WHY JUNE 5 MATTERS/VIDEO: FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE

By Joe Catron,

source

May 30, 2011

I gasped as the first bullet struck a young man standing a few paces ahead of me. Watching him crumple to the ground, I struggled for breath and fought my natural urge to run. ‘Allahu Akbar!’, the crowd roared around me. ‘Yalla, Shebab!’ A half-dozen other men ~ none of whom could have been older than twenty, and most of whom looked much younger ~ rushed forward, retrieving their fallen compatriot and carrying him quickly to a waiting ambulance. A thin trail of blood marked their path, ending in a small, dark puddle where the first of the day’s many gunshot victims had fallen.

Thousands of refugees and other Palestinians had gathered at the Erez Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. An imposing military structure of massive concrete barriers and machine gunners’ towers, the border wall separates Gaza Strip residents from the 78% of Palestine seized by the State of Israel in 1948. For the two-thirds of residents who are refugees, it also prevents their return to the homes from which they and their families were forcibly expelled that year. Palestinians throughout the world remember this Nakba, or catastrophe, every May 15 with gatherings, demonstrations, and resolutions to someday return.

But this year would be different. Inspired by the popular uprisings against dictatorships across the Arab region, Palestinians were resolved to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of 711,000 people from their country by making history, rather than remembering it.

On the morning of May 15, Nakba Day, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered around the borders of Israel and its occupied territories, determined to march to the homes and homeland denied to them for generations. In Beit Hanoun, they walked from buses forced to stop kilometers from the crossing by the sheer numbers of the crowd. Many remained at checkpoints preceding the crossing. Others pressed forward, their eyes fixed on the distant gate.

The Israeli response came quickly. Bullet after bullet penetrated the crowd of unarmed demonstrators, each one finding its target. Artillery shells pounded the sandy dunes around us, and after several hours, tear gas canisters hissed through the air. Over a hundred people were hospitalized with serious injuries, while elsewhere on the border, a 17-year old boy was killed by artillery fire. The rest of us escaped with tear gas inhalation, cuts from exploding concrete and shrapnel, and bloodstains from the limbs, torsos, and faces shattering around us.

Yet the demonstrators kept coming. After every retreat from gas, gunfire, or the thunderous boom of artillery, there was another surge. Only when the sheer brutality of the Israeli forces had sufficiently depleted the number of those capable of pressing forward did the strength of the crowd begin to wane.

And somehow, the overall mood remained one of measured, but tangible joy. The victory sign was everywhere, and smiles were common not only on the runners ferrying injured marchers to medical attention, but also on the young men and women they carried. Everyone seemed to intuitively sense that they were doing something historic, closing one chapter in the long, painful struggle for Palestinian freedom and opening another one that offered more hope for a happy ending.

Elsewhere, the state violence inflicted upon peaceful marchers was even worse. At the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, Israeli gunfire killed four of them, while in Lebanon, ten suffered the same fate. Hundreds, if not thousands, were seriously injured.

But like the returnees in Beit Hanoun, those from Lebanon and Syria refused to be dissuaded by military repression. Dozens of the latter poured through Israeli barriers, spending hours in the welcoming villages of the occupied Golan Heights before leaving under the protection of their Syrian hosts. One, Hassan Hijazi, made it all the way to the Jaffa home from which his family was exiled in 1948. Before surrendering to Israeli police, the 28-year old told journalists, “I wasn’t afraid and I’m not afraid. On the bus to Jaffa, I sat next to Israeli soldiers. I realized that they were more afraid than I was.”

Hijazi’s seven million fellow Palestinian refugees aren’t afraid either. On Sunday, June 5, they will return to the borders created to exclude them, and perhaps beyond. Like the 63rd Nakba Day, this 44th anniversary of the Naksa, or setback ~ Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and subsequent expulsion of 300,000 additional refugees ~ promises a commemoration like none before it.

June 5 will not determine the outcome of the Palestinian movement for return. That outcome was already determined by the decades of grassroots organizing and popular struggle that culminated in the historic mobilization of May 15. Its finality can be glimpsed in grievances by Western media like Reuters that “[t]he Palestinians who forced their way across Israel’s border on Sunday turned back the clock on the Middle East conflict, putting centre stage the refugee question that many believed would be negotiated away,” and confirmed by the sweaty, stammered insistence of Zionists like Benjamin Netanyahu that “it’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen.”

Those suddenly forced to defend not only the brutal excesses of their system, but the very racism of ethnic cleansing, exclusion, and apartheid upon which its existence relies, find themselves in a situation both uncomfortable and unprecedented. They have no reason to expect it to become easier in the coming months, as further waves of returning refugees push their fight for justice closer to the center of the world’s attention.

