Jerusalem Celebrations

Here is a snip of an Al-Jazeera article:

"Israeli police have prevented Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem from holding events to mark the city's designation as "capital of Arab culture" for 2009.

About 20 Palestinians were detained in and around East Jerusalem on Saturday, but there were no reports of violence, Shmulik Ben-Ruby, a police spokesman, said.

Police reinforcements were deployed around the city and barricades were set up on routes to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site.

Witnesses said that flags and banners associated with the event were confiscated.

At one school, police and soldiers burst balloons in the colours of the Palestinian flag that the children were trying to release to mark the event.

Hatem Abdel Qader, who handles Jerusalem affairs for the Palestinian Authority, was reportedly among those arrested."

What I don't understand is why the Palestinian people are not allowed to celebrate the event. In case you don't know what the event was or its significance, according to Al-Jazeera, "Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it as the Jewish state's "eternal and indivisible capital", a move which has not been recognised internationally.

Palestinians demand East Jerusalem as the capital of any future Palestinian state.

Jerusalem follows Damascus as the "capital of Arab culture", a title that has been handed to a different city by the Arab League every year since 1996.

Winners typically use the occasion to highlight Arab culture, sponsoring poetry, music, dance performances, lectures, school activities and sporting events."

So, basically, the Palestinians should be happy, actually, EXTREMELY happy about the event and should be allowed to celebrate it, but instead, they are being silenced...once again.

By the way, I love the part about the Israeli police popping the school childrens' balloons (notice my sarcasm), that were in colors representing the Palestinian flag. I love that the Israeli police found it NECESSARY to pop these childrens' balloons. For Gods' sake, when will it END? When will it stop? Everything has already been taken from these people and now you're going to pop their kids' balloons? Seriously, that's sick.