Jaffa -Tel Aviv –> Beirut
On the 66 anniversary of the Nakba, Zochrot Association and Guava Website invite you to a symbolic journey between Jaffa-Tel Aviv and Beirut. The journey will commemorate the Nakba, and call for a return of the Palestinian refugees and the creation of a new political-civilian space in the Middle East, with no barriers along roads such as those leading from Jaffa-Tel Aviv to Beirut.
The plan includes guided tours in destroyed Palestinian sites, writers and journalists sharing literary and political texts on the issue, posting signs in key locations, marking the route with stencils, and distributing relevant materials.
The journey will take place on Saturday, May 17, 2014.
It will start from 48 Ha-Kovshim Street in Al-Manshiyye Neighborhood, Jaffa (presently southern Tel Aviv), at 9:00 and end in Ras Al-Naqura (Rosh Ha-Nikra), on what is today the border between Israel and Lebanon.
The public is invited. Transportation will be provided. Those wishing to join only some of the journey may do so in any of the following stations.
9:00 – Guided tour: The Nakba in Al-Manshiyye, starting from 48 Ha-Kovshim St. near the Hassan Bek Mosque and (not) ending near the Etzel House.
11:15 – The Nakba in the village of Caesarea. This tour will take place inside what is today the Caesarea National Park and require an entrance fee of 18 NIS.
13:00 – Lunch break in Haifa (lunch costs will be borne by the participants). Participants could join the tour in Haifa at 38 Ben Gurion blv. in the German Colony, at 14:00.
15:00 – The Nakba in Kafr Bir'im and a meeting with displaced persons from the village.
17:00 – In Ras Al-Naqura, reading texts about the realization of return and the desired future space.
19:00 – Return toHaifa/ 20:30- Return to Jaffa.
The walking routes are not strenuous. Participants should take their own food and water.
Recommended donation to cover transport costs: 30 NIS.
To register, please contact us at tours@zochrot.org
For further details, please contact Umar Al-Ghubari at +972-52-8743099
Talia Hoffman at +972-54-469884
Zochrot offices at +972-3-6953155
http://guava.thaliahoffman.com/index.py/static/index.html
Guava is a space for artistic practices that explore a future reality when the Middle East will be open for traffic – a future where the Jewish State, as we now know it, has ceased to exist, and people are able to make their way to areas hitherto inaccessible due to state borders.
Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, roads throughout the Middle East were open, and used freely by all inhabitants for commercial, leisure, culture, and family purposes. Towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Sykes–Picot Agreement was signed between France and the United Kingdom, to divide the empire's lands between them. France received Syria and Lebanon, while Great Britain received Palestine. The road between Beirut and Jaffa-TelAviv remained open to serve the needs of trade and security of the two mandates, and only by the late thirties were fences built across the borderlines. These fences gained their validity with the establishment of the State of Israel, in 1948.
Guava seeks to recollect those routes and imagine the possibility of a Middle East that is once more completely open to traffic.
