NYC Actions
5C - Solidarity Center
55 West 17th Street, 5th Floor,
Between 5th and 6th Avenue (Near Union Square, NYC)
212-633-6646
From Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition - NY:
Protest “Tel Aviv Beach” celebration of murder
and ethnic cleansing
in New York’s Central Park!
Support the Right of All Refugees to Return Home!
Sunday, June 21st, 11 a.m.
Central Park, South Side of Bandshell
(enter park at 69th St on East Side or 72nd St on West Side)
On Sunday June 21, public property belonging to the people of New York is being
handed over to Israel for the day to set up a “Tel Aviv Beach” in
Central Park. The Zionist Tourism Commissioner says "Our goal is to enable
New Yorkers to experience the fun and lightheartedness of Tel Aviv," but
in reality the event is a celebration of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Zionist government has already set up a “Tel Aviv Beach” in
Vienna, where it has been met with constant protests by outraged Austrians.
These beaches, which include an artificial beachfront, with sand, lounge
chairs, concession stands, beach paddle-ball, music and food, are designed to
mark the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv’s founding. That founding, and the
city’s history since then, is one long story of expulsion of
Palestinians, destruction of their homes, refusal of their right to return
– and murder carried out against them and their descendants where they
fled in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere.
Tel Aviv is Israel’s first and most important example of the
apartheid-style colonialism which is central to Zionism. As historian Tom Segev
wrote, “Segregation led to the establishment of Tel Aviv… by Jews
tired of living among Arabs.
Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion wrote that “The destruction of Jaffa, the
city and the port, will happen and it will be for the best… When Jaffa
falls into hell I will not be among the mourners.”
Driving Jaffa “into hell” was required in order to assure Tel
Aviv’s dominance. As a result Jaffa, whose orange groves, factories and
literary institutions made it the center of Palestinian life, had to be
destroyed and its residents driven out. In 1948 Zionist military forces
displaced 95% of Jaffa's Palestinians. Historian Ilan Pappe writes that the
people of Jaffa were “literally pushed into the sea” to board
fishing boats destined for exile as “Jewish troops shot over their heads
to hasten their expulsion.” Soon after Zionist forces blew up and
bulldozed three-quarters of Jaffa's Arab section.
Out of the 70,000 Palestinians who used to call Jaffa home, only 3,650 were
allowed to stay. Many of Jaffa’s Palestinian residents fled to Gaza
– which means the families of many of those killed and wounded in this
year’s massacres by the Israeli Occupation Forces, as well as those
suffering right now from Israel’s genocidal siege, came from Jaffa.
Their homes and property confiscated, the few remaining after 1948 were pushed
into a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire patrolled by Israeli soldiers and guard
dogs. In 1950 Jaffa was swallowed up by the Tel Aviv municipality.
Some of the Palestinian workers remaining were forced to build the luxury
hotels and condos that line Tel Aviv's beaches, but could be imprisoned if
they were found in Tel Aviv after 6 p.m.
The ghetto into which the remaining Palestinians were pushed, while by far the
poorest neighborhood in the city, is also a coastal neighborhood with some of
the highest property value in the city. As a result 3,000 Palestinians face
eviction right now so their homes can be torn down to provide exclusive housing
for Jews so they can have easier access to the real Tel Aviv beach.
Israel’s foremost institution of higher education, Tel Aviv University,
was built on the ruins of a Palestinian village. Tel Aviv is the location of
the Zionist government offices which set the policies of starvation, murder and
ethnic cleansing on behalf of the corporations of which Tel Aviv is the primary
home.
Today the estimated number of Palestinian refugees from Jaffa is around
700,000. We demand the right to return of every one of these 700,000, along
with the right to return of every single Palestinian refugee around the world
to their original homes!
We encourage allies of the Palestinian people to join us at this protest. The
US government is right now carrying out wars which have created millions of
refugees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it has prevented hundreds of
thousands of mostly African-American workers from returning to their homes
after Hurricane Katrina was used as an excuse to ethnically cleanse cities in
Louisiana and Mississippi on behalf of rich white gentrifiers. We say no to
ethnic cleansing, and demand the right to return of ALL refugees!
Join Al-Awda-NY in protesting this celebration of atrocity and expulsion!
For more information, please contact info@al-awdany.org or call 718-228-8636.
Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition - NY
http://www.al-awdany.org
Support our work! Visit http://www.al-awdany.org/supportawdany.html
to make a donation.
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