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After 17 years Cologne man still resisting occupation
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 19 April 2012 10:56
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Fadi Abu Sada - In the Central Cathedral Square in the German city of Cologne stands a man and what he has dubbed a “Wailing Wall.” The wailing is for the Palestinian victims of Israeli occupation.
Ongoing for 17 years, this man stands with a sign, collects signatures, and shows photos to support the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights. His purpose is to end the Israeli occupation. Beginning the project after meeting a female activist from Beit Jala, the city up the hill from Bethlehem, this man has collected thousands of signatures to support the Palestinian people.
The Palestine News Network was there and watched how people stopped to see the “Cologne Wailing Wall.” They looked at the pictures and text which illustrate some of the crimes committed against Palestinians. The country is still stained with blood spilled during the Hitler era, but this man knows that the answer is not the Israeli occupation of Palestine and he hopes that his own “Wailing Wall” will ensure that everyone else knows that too.
Photos of the Apartheid Wall, settlements, soldiers shooting at Palestinian children, a Palestinian child resisting an Israeli tank with stones, Sheikh Yassin's wheelchair before his assassination, and photos of the wheelchair after the assassination, and many other photos and writing, with a Palestinian kafia hanging nearby, were all present at this “Wall” to tell all passersby from every nationality about Palestine.
His demands have drawn people’s attention. He has called for a boycott of all Israeli products in Germany and throughout Europe, particularly those manufactured in illegal settlements on Palestinian land. European law already stipulates that products of Israeli settlements cannot be imported, with shipments of potatoes grown in settlements recently seized.
I could not know this man, his name, or really talk to him because he was busy collecting signatures. He has hundreds of thousands from people throughout the world. When he knew that I was Palestinian he preferred to spend his time talking to others, to allow them to realize the magnitude of the tragedy endured by the Palestinian people due to Israeli occupation.
He stood, with a few friends in the vicinity, talking about the viciousness of the Israeli occupation and the rights of the Palestinian people. For his efforts he has won three awards for nonviolent activism, not doing anything more than telling people about the Palestinian struggle. However, he remained silent near those who looked at the photos, allowing them time to read the words and take in the images.
In Palestine we call attention to this man as we know the importance of such resistance, to show all of humanity that we are only demanding our rights while living through the 60th memorial of the continuing Nakba (Catastrophe) and 41 years of the occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Sixty years is long enough, the longest occupation in history, the longest period of displacement, suffering and pain in a struggle to obtain our legitimate rights in our occupied land.
Many thanks to this man, thanks to each one who is supporting him, and thanks to each one who stops to read what is written on the wall, who looks at the photos, and thanks to each one who signed his name in support of our rights and our people everywhere in this world. They all deserve respect and appreciation.