Court Approves Anti-Israel Independence Day Ceremony

by Hillel Fendel

Published: 05/01/08, 7:03 PM

(IsraelNN.com) A court in Nazareth has approved a ceremony to be held this coming Independence Day that will commemorate the "catastrophic" nature of the day for Israel's Arabs.

The Nazareth District Court has allowed the radical anti-Israel Islamic Movement to conduct a Naqba (Catastrophe) ceremony on Israel's Independence Day, next Thursday. Many Arabs believe Independence Day actually marks their own Naqba, and commemorate it as such.

The ruling was handed down today (Thursday) after the authorities of the Arab town of Kfar Kana refused to allow the ceremony, claiming it was political in nature. The court rejected this claim, and the anti-Israel ceremony will be held on Independence Day in the Kfar Kana stadium.

MKs Saar, Orlev, Livnat
"Such a decision on the day we remember the Holocaust," said MK Gideon Saar (Likud), "is shameful, and it shows total Zionism and moral bankruptcy."

MK Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the National Religious Party, agreed, saying, "The court's decision makes a mockery of the Declaration of Independence, and of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

Likud MK Limor Livnat, a former Minister of Education, demands that the government file a request for an appeal of the court ruling. "The brain refuses to accept that on Holocaust Day, a court in Israel could come to such an incredible ruling," she said. "Now, more than ever, we must remember that the State of Israel is primarily the State of the Jews."

Saar added, "The Naqba ceremony will most definitely be a stage for incitement against Israel. It shows that our national authorities have no national respect or self-respect."