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Some attend silent vigil as a show of solidarity
By Sean Barron
LIBERTY
Many people spent Sunday honoring the 65th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, but for some Arab-Americans and others, the occasion was anything but celebratory.
“Terrorist tactics were used in establishing Israel in 1948,” the Rev. Werner Lange said at a news conference Sunday at the Arab American Community Center, 15 Belgrade Ave.
The Rev. Mr. Lange, a sociologist and University of Akron professor, ticked off a series of terrorist attacks during the years just before Israel’s 1948 independence and denounced what he sees as a link between such acts and the country’s establishment.
Earlier Sunday, 33 people attended a silent vigil on Gypsy Lane across from the Jewish Community Center in Youngstown to commemorate what they see as 65 years of Palestinian occupation and dispossession.
The event was largely to show solidarity, support and passion for those under occupation in the West Bank, living in refugee camps and under siege in the Gaza Strip, noted Ray Nakley, the community center’s media spokesman.
Mr. Lange contended that an organization called Irgun Zvai Leumi used terrorism in helping form the state of Israel. He also accused former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin of having been part of the IZL.
From 1946 to 1948, the IZL engaged in a series of terrorist attacks and kidnappings, including blowing up the British Embassy in Rome, bombing the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, and bombing a Jerusalem officers club in 1947, killing 17 British officers, he explained.
In April 1948, Mr. Lange said, 132 armed IZL terrorists and members of an allied Jewish organization indiscriminately slaughtered Palestinians in Deir Yassin.
“The original plan was to murder all of the villagers, but it was revised and the slaughter stopped at around 250 murders,” he continued. “The Deir Yassin massacre sent shock waves throughout Palestine and set off a series of panic flights from Jewish terrorism.”
Nearly all Palestinians under occupation are seeking peace and dignity and want to live peacefully in their natural homeland, said Mousa Kassis, the community center’s secretary.
Nakley noted that contrary to some people’s views, Palestinians have no desire to destroy Israel. Instead, they want a one-person, one-vote system that is in line with Israel’s constitution. One group’s being privileged over another is unsustainable, he explained.
Nakley expressed optimism that many young Israeli activists will be instruments for positive change and also want peace in the region. He predicted that Zionism, like what he sees as other corrupt systems, will collapse under the weight of its own corruption.
“Separate but equal is inherently unequal,” he added.