A VERY GOOD PIECE
By Jonathan Cook
Palestine Chronicle
Nazareth
"They are extraordinary scenes. Film shot on mobile phones captured the moment on Sunday when at least 1,000 Palestinian refugees marched across no-man's land to one of the most heavily protected borders in the world, the one separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Waving Palestinian flags, the marchers braved a minefield, then tore down a series of fences, allowing more than 100 to run into Israeli-controlled territory. As they embraced Druze villagers on the other side, voices could be heard saying: "This is what liberation looks like.".....
The Palestinian "Arab Spring" is arriving and Israel has no diplomatic or political strategy to deal with it. Instead on Sunday, Israel used the only weapon in its current arsenal -- brute force -- against unarmed demonstrators.....
And inside Israel, the country's Palestinian minority took their own Nakba march for the first time into the heart of Israel, waving Palestinian flags in Jaffa, the once-famous Palestinian city that has been transformed since 1948 into a minor suburb of Tel Aviv......
Following in the footsteps of Egyptian and Tunisian demonstrators, ordinary Palestinians used the new social media to organise and coordinate their defiance - in their case challenging the walls, fences and checkpoints Israel has erected everywhere to separate them. Twitter, not Tehran, was the guiding hand behind these demonstrations.....
Although the protests are not yet a third intifada, they hint at what may be coming...
There are several lessons, none of them comfortable, for Israel to draw from the weekend's clashes....
Just as the post-Mubarak government in Egypt is now easing rather than enforcing the blockade on Gaza, the Syrian regime's precarious position makes it far less able or willing to restrain, let alone shoot at, Palestinian demonstrators massing on Israel's borders....
But the question is whether Israel has the manpower to deal with coordinated and sustained Palestinian revolts on multiple fronts. Can it withstand such pressure without the resort to mass slaughter of unarmed Palestinian protesters?....
The protesters in Syria and Lebanon showed that they will not be pushed to the margins of the Palestinian Arab Spring. That message will not be lost on either Hamas or Fatah as they begin negotiations to develop a shared strategy over the next few months....
And the fifth lesson is that the scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel's borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere to start thinking the impossible - just as the Tahrir Square protests galvanised Egyptians into believing they could remove their dictator.
Israel is in a diplomatic and strategic dead-end. Last weekend it may have got its first taste of the likely future."
Palestine Chronicle
Nazareth
"They are extraordinary scenes. Film shot on mobile phones captured the moment on Sunday when at least 1,000 Palestinian refugees marched across no-man's land to one of the most heavily protected borders in the world, the one separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Waving Palestinian flags, the marchers braved a minefield, then tore down a series of fences, allowing more than 100 to run into Israeli-controlled territory. As they embraced Druze villagers on the other side, voices could be heard saying: "This is what liberation looks like.".....
The Palestinian "Arab Spring" is arriving and Israel has no diplomatic or political strategy to deal with it. Instead on Sunday, Israel used the only weapon in its current arsenal -- brute force -- against unarmed demonstrators.....
And inside Israel, the country's Palestinian minority took their own Nakba march for the first time into the heart of Israel, waving Palestinian flags in Jaffa, the once-famous Palestinian city that has been transformed since 1948 into a minor suburb of Tel Aviv......
Following in the footsteps of Egyptian and Tunisian demonstrators, ordinary Palestinians used the new social media to organise and coordinate their defiance - in their case challenging the walls, fences and checkpoints Israel has erected everywhere to separate them. Twitter, not Tehran, was the guiding hand behind these demonstrations.....
Although the protests are not yet a third intifada, they hint at what may be coming...
There are several lessons, none of them comfortable, for Israel to draw from the weekend's clashes....
Just as the post-Mubarak government in Egypt is now easing rather than enforcing the blockade on Gaza, the Syrian regime's precarious position makes it far less able or willing to restrain, let alone shoot at, Palestinian demonstrators massing on Israel's borders....
But the question is whether Israel has the manpower to deal with coordinated and sustained Palestinian revolts on multiple fronts. Can it withstand such pressure without the resort to mass slaughter of unarmed Palestinian protesters?....
The protesters in Syria and Lebanon showed that they will not be pushed to the margins of the Palestinian Arab Spring. That message will not be lost on either Hamas or Fatah as they begin negotiations to develop a shared strategy over the next few months....
And the fifth lesson is that the scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel's borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere to start thinking the impossible - just as the Tahrir Square protests galvanised Egyptians into believing they could remove their dictator.
Israel is in a diplomatic and strategic dead-end. Last weekend it may have got its first taste of the likely future."
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