But June 5 will shape the outline of this next chapter in the Palestinian saga: its intensity, its length, and what follows it. Was May 15 a singular moment, or perhaps one suited for occasional repetition? Or was it the harbinger of a sustained, consistent struggle to come, a Third Intifada simultaneously challenging Israel from within, on every border, and across the globe?

Palestinians have amply demonstrated their ability to resist occupation over the long haul, while the global solidarity network supporting them has reacted capably to atrocities like the slaughters of 1,400 Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead and nine passengers on the first Freedom Flotilla. If these two movements can organize and mobilize as effectively now, seizing a unique opportunity to take the offensive and keep it, the Palestinian freedom struggle could prove a quicker and more decisive one than many of us had dared to hope.

~ Joe Catron is a resident of Brooklyn, New York and a current member of the International Solidarity Movement ~ Gaza Strip. He writes in a personal capacity.

ON ZIONISM, ARABS AND DEMOCRACY.

I stumbled across this interview with a young (ish) Palestinian called Nizo and thought it worth sharing with you. It is a different slant as Nizo is a Palestinian refugee and his insight is “from the horse’s mouth” not someone else’s wording.

Nizo's Blog

Posted July 24, 2008

Reposted January 22, 2011

I was honoured when a Middle East Studies student asked to interview me as part of her thesis on our Gordian-knotted Conflict.

Here is a sampling of her questions and my subsequent ramblings (watch me stray off topic):

Q: As a Palestinian, who do you hold responsible for the Arab refugee crisis of 1948?

I care more about how the refugee crisis is perpetuated rather than about who and what created it. The war preceding and following Israel's creation produced its atrocities, but the Jews prevailed and the rest of history is a half-hearted Arab effort to undo the defeat of 1948 and Israel playing nicely into their hands.

I stress the word "half-hearted" because the Arab leaders need the conflict with Israel to perpetuate their regimes and justify their rule. My father used to joke cynically: "you only get to eat one labaneh sandwich, we can't make a you a second one because we need the money to buy a tank and fight Israel." In reality, that tank was used to keep the leadership in power.

Still, the situation in 1948 could have been a basis for negotiation and settlement, if the people’s interests were a priority, but in come the leaders - who had no interest in accepting the Arabs from former Palestine. They were happy to absorb and the middle and upper classes and their money but used the rest as pawns to fight each other and Israel.

On the same note, Israel needs a measure of conflict with the neighbouring countries to stay buoyant. Talk of peace is nice, but low intensity conflict with an Arab "other" helps unify and solidify the ranks despite differences (and disparities). The ethos of Israel (and of the Jews in general) is survival in the face of perpetual enmity. Without thousands of years of anti-Semitism, Jews in their present form wouldn't exist, most would have fully assimilated into their respective societies through intermarriage and other means. Except perhaps for a core that would have degenerated into insular and irrelevant Amish-like communities.

To go back to the Palestinians, what you call Palestinians today were Levantines who were living under the Ottoman boot. Their Palestinian identity as it is known today crystallized in the refugee camps in the 1960's. Had they not been corralled into camps, they would have "melted" into their host countries within 1-2 generations at most. I know many Lebanese whose middle-class grandparents fled Haifa in 1948 and purchased their Lebanese citizenship upon arrival in Beirut. It is impossible to differentiate between them and other Lebanese. Impossible.

Q: You don't blame Zionism?

I would differentiate between the authentic Zionist core who came to rebuild the perceived "old country" and maintain their national identity along with humanistic values and with what eventually developed as a result of circumstances and human nature (think of Immanuel Kant's "twisted timber of humanity") .

Achad Ha’am, an essayist worth discovering, once wrote that if the future entity becomes just another Levantine state, full of intrigues and a ball in the courts of world politics, he prefers to close the book of Jewish history rather than add empty pages to it. Lucky for him he died in 1927.

Herzl, Jabotinsky, the socialist Zionists, all had very lofty ideas and ideals about the type of society they wanted to establish in Palestine, and morality and fraternity (some even co-opted the Arabs to a certain degree) featured high. In any case, the raison d’être for these Zionist Ideologists was to give the Jewish nation a chance to live a healthy moral life, because the Galut was destroying their souls.

But at the end of the day, Zionism, in all its shades was there to serve Jewish interests. Zionists were not primarily out to eradicate Arabs as some would make you think. We were passive fauna at best, pesky vermin at worst - to be managed when we got in their way. Achad Ha'am criticized that mentality, which I would add, eventually facilitated the cleansing of otherwise peaceful villages that lived harmoniously with their Jewish neighbours (such as my family's that was cleansed at gun-point by the Haganah in Operation Ben-Ami).

Nevertheless, I dare you to find me a single Palestinian refugee who doesn't regret the Arab refusal of the UN partition. Find me one. One.

Anyway, my bigger concern is the forces that have conspired to keep the Palestinians in camps for 60 years.

