On May 14, Israelis will commemorate
the 60th anniversary of their
"War of Independence" and founding of the
Jewish State. It also marks 60 years of
Palestinian Nakba suffering.
The web site www.alnakba.org recounts the history:
-- from the late Ottoman empire period; to
-- the birth of Zionism; to
-- the early Jewish colonization of Palestine; to
-- the 1917 Balfour Declaration support for
a "Jewish national home in Palestine;" to
-- the simultaneous British betrayal of the indigenous
Arabs; to
-- the British occupation; to
-- its delayed promised end; to
-- the founding of the Haganah underground
military organization; to
-- the first British (1922) Palestine census showing
a population of 757,182 - 78% Muslim, 11% Jewish
and 9.6% Christian; to-- the official 1923 establishment of the British
Mandate period; to-- the 1920s Jewish population increase to
16% on 4% of Palestinian land; to-- the terrorist Irgun (IZT) National Military
Organization established in 1931; to-- the terrorist Stern Gang founded in 1939; to
-- the 1945 Jewish population growth to 31% of
the total; to-- the October 1947 US endorsement of
partitioning Palestine at a time Palestinians
comprised two-thirds of the population and
Jews one-third; to-- the November 1947 UN General Assembly
Resolution 181 to end the British Mandate by
August 1, 1948 and partition Palestine -
56% to Jews, the remainder to Palestinians,
and for Jerusalem to be an international city; to-- Britain recommending (in December) an end to
Mandate Palestine on May 15, 1948 and independent
Jewish and Palestinian states to be established
two weeks later; to-- Harry Truman secretly meeting Chaim
Weizmann at the White House on
March 25, 1948 and pledging support for the
declaration of Israel on May 15; to-- the State of Israel established at
4PM on May 14, 1948; to-- the official end of the British Mandate
on May 15; to-- Harry Truman recognizing the Jewish State
on the same day.
David Ben-Gurion was Israel's first prime minister.
On March 10, 1948, he met with leading Zionists
and young Jewish military officers in Tel-Aviv's
"Red House." They finalized plans to ethnically
cleanse Palestine through a process of siege,
intimidation and terror - to bomb and depopulate
villages and cities; massacre innocent people;
burn homes, property and goods; and prevent
expelled Palestinians from returning.
Dalet (Plan D) was the final master plan. It was for
war without mercy - mass slaughter, targeted
assassinations, rapes, other atrocities, displacement
and destruction. It was to establish an exclusive
Jewish State without an Arab presence.
It took six months to complete, consider the toll,
and understand the Nakba's meaning. It displaced
750,000 to 800,000 people - men, women, children,
the elderly and infant civilians. Many hundreds
or thousands of others were killed. Sweeping
destruction was carried out. It erased 531 villages
and 11 urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa,
Jerusalem and other cities.
The plan's roots went way back:
-- to the birth of Zionism;
-- the 1901Jewish National Fund (JNF) beginning;
it was to compile a detailed registry of Arab
villages so later Zionists knew what to colonize
and where; it was also to buy and occupy
Palestinian land;-- by the late 1930s, it was a detailed
topographic blueprint of every Arab village
and urban area; its information included
husbandry, cultivated land, number of trees,
quality of fruits, crops, average amount of
land per family, number of cars, shop owners,
Palestinian clans and their political affiliation,
description of mosques and names of their imams,
civil servants and more;-- by 1947, it also included "wanted" persons,
by villages, to be targeted for elimination -
leaders to be arrested and summarily executed
in cold blood to create a power vacuum;-- the process began in December 1947, five
months before the British Mandate ended; Britain
did nothing to deter it; David Ben-Gurion led it
from the 1920s to the 1960s; after ethnically
cleansing Palestine he said: "We have come
and we have stolen their country....We must
do everything to insure they never do return."
Ten years earlier he wrote to his son: "We will
expel the Arabs and take their places....with
the force at our disposal;"-- other Israeli leaders expressed the same mindset;
two were former prime ministers - Golda Meir
said: "There are no Palestinians" and Menachem
Begin and Nobel Peace Prize recipient called
Palestinians "two-legged beasts" and said Jews
were the "Master Race" and "divine gods on this
planet;"-- Labor Party leader Haim Herzog was more
discreet in expressing disdain for the Arabs;
in 1972, he said "I am not prepared to consider
(Palestinians) as partners in any respect in a land
that has been consecrated in the hands of our
nation for thousands of years. For the Jews of
this land there cannot be any partner."
