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From:	[log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent:	Wednesday, September 06, 2000 1:18 PM
To:	[log in to unmask]
Subject:	For moderation - BADIL: Italian peace initiative: Jewish Holocaust
YES - Palestinian Nakba NO?

BADIL Resource Center
For immediate release, 6-9-2000.
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Palestinian Protests against Italian "Community Peace Initiative":
"We Demand Respect for Palestinian Rights, for our Heritage and
Struggle -
We Do Not Need Commercial Initiatives Aimed at Normalization with
Israel"

An Italian community initiative for peace in the Middle East, organized by
Flavio Lotti on behalf of Italian community institutions (municipalities,
NGOs), has brought some 1,000 Italian tourists to the Jerusalem-Bethlehem
area. Between September 1-9, the Italian visitors, hosted by Israeli and
Palestinian institutions (municipalities, NGOs, Bethlehem 2000) are
participating in a program which aims to promote the current Middle East
peace effort by means of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian community
organizations.
Palestinian institutions and community activists were shocked to learn, on 4
September 2000, that the Italian program included visits to the Israeli
holocaust memorial Yad Vashem and the grave of assassinated former Israeli
prime minister Yitzhaq Rabin, while the program on the Palestinian side
included neither reference to the Palestinian victims of the historical
conflict, nor a visit to one of the Palestinian memorials of the martyrs of
the Palestinian people's struggle for its basic rights.
"Deir Yassin, located only several hundred meters from the Holocaust Museum
Yad Vashem, is the symbol of the some 500 Palestinian villages destroyed by
Israel in 1948 and a symbol for all Palestinian refugees in the world. There
are no monuments or signs indicating Deir Yassin, the site of the massacre
committed by Zionist forces against innocent Palestinian villagers on 9
April 1949, but for the Palestinian people, whose culture and history has
been passed from generation to generation, the memory of Deir Yassin will
always remain alive," wrote Kamal Al-Qeisi/Popular Committee of the Beit
Jibrin ('Azza) Refugee Camp in a statement of protest to the organizers of
the Italian initiative.
An Italian delegation visited the remainders of the Palestinian village of
Deir Yassin on 4 September, following the Italian visit at Yad Vashem, in
response to the popular demand addressed to the Italian organizers, as well
as Faisal Al-Husseini/PLO Jerusalem portfolio and Palestinian Legislative
Council member Hatem Abdelqader.
Based on the evaluation that the current Italian initiative promotes
Israeli views and positions on the historical conflict in Palestine
on the expense of Palestinian rights and understanding for the
requirements of a just and durable peace, several Palestinian
community organizations in the refugee camps of the southern West Bank and
BADIL Resource Center have decided to abstain from cooperation with the
current Italian initiative and with similar international initiatives
planned in the future.

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BADIL Resource Center aims to provide a resource pool of alternative,
critical and progressive information and analysis on the
question of Palestinian refugees in our quest to achieve a just and lasting
solution for exiled Palestinians based on the right
of return.
PO Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine; tel/fax. 02-2747346; email:
[log in to unmask]; website: www.badil.org



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