Q: What forces?

The incompetent Palestinian and Arab leadership - but I won't unroll the giant scroll that lists their sins. I will tell you that the only buffer against them is a very strong (well off and educated) and independent middle class. That’s why Stalin made sure that his subjects were provided with free schools, affordable housing, jobs, etc. But no independence. The Soviet people were dependent on their government for everything, and were thus kept on a short leash.

The same phenomenon is true to a degree in Arab states like Egypt and Syria. Now the proportionally tiny elites in those countries are co-opted, with the few dissenters bleating in London and Paris. How many useful, enlightened, educated Arabs disappeared altogether. How many middle-class Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese who had the means to settle in the west have been absorbed and have melted into the UK/American/Canadian pot. Only Allah knows.

Think of it as a severe brain drain - or hemorrhage, while the Arab countries are left with the poor masses who will back anyone who gives them half a labaneh sandwich.

Q: Would you prescribe democracy as a way to avoid future tragedies such as the war of 1948?

I wish I could, but all leaders I've seen so far, once they get to power, have but one goal: remaining in power. Even if they started out as idealists or good willing and caring about the people, they degenerate into Louis XIV. Think "l'état c'est moi" and “Only I can do the best for the people, therefore my survival in power comes first”.

Pardon my cynicism, but in pseudo-democracies without that solid middle class or the rule of law, leaders are mainly elected due to ignorance about them, or naïveté about their promises. It is assumed that the evil that can be perpetrated by leaders is much less in democracies than in dictatorships because of the limited number of years that democratically elected leaders have. But that's in countries with a system of checks and balances, not the Arab world.

You think an elected Hamas would ever give up power if they were on day voted out? They’re the equivalent of the FIS in Algeria. FIS said that if they get elected they would ban democracy.


Wallah, every drop of FIS blood that was shed in the Algerian war is halal. Otherwise, it would have been a matter of time before radical Islamism would have metastasized like a cancer throughout Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Paris. Again, the masses will back anyone who gives them half a labaneh sandwich. Especially when they've been living under corrupt regimes which remain, at least in my eyes, as "nuss-musseebeh" or half a catastrophe, in comparison with the big "musseebeh" of radical Islamism.

So, if that's where democracy would lead us then I'll stick to the hope that benevolent and enlightened strongmen or women would emerge and cultivate a healthy economy and civil society in the hope that it would bring about the middle class I'm talking about.

FREEDOM CHARTER OR SECOND NAKBA?

I could not agree more with the comment below. Kenneth O'Keefe should be nominated, and win, the honour of being international Man of the Year! His passion is contagious and is the thing of history and legends. And, of course, common sense spiced with a truckload of genuine compassion and love for all. Love him or leave him, he does not disappear into the woodwork but stands straight in the centre to state what should be ~ fearlessly so strong is his certainty in his beliefs.

It is no wonder he is vilified or ignored by the mainstream media. They really do hate strong people with powerful beliefs and the ability to state them well. Kenneth speaks as passionately as he writes. What is most admirable is his ability to light the spark of intelligent resistance in the souls of his fellow travelers upon this planet. Yes, Ken O'Keefe might blush and refuse, but Man of the Year suits him well.

By Ken O'Keefe
Pulse Media
July 19, 2010

Imagine this, imagine that Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress negotiated a deal with the South African Apartheid regime and settled for a “two-state solution.” Imagine Mandela negotiating with the Apartheid regime a land deal in which less than 15% of current day South Africa went to the black South Africans, the remaining 85% to the inherently racist Apartheid government and its people.

With that in mind, I ask, is there any real difference between that scenario and the idea of a “two-state solution” today? I am happy to know that ever-increasing numbers of people inside and outside of Palestine see what I see, the so-called two-state solution is in truth the two-state disaster, the second Nakba.

I can imagine the result of two states and, as far as I am concerned, anything less than one state, with all equal protection under the law, is a recipe for perpetual conflict. And that is exactly why every US and EU administration and puppets and stooges of all stations from around the globe support the second Nakba of two states. One a nuclear armed, economically advanced and land rich, the other impoverished and beaten, a legacy to the motto that ‘might makes right’ and justice comes at the barrel of a gun.

Only the completely brainwashed or corrupt deny the history that catapulted the racist Zionist state of Israel into existence. Only the blind would deny that the formation of Israel resulted in hundreds of Palestinian villages being ‘wiped off the map.’ Is there a statute of limitations on such crimes? The answer is no, and the only way to heal the injury in Palestine is to effect what Mandela, the African National Congress, and the people of conscience of the world demanded and achieved, one state, one rule, for all people.

In a free Palestine the racist Zionists who have committed grave crimes against the Palestinians will be fortunate to have the option Mandela gave the racists of Apartheid, the opportunity to stay and live as equals.

