Today we started our day by visiting the city or village of Lifta. Lifta is the last remaining Arab city / town / village that has not been destroyed or re-inhabited. Let me try to make sense of this. With the creation of the state of Israel, which was the home of Arabs / Palestinians prior to 1947, the lands and homes of the Palestinians was taken, destroyed or re-inhabited by members of the new nation state that we now know as Israel. The issue of land rights have been in dispute since the war of 1947-48 and the battle continues today as Israel shores up the state and borders of the continuing evolution on this young nation we know as Israel. Lifta is still standing as a testimony to the devastation of the take over of the land. It stands as a ghost town in the sense that the ancestors cry from the ground calling for justice. While the ancestors cry from the grounds there are plans in the works to make Lifta a new upscale community for Israeli citizens, not for Arabs / Palestinians. The children of this land are raising issues, they are echoing the concerns of the ancestors but the move to cover this ground with new people once again means the history will be yet covered / silenced with no marker. We have to remember and stand in solidarity with those who cry for justice. As my people would say, “There are no spectators at a lynching.” Are you willing to cut the rope?
