The head of the Lower Galilee Regional Council, Moti Dotan, and the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in Israel are at loggerheads over the latter's request to hold a Nakba Day procession in the Lavi Forest on Independence Day. The group requested an area in the woods located at the site of the Arab village Lubya, which was destroyed during the Independence War in 1948. The forest is named Lavi after a Jewish town that was located there during the Talmudic period. Dotan responded to the group, saying he was vehemently opposed to a Nakba ceremony on Independence Day. "Holding a gathering and procession of this kind presents the opportunity for a violent confrontation between thousands of revelers -- something which the regional council cannot allow," he said. Dotan approached Northern District commander Maj. Gen. Zohar Dvir, warning against the potential powder keg posed by the meeting between thousands of Israelis and Arab demonstrators. "Radical right-wing people have already vocalized their intention to come to the forest to celebrate," Dotan wrote in his letter to Dvir. "The police must prevent this event as is the case elsewhere -- such as the interdiction against Jewish entry to the Temple Mount or informing the public not to ride on Route 65 because of the Arab demonstration over the torching of a mosque in Umm al-Fahm. I am absolutely certain that full discretion will be used to prevent a violent confrontation, which no doubt will occur if the event is held on Independence Day." Northern District police said the matter was "under review."
The quarrel began when the association sent a letter to Dotan 10 days ago stating it had sent a request to Tiberias police, requesting permission to hold a procession commemorating the Nakba -- Arabic for catastrophe, and used to denote the commemoration of Arab displacement following the 1948 war -- in the heart of the Lavi Forest, which is located between Haifa and the Sea of Galilee.