What’s done is done,

there is no returning the dead,

while there is no giving back the childhoods lost.

But there is the future, staring at us, and we will decide which future we choose. I choose not just one state, but one world, and not that ‘New World Order’ version. I choose one world with equal rights for all people, human rights and liberty for all. Why not? As far as I can tell, we, the people, the masses, we are the clear majority, and what we want, freedom, is something every sane person will support. I think we can change things much faster than we currently realize.

But I say we start with Palestine.

There is a saying that goes ‘don’t try to reinvent the wheel.’ I agree with that, and the African National Congress created the wheel I needed in the form of their Freedom Charter. Forty plus years before the end of Apartheid in South Africa they wrote the words that became the basis of a democratic South Africa. Problems indeed they have in South Africa, but they would be far, far worse if they had accepted the deal that Palestinians are being asked to accept today.

With humility, and the utmost respect to all my Palestinian brothers and sisters and to all people of conscience, I present the Freedom Charter, amended for Palestine.

Palestine Freedom Charter

We, the People of Palestine, declare for all our country and the world to know: that Palestine belongs to all who live in it, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or religion; And therefore, we, the people of Palestine, Muslim, Jewish and Christian, all people together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

The People Shall Govern

Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws; All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country; The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour, sex or religion; All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.

All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights

There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races; All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride; The preaching and practice of national, race, colour or religious discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime; All apartheid laws and practices shall be abolished.

The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth

The national wealth of our country, the heritage of Palestine, shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It

Restrictions of land ownership on a racial or religious basis shall be ended. to banish malnutrition and land hunger; The state shall help to banish malnutrition and land hunger by providing implements, seed, tractors and access to water to save the soil and assist the tillers; Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all; All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;

All Shall be Equal Before the Law

No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official; The courts shall be representative of all the people; Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance; The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people; All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour, belief or religion shall be repealed.

All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights

The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children; The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law; All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from north to south, east to west and from Palestine abroad; Check Points, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.

There Shall be Work and Security!

All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers; The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits; Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work; All workers shall have the same rights regardless of their station;

The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened

The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life; All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands; The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace; Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit; Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;

There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort

All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security; Unused housing space to be made available to the people; Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry; A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state; Free medical care and hospitalization shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children, the elderly and the disabled; Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields; The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state; Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all: Fenced locations and ghettos and house demolitions shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.

There Shall be Peace and Friendship

Palestine shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations; Palestine shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation – not war; Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all; All people shall be free to decide for themselves their own future; The right of all peoples of Palestine to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation. Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR,

SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES,

UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY!

DEIR YASSIN. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!

For Palestinians, the 1948 massacre by Irgun and allied Stern Gang soldiers of more than 200 residents of Deir Yassin, a tiny village near Jerusalem, resonates sharply as a focal point of history. The victims were almost all women, children and old men. This slaughter of the innocents became irrefutable evidence of the consequences for Palestinians of the creation of the new Jewish state.

The resulting forced exile of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Remembering Deir Yassin brings together Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians, Jewish theologians and Palestinian priests, to reflect on the fifty-year legacy of Deir Yassin.

Sixty years on, the true story of the slaughter of Palestinians at Deir Yassin may finally come out to the world if Ha'aretz is not shackled in some manner. Followed by this first piece you will find two eye-witness accounts of what happened upon that night so that the truth coming out is no more than a verification of what has been hidden.

May 10, 2010
The Independent

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem  

More than one unwitting visitor to Jerusalem has fallen prey to the bizarre delusion that they are the Messiah. Usually, they are whisked off to the serene surroundings of Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city, where they are gently nursed back to health. It is an interesting irony that the patients at Kfar Shaul recuperate from such variations on amnesia on the very spot that Israel has sought to erase from its collective memory.  

The place is Deir Yassin. An Arab village cleared out in 1948 by Jewish forces in a brutal battle just weeks before Israel was formed, Deir Yassin has come to symbolize perhaps more than anywhere else the Palestinian sense of dispossession. 

  Sixty-two years on, what really happened at Deir Yassin on 9 April remains obscured by lies, exaggerations and contradictions. Now Ha'aretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, is seeking to crack open the mystery by petitioning Israel's High Court of Justice to release written and photographic evidence buried deep in military archives.

Go! Go! GO! Ha'aretz! I must say, THIS really impresses the heck out of me.

Palestinian survivors of Deir Yassin, a village of around 400 inhabitants, claim the Jews committed a wholesale massacre there, spurring Palestinians to flee in the thousands, and undermining the long-held Israeli narrative that they left of their own accord. Israel's opposing version contends that Deir Yassin was the site of a pitched battle after Jewish forces faced unexpectedly strong resistance from the villagers. All of the casualties, it is argued, died in combat.

