeted a photo of a sub-Saharan African village some time in the past with the text “Palestine, A land without a people …”. We often read that the Palestinians were indeed a society in their own right, but that they just weren’t very sophisticated, and given a litany what they did wrong to allow the Zionists to take over. But maybe they didn’t do anything wrong. They were attacked by a vicious and determined adversary, and the powerful forces in the world did not support them.
What impressed me about this video of pre-Nakba Palestine was that many of the pictures reminded me of pictures of my grandparent and their society in the early years of the 20th century in Northern New Jersey. And I thought, “it is more than that they were a thriving, if foreign, nation. They were really much like us in terms of modernization and social infrastructure” at the time ….and I won’t distract you by talking about the ways in which their society was far more deeply rooted than ours. [jb]
I am from Vancouver,Canada and i wanted to say that what happened in Palestine in 1948 and before that by the British was a crime against Humanity. I have been involved in Palestine activities since the 1970s and continue to do so. Just a couple of weeks ago i spoke at the Vancouver City Hall against the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism that was adopted by City Hall against the wishes of most people who spoke against this.
I don’t recognize Israel because it was created by the British and later the American Gov’t for the benefit of the American Gov’t in the middle East. Israel is an Apartheid State and that has been proved. Apartheid has got to go before there can be peace. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.