Earlier in 1969, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff
Moshe Dayan described the 1947 - 49 success: "Jewish
villages were built in place of Arab (ones). You do
not know the names of these Arab villages (because
they) no longer exist....There is not one single place
built in this country that did not have a former
Arab population." Like other leading Israelis,
Dayan expressed scorn for all Palestinians and
told his Labor Party colleagues that they
"shall continue to live like dogs...."
The Palestinian Holocaust
Alnakba.org recounts the toll. It lists the
destroyed villages in 14 Palestinian Districts,
including Gaza, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth
and Hebron. One was Deir Yassin in the Jerusalem
District. On April 9, 1948, it was the site of an
infamous Nakba massacre. Israeli soldiers entered
the village, machine-gunned houses randomly and
killed many inside them. The remaining villagers
were assembled and murdered in cold blood. Included
were children, infants, the elderly and women who
were first raped. The total number killed is uncertain
but best estimates place it between 93 and 120. In
addition, dozens more were killed in the fighting
that ensued, and many other villages met the
same fate in the systematic cleansing plan - to seize
as much Palestinian land as possible leaving the fewest
number of Arabs on it.
In December 1947, Jews in Palestine numbered
600,000 compared to 1.3 million Palestinians.
Ben-Gurion ordered them removed with commands
like: "Every attack has to end with occupation,
destruction and expulsion." He meant depopulation;
obliteration; homes blown up, burned or bulldozed;
their inhabitants inside killed; shooting anything
that moved, especially fighting-age men and boys who
might pose a combat or resistance threat; and leaving
behind rubble, a forgotten landscape and a proud
history erased.
The Lifta ruins can be seen from Jerusalem. All
that was left in Dayr Aban were piles of rubble,
collapsed roofs and part of some standing walls. Only
two houses remained in Barqa. One is deserted. The
other is a warehouse. Jura became the city of Ashqelon.
Its Jewish population is now about 117,000. The only
Arab remains in al-Faluja are the village mosque
foundations and fragments of walls. The Israeli town of
Qiryat Gat now stands on land between al-Faluja and
Iraq al-Manshiyya and on al-Faluja land as well.
Hundreds of other Arab villages have similar stories.
They were erased and replaced by
Jewish-only development.
An eye witness to the Deir Yassin massacre
recounts the horror:
"I was (there) when the Jews attacked....(They)
closed on the village amid exchanges of fire with us.
Once they entered the village, fighting became very
heavy in the eastern side and later it spread to other
parts, to the quarry, to the village center until it
reached the western edge....The Jews used all sorts
of automatic weapons, tanks, missiles, cannons.
They enter(ed) houses and kill(ed) women and
children indiscriminately. The (village) youths....
fought bravely.
We had no aid or support....They took about 40
prisoners....After the battle was over, they took them
to the quarry where they shot them dead and
threw their bodies in the quarry....they took
(other) prisoners and killed them....they killed
the youths."
Other accounts spoke of shootings, bombs exploding
and a mother being killed with her husband, son
and brother. A nurse was shot dead as well as the
daughter of a friend and her baby. "Whomever tried
to run away was shot dead." It was cold-blooded
murder.
After the battle, "the Jews took elderly men and women
and youths, including four of my cousins and a
nephew. They took them all. Women who had on
them gold and money, were stripped of their gold.
After the Jews removed their dead and wounded, they
took the men to the quarry and sprayed them all
with bullets." One woman watched her son shot to
death. "They later poured kerosene on his body and"
burned it.
The men were fighting. "Eyewitnesses were only women.
The elderly men were (used) to remove the dead, Arabs
and Jews." The Arab ones "were thrown in a well in
the village center." It all happened five weeks before
the State of Israel was founded. Arabs died and were
displaced to make Plan D a success. It worked because
western powers supported it, and Arab neighbors
were indifferent. Their intervention held off until May
15, five and a half months after the UN partition. When
it began, it was with an inferior force that was
no match against Israeli superiority, despite popular
myth to the contrary.