In 2006, an Israeli arts student, Neta Shoshani, applied for access to the Deir Yassin archives for a university project, believing a 50-year embargo on the secret documents had expired eight years previously. She was granted limited access to the material, but was informed that there was an extended ban on the more sensitive documents. When a lawyer demanded an explanation, it emerged that a ministerial committee only extended the ban more than a year after Ms Shoshani's first request, exposing the state to a legal challenge. The current embargo runs until 2012.

The events of Dier Yassin are so gruesome and the lies from the Israeli government and military appalling that, should the truth finally emerge, the country could be torn in half by the contents. Certainly Israel would lose even more credibility on the world stage. This was no battle, it was a simple slaughter of innocents.

Defending its right to keep the documents under wraps, the Israeli state has argued that their publication would tarnish the country's image abroad and inflame Arab-Israeli tensions. Ha'aretz and Ms Shoshani have countered that the public have a right to know and confront their past. Judges, who have viewed all the archived evidence held by the Israeli state on Deir Yassin, have yet to make a decision on what, if anything, to release.

Among the documents believed to be in the state's possession is a damning report written by Meir Pa'il, a Jewish officer who condemned his compatriots for bloodthirsty and shameful conduct on that day. Equally incriminating are the many photographs that survive.

"The photos clearly show there was a massacre," says Daniel McGowan, a US retired professor who works with Deir Yassin Remembered. "Those photos show [villagers] lined up against a quarry wall and shot."

In 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition plan that would divide Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, with Jerusalem an international city. The Arabs fiercely opposed the plan and clashes broke out as both sides scrambled for territory before the British mandate expired. In April 1948, the Hagana, the predecessor of the Israeli army, launched a military operation to secure safe passage between Jewish areas by taking Arab villages on high ground above the road to Jerusalem.

Irgun and the Stern Gang, breakaway paramilitary groups, drew up separate plans to take the strategic Deir Yassin in a pre-dawn raid on 9 April 1948, even though the villagers had signed a non-aggression pact with the Jews and had stuck to it. What happened next is still under debate.

In his book The Revolt, Menachim Begin, (featured in the above Wanted poster) a future Israeli prime minister, recounts how the Jewish forces used a loudspeaker to warn all the villagers to leave the village. Those that remained fought.

This fabricating creature Begin would not know the truth from the air he breathed. He was a rabid zionist motivated by hatred and an all-consuming sense of racial superiority and Jewish entitlement. The value of the Nobel Peace Award was thrown into the gutter when he was so honoured.

"Our men were compelled to fight for every house; to overcome the enemy they used large numbers of hand grenades," wrote Mr Begin, who was not present at the battle. "And the civilians who had disregarded our warnings suffered inevitable casualties. I am convinced that our officers and men wished to avoid a single unnecessary casualty."

Mr Begin's account, however, is challenged by the recollections of survivors and eyewitnesses. Abdul-Kader Zidain was 22 years old in 1948, and immediately joined a band of 30 fighters from the village to fend off the surprise Jewish offensive, even though they were clearly outnumbered.

"They went into the houses and they shot the people inside. They killed everybody they saw, women and children," said Mr Zidain, who lost four of his immediate family, including his father and two brothers, in the attack. 

Now a frail 84-year-old living in a West Bank village, he says he remembers everything as if it were yesterday. Survivor testimonies are supported by Mr Pa'il, whose detailed eyewitness account was published in 1998. Awaiting reassignment, he went to observe the attack as part of his remit to keep the Irgun and the Stern Gang in check.  

After the fighting had wound down, Mr Pa'il described how he heard sporadic firing from the houses, and went to investigate. There he saw that the soldiers had stood the villagers in the corners of their homes and shot them dead. A short while later, he saw a group of around 25 prisoners being led to a quarry between Deir Yassin and neighbouring Givat Shaul. From a higher vantage point, he and a companion were able to see everything and take photographs.

"There was a natural wall there, formed by digging. They stood the prisoners against that wall and shot the lot of them," he said. Mr Pa'il described how Jews from neighbouring Givat Shaul finally stepped in to stop the slaughter. In the ensuing confusion and anger over the killings in Deir Yassin, both sides released an inflated Palestinian death toll for very different reasons:

the Palestinians wanted to bolster resistance and attract the attention of the Arab nations they hoped would help them; the Jews wanted to scare the Palestinians into flight.

After the dust had settled, Mr Zidain and the other survivors counted the missing among them, and concluded that 105 Palestinians had died in Deir Yassin, not the 250 often reported. Four Jews were killed.

A total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed including 288 children and 121 women. 239 police officers were also killed. 5,303 were injured in the assault, including 1,606 children and 828 women. Compare this to 17 Israelis, four of whom were killed in "friendly fire" by their mates.

