THOUSANDS of protesters participated in large demonstrations in Haifa, Jerusalem and in the Negev on Saturday against the Israeli Prawer Plan to drive the Bedouin people out of their villages in the Negev.
Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset, Ahmed al-Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, participated in the protest which Israeli police dispersed using water cannons and batons, arresting dozens of demonstrators.
Anti-Prawer protests took place on both sides of the Green Line.
In the West Bank, there were big demonstrations, while in Gaza, youth of the Intifada Youth Coalition marched in conjunction with the international ‘day of rage’ against the Prawer Plan.
Palestinians and many others protested in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, while there were demonstrations in many other countries in Europe as well as throughout the Arab World.
However, the Zionist ruling group remain adamant. ‘Millions of shekels are invested in this plan and I’m sure the intentions are good,’ said Israeli President Shimon Peres.
PM Netanyahu condemned anti-Prawer protests, vowing: ‘We will try the offenders to the full extent of the law. We will not tolerate such riots. We shall continue to advance the Prawer Bill.’
The Bill, when it becomes law, will forcibly evict 90,000 Bedouin and destroy their communal and social fabric, in a continuation of the 1948, 1967 clearances of the Palestinian people from their homes by the Zionist gangsters.
In fact, Israel intends to completely demolish 35 Bedouin villages in the Negev.
Ahmad al-Tibi, a member of the Israeli Knesset, took part in the protest in the Bedouin town of Hura. He said that, ‘The protest was meant to emphasise that Prawer will not pass on the ground, even if it does in the Knesset, because its essential goal is to displace the indigenous Arabs from their towns.’
Al-Tibi continued that the ‘resolution will not be respected because it is racist’.
Meanwhile, throughout Palestine, Israeli forces are attacking Palestinians and executing them as with the three young Palestinian men murdered in Hebron last week, as well as the youth that have been killed and injured in the Israeli air attacks on Gaza.
On Saturday, there were clashes in the West Bank village of al-Shuhada near Jenin when Israeli troops entered it and issued interrogation summonses to two Palestinians, Majd Fakhry Addery and Humama Asaasah, demanding they appear for questioning at Salem military base.
The soldiers fired tear gas grenades in all directions at the local population who suffered from poison gas inhalation. The reality is that Israeli intransigence and determination to carry on with the methods of 1948, with more ‘Catastrophes’ and settlement building has made Palestinians very, very angry.
Many Palestinians now want to see Abbas retire after his brave but unsuccessful attempt to negotiate what Yasser Arafat called a ‘Peace of the Brave’, a two-state solution. The fact of the matter is that the Israeli ruling class is not in the slightest interested in such a solution. It believes in a one-state solution, a Greater Israel, with minor Palestinian entities attached to either Egypt or Jordan or both.
The growing Palestinian anger has come together with a growth in national pride and self confidence as a result of the way that the Syrian people, army and government have been able to fight off the US-UK-Saudi-Qatari-backed ‘rebellion’ – the attempt to impose regime change in Syria and impose a pro-imperialist-Zionist regime.
The failure by the imperialist powers, to the point where they are relying on Iran and Russia to provide them with a diplomatic solution to the crisis they have created (at the Geneva 2 conference), has created a new situation in Palestine.
Palestine is now on the brink of a new Intifada.
Trade unions throughout the world must give it their full support.
They must support the struggle to prevent the Bedouin being driven from their homes, by imposing a total worldwide boycott of all Israeli trade, goods and services. This must last until the Prawer Plan is withdrawn, and until the Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital, with no settlements and with all Palestinians having the right to return.
In the secular socialist state of Palestine, all the people of Palestine and all religious groups will be able to live side by side in peace and prosperity.
