By Afshan Khan
“United States of America has never been a fair mediator for Palestine. How can a man sitting in White House sell our dignity,” Palestinian Ambassador to India Adnan Abu Al-Haijaa said. Al-Haijaa was referring to Trump by asserting that Palestinians are not fighting to compromise.
Al-Haijaa made the statement at an event held under the banner “A commemoration of the 71st anniversary of Nakba”, which was held on Wednesday, 15 May at New Delhi’s India Islamic Cultural Center.
“It is not the 71st anniversary of Nakba but it has been a century now since Palestinians started the resistance. It started with Sykes-Picot agreement between France and Britain and the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Palestinian resistance started on the very first day when the British army arrived on the land of Palestine”, he added.
The event was organized by the Indian National Alliance for Palestine. The speakers for this event apart from Al-Haijaa being the chief guest included Dr John Dayal, Prof. Apoorvanand, Sr. Anastasia Gill and Seema Mustafa.
Dr John Dayal, senior journalist and Human Rights activist expressed the concern on how a change can be seen in India in the last 35 years when nobody likes to talk on the issue of violence against Palestine but in fact, he said, people have started celebrating the violence against Palestine. ‘It wasn’t the case 35 years ago when India was a great friend of Palestine’, he said.
He also accepted that there is total illiteracy among people about what Israel is today.
While the majority of the people around the world have accepted a lie created by Israel that Palestinians can not return their home ‘Palestine’, Professor Apoorvanand from Delhi University argued that it is possible. “One of the reasons why the world lacks peace today is that Palestine has been reduced from ‘Palestine’ to ‘Palestine of dreams”, Apoorvanand professed.
Seema Mustafa, a senior journalist shared her personal experience of reporting the Israeli aggression against Palestine and expressed her views on what brought her up and what she learnt from the people of Palestine. She exposed the “Big Media” and points out that these media houses justify the massacre going on in Gaza. She threw light on how American and British controlled media and their biased narratives.
“There is an attempt to trample down the resistance one by one in the Middle East. Anybody who supports the Palestinian cause becomes the enemy number one of Israel and then becomes the enemy number two of US and Western powers”
She pointed out how Yemen, Syria and now Qatar are under attack due to their clear support of this resistance.
In the end, Saba Dave from ‘India Palestine Friendship Forum’ who was hosting the event introduced the ‘Not In My Home’ campaign and appealed the audience to boycott Israeli products which help in killing the innocent Palestinians.
Indian National Alliance for Palestine is a recently formed coalition of more than 30 Indian organisations supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom and their right to return.