But the damage was already done. The reports from Deir Yassin led to a total collapse of morale, and many historians regard the incident as the single biggest catalyst for the Palestinians' flight. By UN estimates, 750,000 Palestinians had fled their homes by the end of the 1948 War of Independence, roughly 60 per cent of Palestine's pre-war Arab population.

Mention Deir Yassin these days to most young Israelis and it will fail to register.

Not far from the Kfar Shaul hospital, two teenage boys shake their heads at a question on Deir Yassin. Never heard of it, they say.

"Most Israelis treat the subject with total silence," says Professor McGowan. "They no longer deny it, they just don't talk about it."

Which makes one ask, if an Israeli ignores it, did it ever really happen?

The decision on whether that silence will now be broken remains in the hands of Israel's courts.

"This was a big and important event in our history here. It was the first village we took and has a lot of meaning in the war that came after," says Ms Shoshani. "We have to deal with our past for our own sake."

RED CROSS EYE-WITNESS REPORT ON THE DEIR YASSIN MASSACRE

On the night of April 9, 1948, the Irgun Zvei Leumi surrounded the village of Deir Yassin, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem. After giving the sleeping residents a 15 minute warning to evacuated, Menachem Begin's terrorists attacked the village of 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children and wounding 300 others. Begin's terrorists tossed many of the bodies in the village well, and paraded 150 captured women and children through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.

I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian woman is but a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.” ~ Ariel Sharon, 1956, interview with General Ouze Herham. Whatever happened to these women? Were they freed or enslaved?

The Haganah and the Jewish Agency, which publicly denounced the atrocity after the details had become public several days later, did all they could to prevent the Red Cross from investigating the attack. It wasn't until three days after the attack that the Zionist armies permitted Jacques de Reynier, chief representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, to visit the village by the surrounding Zionist armies.

Ironically, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.

Deir Yassin is described as one of Menachim Begin's finest moments. 

Following is the translation from French of the report de Reynier filed with his office (Published in de Reynier's book "Jerusalem Un Drapeau Flottait Sur La Ligne de Feu", 1950, Geneva). Immediately after de Reynier's account are two public statements made by an Haganah witness to the devastation, Col. Meir Pa'el (retired) and by Zvi Ankori, the Haganah commander who occupied Deir Yassin after the Irgun's evacuation.

De Reynier's statement:

"On Saturday, April 10, in the afternoon, I received a telephone call from the Arabs begging me to go at once to Deir Yassin where the civilian population of the whole village has just been massacred.

"I learned that the Irgun extremists hold this sector, situated near Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah's General Headquarters say that they know nothing about this matter and furthermore it is impossible for anyone to penetrate an Irgun area.

"They advise me that I not become involved in this matter as my mission will run the risk of being permanently cut short if I go there. Not only can they not help me but they also refuse all responsibility for what will certainly happen to me. I answer that I intend to go there at once, that the notorious Jewish Agency exercises its authority over the territory in Jewish hands and that the agency is responsible for my freedom of action within the bounds of my mission.

"In fact, I do not know at all how to do it. Without Jewish support it is impossible to reach that village. After thinking I suddenly remember that a Jewish nurse from a hospital here had made me take her telephone number, saying with a strange look that if I ever were in a difficult situation I could call her. On a chance I call her late in the evening and tell her the situation. She tells me to be in a predetermined location the following day at 7 o'clock and to take in my car the person who will be there.

"The next day on the hour and in the location upon which we agreed, an individual in civilian clothes, but with pistols stuffed in his pockets, jumps into my car and tells me to drive without stopping. At my request, he agrees to show me the road to Deir Yassin, but he admits not being able to do to much more for me. We drive out of Jerusalem, leave the main road and the last regular army post and we turn in on a cross road. Very soon two soldiers stop us. They look alarming with machine guns in full view and larger cutlasses at the belt.

"I recognize the uniform of those I am looking for. I must leave the car and lend myself to bodily search. Then I understand that I am a prisoner. All seems lost when a very big fellow ... jostles his friends, takes my hand ...

He understands neither English nor French, but in German we arrive at a perfect understanding. He tells me his joy at seeing an ICRC delegate, for having been a prisoner in a camp for Jews in Germany he owes his life to nothing else but our intervention and three reprieves. He says that I am more than a brother for him and that he will do anything I ask. ... We go to Deir Yassin.

"Having reached a ridge 500 meters from the village which we see below, we must wait a long time for permission to go ahead. The shooting from the Arab side starts every time somebody tries to cross the road and the Commander of the Irgun detachment does not seem willing to relieve me. Finally he arrives, young, distinguished, perfectly correct, but his eyes have a strange, cruel, cold look. I explain my mission to him which has nothing in common with that of a judge or arbiter. I want to help the wounded and bring back the dead.

