News Focus: It`s celebration for Israel but disaster for Palestine

Meanwhile, in Jakarta, also on Wednesday, Indonesia`s Parliament Speaker Agung Laksono opened an international conference on "Freedom and Right of Return: Palestine and 60 Years of Ethnic Cleansing (Nakba)", to mark the 60th anniversary of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

In Jerusalem, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reprimanded Israel on Tuesday (5/13) for triumphantly celebrating its 60th birthday before having reached a peace deal with the Palestinians.

"I direct my speech ... to the people of Israel, to say, `How can you?`" Fayyad said. "How can you celebrate and the Palestinian people are suffering from your settlements and the crimes of your settlers and the siege of your state and the conduct of your occupying army?"

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted and thousands of others were killed during the 1948 war over Israel`s creation. Palestinians call it "nakba" or catastrophe.

Palestinehistory.com made a long list of massacres executed by the Zionists in Palestine since 1947. The list included the massacres in Baldat al-Shaikh in 1947 when Jews Groups killed 60 Palestinians.

The year 1948 was the most bloody year for Palestine when Jews mostly coming from Europe made a series of attacks in Palestinian villages to expel or kill Arab inhabitants, especially women and children.

The villages, where Jews massacred Palestinians 60 years ago, included Dair Yasin (254 Palestinians were killed), Abu Shusha (50), and Al-Led (426).

In West of Jerusalem Dair Yasin, on the night of April 9, 1948, inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed. The Irgun Zvei Leumi led by Menachem Begin surrounded the village of Dair Yasin.

After giving the sleeping residents a 15 minute warning to evacuated, Jews attacked the village of around 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children and wounding 300 others. Some 150 captured women and children were paraded through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem who later were brought back to Dair Yassin and murdered

Other massacres occurred in Qibya in 1953 where 67 Palestinians were killed, in Qalqalya Village in 1956, where Israeli Army murdered 70 Arabs, in Kufr Qasim in 1956 (49 Palestinians were killed), Khan Younes also in 1956 (250), and Khan Younes in 1956 (275).

In 1982, some 3,500 Palestinian refugees were massacred by Israeli Army in Sabra and Shatila Camps in Lebanon. In 1990, 23 Palestinians were murdered and 850 others were wounded to varying degrees by Israeli Army at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam`s second sacred mosque, in Jerusalem. And 109 Palestinians were massacred in Qana in 1996.

Starting in the last months of 1947, and going on until the early part of 1949, about 700,000 Palestinians became refugees from the land that became Israel. Many were expelled by force or left because of the fear that they might be killed. Their houses were destroyed by Jews and they were not allowed to return.

Israel`s President, Shimon Peres, an aide to Ben Gurion in 1948, where most ...