My name is Raneen, am a Palestinian women, lives in Haifa and work at Zochrot organization as a coordinator of the oral history project in which I collect testimonies from Nakba survivors.
I was supposed to be at this forum from the beginning but I went to Madrid for a Palestinian youth network conference and came few days ago.
The aim of this network is to meet yearly between 100-150 Palestinians youth all over the word (camps. Arab world, Europe and other places) in order to connect between us, to exchange experiences and thoughts and to experience a common dream in being together.
I think that this discussion about the Nakba and the refugees is very important to both side Jewish and Palestinians, and if we continue to close our eyes and avoid this topic as what the police makers is doing now, it will never be peace in the middle east and people from both side will continue to be killed.
I think, To talk deeply about this issues we need more information about the Nakba, specially for the Israelis who never learn about it at their schools.
if we go deeply on this we can understand what is happening today, 60 year after, in Aka (Acr), Jaffa, al-Lyd, what happened in the first and the second Intifada, and why 13 Arab Israeli citizens have been killed during the demonstrations. Why Israel still occupied the west bank and Gaza, why there is so may discrimination laws in this State and why some Knesset members still taking about transferring the Palestinians in Israel to Jordan. Why Palestinians bomb themselves in Israeli buses and send rockets to the South…. Why… why… why…..
Its easy to fined through internet an information about the Nakba, for instance: Badil center:
http://www.badil.org/Refugees/facts&figures.htm and also I insert one film about women stories of the Nakba.
Additionally, nowadays, many people are thinking about 1 state resolution rather than 2 state resolution, lets try to discuses these 2 resolution and go deeply on the advantages and disadvantages of each one.
Raneen