It recounts how an outnumbered and outgunned
Jewish force prevailed against overwhelming odds.
Pure rubbish. In fact, the Jews held a clear advantage.
As long as the British stayed out (and they did), the
outcome was never in doubt. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan and Iraq held off intervening as long as possible,
then reluctantly stepped in with token forces. It was too
little, too late, and, for its part, Jordan (with its
potent military) stayed out entirely in return for
most of the West Bank as a payoff.
Intervening Arab forces performed poorly. They
overstretched their supply lines, ran out of
ammunition, mostly used antiquated weapons,
and had no effective command and control. It was a
testimony to their lack of commitment, not their
ability to fight had they wished to.
Jews, in contrast, were supplied effective armaments
from Soviet Russia and other Eastern bloc countries.
They easily outgunned the Arabs and outclassed and
outnumbered them as well. The outcome was never
in doubt that a new Jewish State would emerge. On
May 14, 1948, Israel signed separate armistice
agreements with its four major warring adversaries.
It gave Israel 78% of British Mandatory Palestine,
40% above its UN allotment. Palestinians got the
other 22% comprising the West Bank and Gaza.
On December 11, 1948, a historic General
Assembly resolution passed - UN Resolution 194
consisting of 15 articles. Four were most important.
Article 7 protected and provided free access to
the Holy Places. Article 8 demilitarized Jerusalem
and placed it under UN control. Article 9 called for
free access to Jerusalem, and Article 11 is most
remembered for granting Palestinian refugees
the right of return or to be compensated for their
loss if they chose not to. From 1948, to the present,
Israel defied the UN mandate and got away with
it. It was because of western support and Arab
indifference. As a result, it was able to terrorize
remaining Arabs inside Israel, and set in motion
the eventual Gaza and West Bank occupation.
The War Ended - State Terrorism Was Just Beginning
Throughout 1949 in the war's aftermath, Israel
pursued another one - a war of terror against the
remaining Arab population. It set a six decade
precedent. Israel now belonged to Jews. Arabs were
unwelcome. State security forces cracked down to
show how much.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians were rounded
up and imprisoned. Others were targeted, harassed
and abused. They lost everything - their land,
homes, fields, crops, places of worship, freedom of
movement and expression, and any hope for fair
treatment in the new Jewish State.
Naked and undisguised racism confronted them.
They were issued identity cards with penalties
up to 1.5 years in prison and immediate transfer
to an "unauthorized" and "suspicious" Arab pen if
caught without them.
Persecution was relentless, much the way it is today.
Roadblocks and checkpoints went up, curfews imposed,
violators shot on sight, and systematic abuse inflicted.
In addition, thousands of Palestinians were conscripted,
sent to labor camps, and forced to help build the new
Jewish state. Conditions there were deplorable.
Quarry laborers performed arduous work, carried
heavy rocks, and had to live on one potato and
half a dried fish for daily sustenance. Complainers or
slackers were beaten, many severely. Others,
considered a threat, were simply shot.
Other Arabs weren't treated much better. Human
rights abuses were appalling. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) documented
them. Palestinians (now Israeli citizens) got no
protections and were afforded no rights. They were
subjected to relentless abuses. Their mosques were
profaned, schools vandalized, homes robbed and at
times stripped bare in broad daylight. Palestinians
reported that not a single home or Arab shop escaped
the onslaught. Authorities did nothing to deter it. They
made things worse.
Palestinians (inside Israel) were transfered
from their homes, moved to undesired locations,
crammed into confined ghettos, they became
open-air prisons, and treatment there was horrific.
The ICRC and UN reported beatings, rapes and
other abuses. Israel was undergoing transformation.
Its Arab character was being erased. It affected about
150,000 remaining Arab Israelis in the new Jewish State.
Formal ethnic cleansing ended in 1949,
dispossession and displacements nonetheless
continued, and a new Committee for Arab Affairs
was established to defuse growing international
pressure to enforce UN Resolution 194, especially the
right of return under Article 11.
