Rasha Saad relates the anniversary Palestinians commemorate with loathe Pundits focussed on Sunday's anniversary of Nakba when more than 600,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes and lands in 1948. In its editorial, the UAE newspaper Al-Bayan wrote that scenes of thousands of Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan commemorating the Nakba show that the Palestinian issue is and will still be alive in the minds and hearts of Arabs till doomsday. In another UAE daily, Al-Ittihad, Ahmed Youssef wrote that following the Arab uprising in many countries, the anniversary of Nakba comes this year with a different feeling, one of hope. The commemoration of Nakba this year, Youssef wrote, comes with a clear Palestinian presence (thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Hebron) supported by unprecedented popular Arab marches to Israel's borders. "Can we claim that for the first time since the 1967 defeat, we commemorate the Nakba with hope that Palestinian rights will be restored?" In the London-based daily Al-Hayat Jihad Al-Khazen wrote, "Today, the Palestinians will commemorate their Nakba [the catastrophe], an occasion that the fascist Israeli government banned after it passed a law prohibiting the native inhabitants of the country from commemorating, and punishing those who do." Al-Khazen reminded readers that there were two catastrophes in Palestinian history: in 1948, Palestine was occupied by European Khazari Jews who murdered large numbers of its people, and forced between 600,000 to one million others to emigrate. Then, following the occupation of 1967, or the second Nakba, and to the present day, some one-quarter million Palestinians were obliged or forced to leave the West Bank. Al-Khazen also warned that there are official Israeli figures that speak of a third Nakba. He explained that since the occupation of the West Bank, Israel withdrew the permits of 140,000 Palestinians there. "In other words, a Palestinian who leaves the West Bank is not allowed to return there, while a Jew from Russia is readily allowed to settle and a Jew from Moldova may bear the Israeli nationality without living there for even one single day," Al-Khazen wrote. However, in 'A Jew advocating Palestinian rights', Al-Khazen salutes Israelis who "have defended Palestinian rights, and many Jews around the world have advocated such rights, especially in Western universities, where Jews are a basic component of the boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns against Israel." Al-Khazen chose to remember two Jews, Gideon Levy and Akiva Eldar, and the Israelis who defended the Palestinian bookseller whose residence permit was withdrawn in Jerusalem, as well as the advocates of the boycott of Israel in the West, and also Nurit Peled and peace activists like her who demand Palestinian rights with the same enthusiasm of the country's native inhabitants themselves. Also in Al-Hayat, Abdullah Iskandar wrote that no new US strategy in the region will have any power to create change regardless of the heights reached by US President Barack Obama in demanding that the interests of the Arab peoples be achieved in terms of freedom and democracy, and in condemning oppression -- so long as it does not guarantee that the same standards will be applied to Israel regarding the Palestinian people. In 'Obama and Arab concern' Iskandar wrote that the fate of such a strategy will be no better than that of its predecessor if it does not include achieving justice for the Palestinian people and establishing an independent state of Palestine. "Yet to what extent can Obama pressure Israel to force it to implement such justice, on the eve of launching his electoral campaign for a second term?" Iskandar asked. Arab pundits also continue to question the notion of a safer world without Bin Laden In the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Abdel-Bari Atwan wrote that Al-Qaeda will not be weakened by the assassination of its leader; in fact, it may become stronger because it is no longer a centralised organisation, and because the new generation of its leaders is more militant than the founding old guard. According to Atwan, the world is not safer after the assassination of the Al-Qaeda leader, as President Barack Obama said after news of his [death] was announced, not only because the organisation will inevitably avenge the killing of its leader, but because the reasons that led and will lead to the emergence of militant movements and organisations in the Islamic world, primarily Israeli terrorism and US support of it, have not changed. "Stability and security will not prevail in the world as long as the greatest superpower does not abide by the rule of law, and as long as it continues to resort to killing and liquidation to eliminate [adversaries] like mafia gangs and outlaws," Atwan wrote. "The unarmed man deserved to be placed in the dock in front of an independent judiciary to defend himself like other more dangerous men who committed terrorist acts. We should not forget that those in London and Texas who killed a million Iraqi people still enjoy freedom and a prosperous life in the countries of wise, democratic rule," Atwan concluded. In the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Hoda Al-Husseini wrote that Osama Bin Laden was vital for Al-Qaeda, and it will therefore be difficult for anybody to replace him. What is certain, according to Al-Husseini, is that many jihadists, following his killing, can and will continue to carry out operations at any given opportunity. Al-Husseini argues that the threat is ongoing and widespread, whilst all international security agencies unanimously agree that Bin Laden did not directly order many terrorist attacks while he was alive [following 9/11]. Al-Husseini stresses that attacks may take place as a response to the killing of Bin Laden, but that such attacks would nevertheless most likely have been launched even if Bin Laden were still alive.