"Moreover, the Jews have signed a pledge to respect the Geneva Convention and my mission is therefore an official one. This last statement provokes the anger of this officer who asks me to consider once and for all that here it is the Irgun who are in command and nobody else, not even the Jewish Agency with which they have nothing in common.

"My (guide) hearing the raised voices intervenes ... Suddenly the officer tells me I can act as I see fit but on my own responsibility. He tells me the story of this village populated by about 400 Arabs, disarmed since always and living on good terms with the Jews who encircled them.

According to him, the Irgun arrived 24 hours previously and ordered by loudspeaker the whole population to evacuate all the buildings and surrender. There is a 15 minute delay in the execution of the command. Some of the unhappy people came forward and would have been taken prisoners and then turned loose shortly afterwards toward the Arab lines.

The rest did not obey the order and suffered the fate they deserved. But one must not exaggerate for there are only a few dead who would be buried as soon as the `clean up' of the village is over. If I find a bodies, I can take them with me, but there are certainly no wounded.

"This tale gives me cold chills. "I return to Jerusalem to find an ambulance and a truck that I had alerted through the Red Shield ... I arrive with my convoy in the village and the Arab fire ceases. The (Jewish) troops are in campaign uniforms with helmets

All the young people and even the adolescents, men and women, are armed to their teeth: pistols, machine guns, grenades, and also big cutlasses, most of them still bloody, that they hold in their hands. A young girl with the eyes of a criminal, shows me hers still dripping. She carries it around like a trophy. This is the `clean up' team which certainly has accomplished its job very conscientiously.

"I try to enter a building. About 10 soldiers surround me with machine guns aimed at me. An officer forbids me to move from the spot. They are going to bring the dead that are there, he says. I then get as furious as never before in my life and tell these criminals what I think about the way they act, menacing them with the thunder I can muster, then I roughly push aside those who surround me and enter the building.

"The first room is dark, completely in disorder, and empty. In the second, I find among smashed furniture covers and all sorts of debris, some cold bodies. There they have been cleaned up by machine guns then by grenades. They have been finished by knives.

"It is the same thing in the next room, but just as I am leaving, I hear something like a sigh. I search everywhere, move some bodies and finally find a small foot which is still warm. It is a little 10 year old girl, very injured by grenade, but still alive. I want to take her with me but the officer forbids it and blocks the door. I push him aside and leave with my precious cargo protected by the brave (guide).

"The loaded ambulances leaves with orders to return as soon as possible. And because these troops have not dared to attack me directly, it is possible to continue.

"I give orders to load the bodies from this house on the truck. Then I go on to the neighboring house and go on. Everywhere I encounter the same terrible sight. I only find two persons still alive, two women, one of whom is an old grandmother, hidden behind the firewood where she kept immobile for at least 24 hours.

"There were 400 persons in the village. About 50 had fled, three are still alive, but the rest have been massacred on orders, for as I have noticed, this troop is admirably disciplined and acts only on command.

...[De Reynier continues that he returns to Jerusalem where he confronts the Jewish Agency and scolds them for not exercising control over the 150 armed men and women responsible for the massacre.]...

"I then go to see the Arabs. I say nothing about what I have seen, but only that after a first quick visit to the spot there seems to be several dead and I ask what I shall do or where to bring them ... they ask me to see that a suitable burial be given them in a place which will be recognizable later on. I pledge to do so and on my return to Deir Yassin, I find the Irgun people in a very bad mood.

They try to stop me from approaching the village and I understand when I see the number and above all the state of the bodies which have been lined up on the main street. I demand firmly that they proceed with the burial and insist on helping them. After some discussion, they begin actually to scoop out a big grave in a small garden. It is impossible to verify the identity of the dead, for they have no papers, but I wrote accurately their descriptions with approximate ages.

"Two days later, the Irgun had disappeared from the spot and the Haganah had taken possession. We have discovered different places where the bodies have been piled up without either decency or respect in the open air.

"Back in my office I received two gentleman in civilian clothes, very well dressed who had waited for more than one hour. It is the commander of the Irgun detachment and his aide. They have prepared a text they ask me to sign. It is a statement according to which I have been received courteously by them, that I have obtained all the help needed to accomplish my mission and I thank them for the aide they gave me.

"As I hesitate, I begin to discuss the statement, and they tell me that if I care for my life I should sign immediately."

Calling the statement contrary to fact, de Reynier refuses to sign. Several days later in Tel Aviv, de Reynier says he approached by the same two men who ask the ICRC to assist some of their Irgun soldiers.]...

Former Haganah officer, Col. Meir Pa'el, upon his retirement from the Israeli army in 1972, made the following public statement about Deir Yassin that was published by the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot, April 4, 1972:

"In the exchange that followed four [Irgun] men were killed and a dozen were wounded ... by noon time the battle was over and the shooting had ceased. Although there was calm, the village had not yet surrendered.

