# PALESTINE /// Manual of Return on #3awda
Published
The collective #3awda (عودة) is developing activist strategies to develop an imaginary of systematic return of the Palestinian refugees on their pre-1948 land. The conversation, here, is not targeted at the existence of the state of Israel which, on the contrary of what the Israeli/American propaganda affirms, is considered by a majority of Palestinians as a given. What is being advocated for, is the possibility for millions of Palestinians to live on their ancestors’ land and to benefit of the same rights than Israeli citizens.
Every year on May 15th, for the anniversary of the Nakba (the 1948 ‘Catastrophe’), hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt gathers at the Israeli border to demonstrate their status of international refugees, who have now been waiting for decades to return on the land they have been evicted from. Palestinian refugees, like any refugees recognized by the United Nations, are subjected to the International Law and therefore owns a special status that place them in an uncomfortable and sometimes ostracized position in the various countries they are living in. These May 15th demonstrations are therefore difficult to a lot of levels. Demonstrators usually come from far, have to face the local police/army and often the real bullets of the Israeli army who systematically assassinate whoever attempts to overpass the border. The Ila Falstin Sabila Group therefore designed a small manual in Arabic to hand out to people in march to the border. It explains in very simple terms and means how they can protect themselves against the various antagonistic forces they will meet that day. The original version in Arabic is visible on #3awda’s website but the document presented here has been kindly translated in English by my friend Mina Rafiee.
I would like to point out in this article the fact that an Israeli NGO, Zochrot (Remembering in Hebrew) dedicates all its efforts in order to develop an awareness in the Israeli population about the theme of the Palestinian return. Of course, the thing is not so easy when the almost entire population has been indoctrinated for three years in the army (it is compulsory for non Arab citizens); however 2011 would have given a visibility to the Israeli left with the Rothschild Boulevard Encampment in Tel Aviv. One could thus hope (naively, maybe) to a bigger understanding of this issue within the population.
Page 1 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 2 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 3 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 4 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 5 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 6 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 7 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)
Page 8 of the Manual of Return by Ila Falstin Sabila Group (translated from Arabic by Mina Rafiee)