CAIRO — A quilt adorned by the names of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948, a diary of the Nakba and keys to homes Palestinians were forced to leave six decades ago brought Americans closer to understanding the loss of Palestine with the creation of Israel.

“While people are welcome to celebrate the creation of Israel, it’s significant and important for people to understand that in order for Israel to be created, the Palestinians paid a price for what happened,” Nora Hasan, of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace (WIAMEP), told the Washington Post on Sunday, May 18.

WIAMEP and a number of American Arab and Jewish groups organized on Saturday, May 17, a Nakba commemoration at the heart of Washington.

The event was one of many held in some 20 US cities over the past week to make flipside of the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel.  

Taking a central stage at the Washington memorial was a huge antique Palestinian-crafted quilt that calls attention to the Nakba events.

Each of the quilt’s squares is stitched with the name of a Palestinian village, the number of its residents and the year it was destroyed after the creation of Israel.

On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Menachem Begin’s Irgun militant group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist militants and 70,000 Palestinians fled.

On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of Jaffa, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.

On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel, Jaffa completely surrendered to the better-equipped Zionist militants and only 4,500 of its population remained.

Bitter Memories

Many Palestinians displayed keys to the homes their ancestors were forced to flee 60 years ago.

Yusif Farsakh, now 81, says he was handed down the key to his family’s home in north Al-Quds (occupied Jerusalem), where the family lived for generations, from his father as a reminder that he still has a home back in Palestine.

Nakba witnesses recalled the very last memories before they were forced to live as exiles from their homeland.

“My mother walked into my room early in the morning and said, ‘Get up, we’re going to Lebanon,’” recalled George Hishmeh.

Now a famed columnist and a member of the Washington Association of Arab Journalists, he still remembers how his family members packed and left aboard a ship from the seaport city of Haifa 60 years ago.

“We thought we would come back,” said Hishmeh, tears going down his face.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, defines as refugees the descendants of Palestinian who fled or were forced out of their homes in 1948.

The number of registered refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.4 million in 2005, and continues to rise.

UN resolutions guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees, many still holding the keys and titles of their homes in what is now Israel.

Mark Braverman, of the advocacy organization Jewish Voice for Peace, believes that the Palestinian right of return needs to be righteously addressed.

“It’s like America acknowledging slavery and apologizing, or acknowledging to the Native Americans that we took their land,” he told the Post.

“There needs to be an acknowledgment by Israel that ‘we took your land; now let’s talk and move forward.’ There needs to be an acknowledgment that there was a people and culture that was destroyed.” 

Source: http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1209357675505&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout