Arabs Lead Peaceful Demonstration in Nazareth

This is a report from Israel by an LA friend, Sharis Delgadillo.. :)

March 18, 2011
Arabs Lead Peaceful Demonstration in Nazareth

by Sharis Delgadillo, USC “Reporting on Israel” Journalism Student



A small group of Palestinian-Israeli demonstrators gathered Tuesday evening in Nazareth to call for the reunification of the divided Palestinian parties of Hamas and Fatah.

“We are demonstrating here to push on both parties. They must sit and reunite and confront the Israelis in politics. I’m not talking about violence,” said Mubada Gargoura, a member of the Israeli Communist Party (ICP).

The ICP and Hadash, which has four members in the 120-seat Knesset parliamentary government, organized this peaceful candlelit demonstration. It supports the evacuation of all Jewish settlements and the right of return or compensation for Palestinian refugees. The event was part of a larger set of coordinated demonstrations held inside the Palestinian occupied territories of Ramallah, Nablus, and Gaza.

An example of violent tensions between the two groups occurred last week. Five members of an Israeli settler family, including a baby, were stabbed to death inside their home in Itamar, a village in the West Bank. Some members in the Israeli-Jewish community were outraged and called the assault a Palestinian “terrorist attack.”