News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Arab MK Hanna Swaid (Hadash) has proposed that Arab Israelis celebrate a “Memorial Day” for the Arab loss in the 1948 War of Independence, the killing of Arab residents of Kfar Kassam in 1956, and the death of 13 Israeli Arabs when police suppressed violent riots in 2000.  The new “Memorial Day” would coincide with Israeli Independence Day, a day when many Arabs mourn the Nakba (“Disaster”), their term for the creation of Israel and the flight of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the land.

Swaid said the day would commemorate “’Shahidim [Martyrs] of our people who fell during the struggle for the rights of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian minority in Israel.”  He explained that the day would not replace other Arab memorial days, but would create a unified day that would lead to “the building of a collective vision.”