Speaking at a rally commemorating 50 years since the Kfar Kassem massacre Sheik Abdullah Nimr Darwish, leader of the Islamic Movement southern faction, said that "Lieberman can sit in the government if he wants. If we bother him – he should know that we're here to stay."
| Commemorating 50 years |
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| Kfar Kassem: About time State admits its mistake / Roee Nahmias |
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Thousands march Sunday morning to mark 50th anniversary of massacre committed by Border Guard officers against dozens of Kfar Kassem residents. Residents recall day when they returned from work and became targets of police's fire. Speakers also link between massacre and today's Lieberman |
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Darwish suggested that the government ought not test the Arab public: "If someone is thinking of burying us – we will not be buried alone and let them understand that any way they want. The governments of Israel, since the very first one, base their policies only on muscles and never use their brains."
Some 5,000 people attended the rally, held in the Kfar Kassem soccer stadium, commemorating 50 years since the massacre of 49 people, who were breaking the curfew imposed on the area, by Border Guard officers.
The rally began around 5 p.m., close to the hour that the policemen opened fire. Earlier, at around 4 p.m. the official museum for the massacre was opened for the first time. 5,000 people also participated in a march commemorating the massacre.
United Arab List-Ta'al Chairman MK Ibrahim Sarsur called on Israel to treat survivors of the massacre as it treats Holocaust survivors.
During his speech he quoted a poll published Friday by Yedioth Aharonoth according to which 30 percent of the Jewish public in Israel supports a future pardoning of Yigal Amir.
"Education Minister Yuli Tamir responded to this and said that it is a dangerous evolution of Jewish thought if people support a pardon," he said, "Tamir says that the murderer of a prime minister should be treated like the Nazis."
"What is more dangerous? The murder of a prime minister by one extremist or the intentional murder of 49 innocent civilians by the police? Minister Yuli Tamir has given us a golden opportunity by opening this historic window," he said, "We ask that the government treat the survivors of the Kfar Kassem massacre like it treats Holocaust survivors, and everything that derives from that."
"True, martial law has been dropped, but today we live under a martial government – a government that only thinks with power when it comes to Arabs. We witnessed the cursed war in Lebanon and the criminal war against the Palestinians and therefore we do not hang many hopes on this government.
"Something that obligates us, all the Arabs, individuals and parties, to unite with all the democratic forces in the country and try to press this government to change its policy, because if it will continue along the same line, it will damage the state of Israel far more than it will damage the Arabs," he warned.
Hadash Chairman MK Mohammad Barakeh, speaking at the ceremony, said: "The intentions behind the Kassem massacre are a continuation of the transfer policy which commenced in 1948. Not much has changed since then. At the time there was a Mapai government and today, the heir of Mapai, the Labor party, has voted to sit in the same government with the "transferist" Avigdor Lieberman. The transfer mentality has not left the governments of Israel."
MK Wassil Taha (NDA) stated during his speech: "The gift of the Israeli government to its Arab citizens on the 50th anniversary of the massacre is the fascist Lieberman and his appointment as minister and vice prime minister."
"Lieberman himself is a strategic threat to the citizens of the country, and particularly the Arab citizens," said Taha, echoing the comment made by Minister Ophir Pines-Paz last week after
Lieberman's appointment as Minister of Strategic Affairs.
MK Taha called on all the democracies in the world to boycott any Israeli government of which Lieberman is a part of.
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