‘Memory of Stones’ to keep Palestine issue alive

By Mohammed Al-Kinani

JEDDAH – “Young people won’t forget no matter how many old people have died.” That is the message that a group of young Saudis want to send out to the world in reply to the first Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who once said that the elderly were about to die, and the new generation would forget.

A group of enthusiastic young Saudi men and women, mostly college students, are intensifying their efforts to keep the Palestinian issue alive in the minds of the younger generation. “Since the Palestinian issue will always be one of our priorities, we are organizing ‘Memories of Stones 61,’” Hidayah Munir Abbas, a campaign organizer in her early 20s, told Saudi Gazette.

According to Abbas, who is a student at Dar Al-Hekma College, the campaign was established on the 60th anniversary of the Catastrophe of the year 1948, called “Al-Nakba” in Arabic, when the declaration of the “so-called state of Israel” was announced.

Abbas pointed out that the campaign started last year and that it would not stop until the Palestinians regain their full rights. She also emphasized that the group is taking advantage of modern technology to take the campaign to the whole world.

She gave the reasons why the group of young people started the campaign saying that they noticed that many people nowadays seem to be unaware of the Palestinian issue. “We decided to start an educational campaign about the history and situation of the Palestinian people.

The campaign is a reply to the first Israeli prime minister who claimed that in time we would forget our main issue,” Abbas said.

As for the name of the campaign (Memories of Stones), she said that the organizers of the campaign wanted to say that their new generation is of a sharp mind and cannot easily forget.

The Memories of Stones Campaign includes a gallery that shows different aspects of the Palestinian issue, an oral presentation about Palestine, the famous documentary, ‘Occupation 101’ and Palestinian traditional goods and books about the issue that are sold to finance the campaign to ensure continuity.
“We work under the umbrella of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and get our financial support from a number of businessmen,” Abbas said.

She added that their main policy is to objectively illustrate all the facts about the Palestinian issue. “We want to educate not only young people but all of society about the important stages that the Palestinian issue has gone through,” she said.