The Global March to Jerusalem, The Heart of the Conflict

This year Land Day, March 30 in Palestine will be commemorated with an international march to Jerusalem. For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile you will recall that last year on Land Day I was up to my knees in red dirt planting fragile olive trees in a field that had just had its 1,000 year old trees uprooted and burned by neighboring hostile settlers. The violence is meant to be both a threat and a way to confiscate land. 

Land Day commemorates a general strike and marches in 1976 against Israeli land appropriation.  Six Palestinian citizens of Israel were martyred that day and so each year in Palestine they are remembered for their courage in standing up and speaking out against the ongoing land appropriation,confiscation, or destruction of land by the Israeli government or its settlers.

This year Palestinians across Palestine and from a variety of secular and political groups decided that in light of last year’s Arab Spring across the Middle East demonstrating the power of the people’s nonviolent revolution and the alarming rate of change and destruction in Jerusalem that this year’s commemoration needed to focus on the City of Peace, Al-Quds.  The city embodies both the violence of the occupation and the promise for its future.

The Zionist government's sponsored efforts to “Judaise” the city have “quickened the pace in attempting to erase Jerusalem’s physical, cultural, and spiritual characteristics” the organizers say on their website. This is being done through a number of actions with the ultimate goal of changing the facts on the ground, the demographics, of the holy city from a Palestinian to a Jewish majority.

This is being done through the following:

Unrestricted expansion and funding of illegal  settlement;

Continued dispossession of Palestinian property;

Construction of the Separation Wall;

Restriction of movement for Jerusalemites in the city and restriction of Palestinians entering the city;

Restrictions on family unification;
Permit system limiting visitation to holy sites by Muslims and Christians;

Denial of residency permits and IDs.

Richard Falk, The United Nations Special Rapporter on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, says that the  “continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with forcible eviction of long residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation that can only be described in its culmative impact, as a form of ethnic cleansing. “

It is important to remember that the UN and the International Court of Law hold that the annexation of East Jerusalem, which is part of the Occupied Territory, is a violation of international law. This is also in violation of US government policy also that recognizes that East Jerusalem is part of the Occupied Territory.  Israeli government officials including Netanyahu have increasingly claimed the entire city of Jerusalem at theirs, as the capitol of the Jewish state and we, in the West, have done nothing to challenge that claim.

Like Rabbi Gottlieb, one of the supporters of the march along with other faith leaders like Desmond Tutu and Father Louis Vitale, I believe that Jerusalem is a holy city for all the children of Abraham and that all should have access and that the lack of access for some hurts us all.

This Global March to Jerusalem, like Gandhi’s march to the seacoast to harvest the salt, is a challenge to the unjust and illegal occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing and appropriation of Jerusalem. 

People of all faiths, ethnicities and nationalities are marching to Jerusalem to underscore the need for an open city for all and a just peace in the Holy Land. Those who cannot make it are holding rallies in over 60 countries world wide. 

Jerusalem is at the heart of the conflict and it is the key to peace. Peace will only be possible when justice and fairness, as expressed in international law, are exercised

Let us support our brothers and sisters around the world this week by holding them in the light as they attempt to cross Israel’s borders or as they attempt to enter the holy city this Friday, March 30.  Israel has already promised that they will retaliate. We have already seen what that violent repression looks like on Nakba Day, May 15, last year and on Naska Day, June 17. 

May we join Rabbi Gottlieb in her simple prayer, “May the Compassionate One who is the Parent of us all, open the gates of compassion and justice for everyone who decides to enter.”  May the gatekeepers, the military, with their tear gas, stink bombs, and rubber and “real” bullets also know that their liberty and freedom is also at stake and that their freedom is tied to the freedom of their Abrahamic cousins. 

Global March to Jerusalem website     http://www.gm2j.com/

http://www.facebook.com/events/416816611669001/

Global March to Jerusalem North America   www.gmj-na.org

Song video for the March   youtu.be/tzoztzUXJTc.webloc

Video about the March from Mustafa Baraghouti

youtu.be/dJxPKeSKtWo.webloc

May all the walls come tumbling down so Jerusalem can be free

UPDATE FROM THE MARCH 

Pictures from Land Day events around the world (inspiring)
http://gm2j.com/main/gmj-photos/

Video from Bethlehemhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U1qQVqVnsM