Congratulations Israel on your 70th Independence Day. Surely you should be proud of your
achievements.
1. You established
your state on land that belongs to the
Palestinians. You were not satisfied to
share with them their land, so you had to
evict them to have your own Jewish state. You did that by resorting to brutal
force, and in
some cases massacres that remain a black
spot in your history.
2. For the first
eighteen years, you imposed strict military rule in the country which controlled every aspect of the lives of the original owners of the land who
managed to stay in the newly established state.
3. You gave the indigenous Palestinian population citizenship, but they
did not have the same rights that the Jewish community had, neither did their
towns or schools have the same privileges and budgets
4. Moreover, by some
absurd law, this Palestinian population ended up being “present absent” meaning
that they were absent as far as their right to claim their homes and property,
but were present for paying taxes to the newly established State.
5. For the last 50
years, you have been occupying the rest of the Palestinian land which you did
not succeed in conquering in 1948.
4. You claim you are
not occupying the land, but that you have liberated it. And you claim that
Jerusalem is the united eternal capital of Israel, yet
a. The residents of
the West Bank have no access to Jerusalem except for certain purposes and on certain
occasions.
b. The residents of Jerusalem are not citizens and their
residency can be revoked any time under a variety of absurd regulations.
c. The residents of
Jerusalem are deprived of having their
spouses join them should they be from the West Bank without going
through an endless procedure of family reunification which is mostly denied even
after many years of marriage.
d. It takes for ever
and sometimes never for a Jerusalem resident to get a building permit whereas
the Jewish settlements have encroached on most of the Jerusalem and West Bank
Land. So demolishing homes and confiscating land in the Palestinian areas
is very common.
7. Over and above you
already have a population of around two
million living under siege in Gaza.
Although you claim to have withdrawn from Gaza you continue to control its
borders, land, sea and sky.
8. You claim to have
the most moral army in the world yet your soldiers raid homes at night and get
children out of their beds. You already
have 350 children in your jails and -6500 men and women, many of whom are under
administrative detention without charge or trial, and around 1000 of them are
sick.
9. You claim to be
the only democracy in the region. Yet
you have two sets of laws for your own citizens. And you deny entry to anybody including Jews
and even Rabbis who do not agree with
your policies. This is certainly not a
democracy. Over and above you silence
voices of dissent in your own country and you imprison young people who do not
wish to serve in the army.
10. You claim your
hand is stretched out for peace, yet every day your armed settlers are grabbing
new areas with the protection of your army. Barak’s generous offer with which you brain-washed the world and your own
citizens amounts only to a little over 15% of historic Palestine instead of the 22% on which
the Palestinians were willing to establish their new state after the Oslo
agreement.
You certainly do not want peace but you want to be left in
peace without being held accountable to any of the violations of human rights
or international law.
Of course you can always count on President Trump and his
representative at the UN Nikki Haley to cover your back so as to get away with
those violations. No wonder you are feeling
on top of the world as you are celebrating 70 years of Independence while we
celebrate 70 years of our Nakba (the catastrophe of dispossession.)
Maybe you should stop for a moment and listen to the prayer of one of your Jewish Rabbis: Rabbi Brant Rosen.
Le'el she'chafetz teshuvah,
to the One who desires return:
Receive with the fulness of your
mercy
the hopes and prayers of those
who were uprooted, dispossessed
and expelled from their homes
during the devastation of the Nakba.
Sanctify for tov u'veracha,
for goodness and blessiong,
the memory of those who were killed
in Lydda,
in Haifa,
in Beisan,
in Deir Yassin
and so many other villages and cities
throughout Palestine.
Grant chesed
ve'rachamim,
kindness and blessing,
upon the memory of the expelled
who died from hunger,
thirst and exhaustion
along the way.
Shelter beneath kanfei
ha'shechinah,
the soft wings of your divine presence,
those who still live under military occupation,
who dwell in refugee camps,
those dispersed throughout the world
still dreaming of return.
Gather them mei'arbah kanfot
ha'aretz
from the four corners of the earth
that their right to return to their homes
be honored at long last.
Let all who dwell in the land
live in dignity, equity and hope
so that they may bequeath to their children
a future of justice and peace.
Ve'nomar
and let us say,
Amen.
Le'el she'chafetz teshuvah,
to the One who desires repentance:
Inspire us to make a full
accounting
of the wrongdoing that was
committed in our name.
Help us to face the terrible
truth of the Nakba
and its ongoing injustice
that we may finally confess our offenses;
that we may finally move toward a future
of reparation and reconciliation.
Le'el malei rachamim,
to the One filled with compassion:
show us how to understand the pain
that compelled our people to inflict
such suffering upon another -
dispossessing families from their homes
in the vain hope of safety and security
for our own.
Osei hashalom,
Maker of peace,
guide us all toward a place
of healing and wholeness
that the land may be filled
with the sounds of joy and gladness
from the river to the sea
speedily in our day.
Ve'nomar
and let us say,
Amen.
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