Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 33)
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- Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 33)
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Athens Conference on Palestinian Culture
Palestinians have marked
out the Hebrew name
for their village, Surda,
in the occupied West Bank.
The International Congress for Support of the Palestinian Culture in
the Occupied Lands was held in Athens, March 29-31. It was spon-
sored by the National Council for Arab Culture and the Panhellenic
Cultural Movement, and attended by Palestinians, progressive
Arabs and internationalists. Below we print one of the presentations
to the congress, made by William W. Baker, a native American.
= "aa
Zionism and its attempts to
assassinate the Arab culture
First of all, may | take a moment to
express my sincere appreciation to the
members and supporters of the Panhel-
lenic Cultural Movement for convening
this important conference, and espe-
cially for the invitation to participate and
be included among such a distinguished
number of caring and concerned fellow
human beings.
In my book Theft of a Nation which
reveals the theft of the land and country
belonging to the Palestinian people by
the Zionist Jews with the aid and support
of the United States and the other Euro-
pean nations, | point out many simila-
rities of the cultural genocide practised
against the original native inhabitants of
America and the Palestinian people.
These similarities are true even in the
identity of the persecutors, as it was the
same ashkenazim who arrived from
Europe and began the murderous and
systematic extermination of the Ameri-
can Indian people, as they are now
doing in Palestine and the rest of the
Arab world. | quote from pages 27 and
28 of my book:
«Remember, more than one million
Palestinian Arabs who still live in Pales-
tine are true Semites! They remain
today, as they have remained from the
beginning, vehemently opposed to the
Jewish occupation of their country. This
opposition cannot be termed anti-
semitism. Semites are not against
Semites! Rather, the Semitical Arabs
are at odds with the Zionist Jews who
continue to espouse their «right to con-
quest» and a «national homeland» as
embodied in the Zionist Manifesto of
1897. If the Arab people are anti-semitic,
then native American Indians were and
are «anti-American» for resisting the
occupation and settlement of their land
by immigrating white European pilgrims
and subsequent pioneer settlers.»
| speak to you today as a direct
descendant of those real and true
Americans, the native (sabra) American
Indians. And as a trained archaeologist
and one who has studied the cultural
and anthropological patterns in the Mid-
dle East, | am compelled to address my
thoughts and expressions to the very
real danger of cultural genocide which is
now occurring to the Palestinian people
and may well be experienced by the
Arab people of the world. | have lived,
studied and excavated in Palestine for
many years, and | have witnessed this
attempt to eradicate the Arab culture by
the illegal occupiers of the country, tne
Zionist aggressors. To convince you of
the very real dangers to both the Palesti-
nians and all other Arabs and their rich
and important culture, | once again refer
you to the verifiable historical events that
occurred within my own cultural home
and heritage, North America.
For nearly 20,000 years prior to the
arrival of the first colonialists, America
was inhabited by over five million
natives, consisting of over 600 different
tribes. Yet, within one century of the arri-
val of the colonialists, these innocent
people were reduced to less than two
million. Their calculated extermination
was brought about by outright slaughter
by white men and their armies; by infecti-
ous disease carried by whites and to
which the native Indians had no immun-
ity or resistance. But by far, the most
effective method of decimation of the
native people was by attacking their cul-
tural roots. Once militarily in control,
these foreign intruders forbid the tradi-
tional customs to be practised by the
Indian people. They could no longer per-
form their ancient dances and cere-
monies; they were no longer allowed to
live their accustomed life style of moving
wherever they wished, hunting and
farming as they had done for centuries. >
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