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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2008, pages 59-60 Waging Peace Nakba Demonstration at Kodak Theater
ISRAEL'S PROMOTERS in Los Angeles worked around the clock to stage events marking the 60th year of the Zionist state. On May 10, they culminated in a 60-hour celebration at multiple venues, with a gala at the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards presentations. As celebrities and fans of the Jewish state entered the theater from the adjacent parking structure, more than 40 activists stood with posters and signs at the Hollywood Boulevard entrance and let the public know what 60 years of expulsion and occupation has meant to the dispossessed Palestinian people. “Israel may be celebrating its 60th year, but we are mourning it as the 60th year of al-Nakba (the catastrophe),” stated Sami Wassef. “Israel celebrates the founding of its nation which was created by ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from land they lived on for millennia,” commented Prof. Mahmood Ibrahim. Israel’s fans in the theater may have applauded a spectacle portraying the Zionist state’s mythic origins of “a land without people for a people without land,” but outside, the banners told a different story, proclaiming: “60 Years of Occupation—60 Years of Apartheid” and “From Iraq to Palestine—Occupation is a Crime.” When an African-American pedestrian began talking to the demonstrators and realized the connection between the apartheid system of South Africa toward blacks and that of Israel against Palestinians, he picked up a sign and joined the protest. —Samir Twair |
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