Arab Israelis lost all their rights and were placed under
military rule. In addition, discriminatory laws were
passed, like the Law of the Land of Israel. It
stipulated that the Jewish National Fund
(JNF - the Jewish State landowner) was
forbidden to sell or lease land to non-Jews.
From inception, Israel has had no formal constitution.
It's governed instead by its Basic Law. Nine laws were
passed between 1958 and 1988, all of which pertained
to the institutions of state. No basic rights were enacted
until 1992. That year, the Basic Law: Human Dignity
and Freedom was passed authorizing the Knesset to
overturn laws contrary to the right to dignity, life,
freedom, privacy, property and to leave and enter
the country. The law states: "There shall be no violation
of the life, body or dignity of any person. All persons are
entitled to protection" of these rights, and "There
shall be no deprivation or restriction of the liberty of a
person by imprisonment, arrest, extradition or otherwise."
Israeli Basic Laws are for Jews only. Arab Israelis have no
rights under them with one exception - the right to run
for public office in the Knesset, become a nominal
legislative member, but have no power beyond a public
stage for their views to be shouted down and ignored.
Palestinians have endured six decades of shattered
hope and dreams. They were uprooted from their
homes, denied their basic rights, given little outside
recognition or aid, blamed for Israeli crimes,
terrorized without mercy, falsely promised peace,
yet condemned to a state of siege under which
nothing will change without outside pressure to
force it.
Since 1948, Palestinians have lived in a state of
limbo. Their Nakba never ended. What's left of
their country is occupied. They have no recognized
nation and no power over their daily lives. They
live in constant fear. They're economically strangled;
dispossessed of their land and homes; isolated
under siege; collectively punished; denied free
movement; casually murdered; ruthlessly arrested,
imprisoned and tortured; afflicted by random
curfews; invaded, bombed, and shot at;
extra-judicially assassinated; and constricted
by roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and
the Separation Wall that the World Court ruled illegal.
Israel: The World's "Worst Brand"
That's according a 2006 National Brands Index
(NBI) study. On November 22, 2006, Israel Today
reported the findings. They were compiled by
"government advisor Simon Anholt and powered
by global market intelligence solutions provider
GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.)."
The survey polled 25,903 "online consumers" in
35 countries across the world. It was to measure
respondents perceptions "across six areas of national
competence," including governance, people, culture,
heritage and immigration.
"Israel's brand (was) by a considerable
margin the most negative we have ever
measured in the NBI, and (came) at the
bottom of the ranking on almost every
question (asked about 36 countries)."
Israel was ranked the least desired country to visit.
Its people were ranked the "most unwelcoming
in the world." Surprisingly, Americans were as
negative as others. They "ranked Israel slightly
above China in terms of its conduct in the
areas of international peace and security."
Other recent opinion surveys report similar results.
It's encouraging to know that well over half of all
Europeans rank Israel "the biggest threat to world
peace" according to a 2003 European Commission
poll. Israel is a pariah state. That's the view of
millions around the world in spite of dominant
media efforts to say otherwise. Israel calls it
growing anti-Semitism. That, of course, is rubbish.
Jews and Israelis aren't being singled out -
only their criminal leaders. World public opinion
justifiably condemns them.
Commemorating the Unforgivable
Jews in Israel and around the world will
commemorate May 14. It's the 60th anniversary
of the State of Israel's founding. Thousands of
other Jews everywhere along with everyone of
conscience stand with the Canadian Palestine
Support Network (CalPalNet). They cannot
celebrate. They will not celebrate. They remember
the Nakba. They know it continues. They condemn
41 years of occupation; the starving and
bombing of Gaza; the oppressive Separation Wall;
the theft of Palestinian land; the building of illegal
settlements; the denial of the right of return; the
killings, torture, imprisonment and harassment;
the denial of basic human rights; and Israel's disdain
for international law.
They "can (and) will continue (their) efforts to
end these injustices, uphold international law,"
and support every UN resolution demanding it.
"This is the only road map to peace." They, with
millions of others, won't ever stop working for it.
Global Research Associate Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to The Global Research News Hour on
www.RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from
11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting edge
discussion with distinguished guests.