The Irgun and LEHI men came out of hiding and began to `clean' the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre .... I pleaded with the commander to order his men to cease fire, but to no avail.

In the meantime, 25 Arabs had been loaded on a truck and driven through Mahne Yehuda and Zichron Yousef (like prisoners in a Roman `March of Triumph'). At the end of the drive, they were taken to the quarry between Deir Yassin and Giv'at Shaul, and murdered in cold blood ...

The commanders also declined when asked to take their men and bury the 254 Arab bodies. This unpleasant task was performed by two Gadna units brought to the village from Jerusalem."

Zvi Ankori, who commanded the Haganah unit that occupied Deir Yassin after the massacre, gave this statement in 1982 about the massacre, published by the Israeli paper Davar on April 9, 1982:

"I went into 6 to 7 houses. I saw cut off genitalia and women's crushed stomachs. According to the shooting signs on the bodies, it was direct murder."

TARGETING PALESTINIAN MOTHERS

SIXTY YEARS AFTER DEIR YASSIN

By Ronnie Kasrils

The Electronic Intifada,

8 April 2008 

As a 10-year-old growing up in Johannesburg, I celebrated Israel's birth, 60 years ago. I unquestionably accepted the dramatic accounts of so-called self-defensive actions against Arab violence, to secure the Jewish state. 

The type of indoctrination South African cartoonist Zapiro so bitingly exposes in his work, raising the hackles of scribes such as David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. When I became involved in our liberation struggle, I became aware of the similarities with the Palestinian cause in the dispossession of land and birthright by expansionist settler occupation. 

I came to see that the racial and colonial character of the two conflicts provided greater comparisons than with any other struggle. When Nelson Mandela stated that we know as South Africans "that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians," [1] he was not simply talking to our Muslim community, who can be expected to directly empathize, but to all South Africans precisely because of our experience of racial and colonial subjugation, and because we well understand the value of international solidarity. 

When I came to learn of the fate that befell the Palestinians, I was shaken to the core and most particularly when I read eye-witness accounts of a massacre of Palestinian villagers that occurred a month before Israel's unilateral declaration of independence. 

This was at Deir Yassin, a quiet village just outside Jerusalem, which had the misfortune to lie by the road from Tel Aviv. On 9 April 1948, 254 men, women and children were butchered there by Zionist forces to secure the road. Because this was one of the few such episodes that received media attention in the West, the Zionist leadership did not deny it, but sought to label it an aberration by extremists. 

In fact, however, the atrocity was part of a broader plan designed by the Zionist High Command, led by Ben Gurion himself, which was aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the British mandate territory and the seizure of as much land as possible for the intended Jewish state. 

There are many accounts that corroborate the orgy of death at Deir Yassin, which went far beyond the Sharpville massacre of 1960 that motivated me to join the African National Congress. [2] My reaction was: if Sharpville had appalled me, could I be indifferent to the suffering at Deir Yassin?

Fahimi Zidan, a Palestinian child who survived by hiding under his parents' bodies, recalled: 

"The Jews ordered [us] ... to line up against the wall ... started shooting ... all ... were killed: my father ... mother ... grandfather and grandmother ... uncles and aunts and some of their children ... Halim Eid saw a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister ... who was ... pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher's knife ... In another house, Naaneh Khalil ... saw a man take a ... sword and slash my neighbor ..." [3]

One of the attacking force, a shocked Jewish soldier named Meir Pa'el, reported to the head of his Haganah command:

"It was noon when the battle ended...Things had become quiet, but the village had not surrendered. The Etzel [Irgun] and Lehi [Stern] irregulars ... started ... cleaning up operations ...

They fired with all the arms they had, and threw explosives into the houses. They also shot everyone they saw ... the commanders made no attempt to check the ... slaughter.

I ... and a number of inhabitants begged the commanders to give orders ... to stop shooting, but our efforts were unsuccessful ... some 25 men had been brought out of the houses: they were loaded into a ... truck and led in a 'victory parade' ... through ... Jerusalem [then] ... taken to a ... quarry ... and shot ... The fighters ... put the women and children who were still alive on a truck and took them to the Mandelbaum Gate." [4]

A British officer, Richard Catling, reported:

"There is ... no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young school girls were raped and later slaughtered ... Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman ... who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts ..." [5]

Jacques de Reynier of the International Committee of the Red Cross met the "cleaning up" team on his arrival at the village:

"The gang ... were young ... men and women, armed to the teeth ... and [had] also cutlasses in their hands, most of them still blood-stained. A beautiful young girl, with criminal eyes, showed me hers still dripping with blood; she displayed it like a trophy. This was the 'cleaning up' team, that was obviously performing its task very conscientiously."

He described the scene he encountered on entering the homes:

"... amid disemboweled furniture ... I found some bodies ... the 'cleaning up' had been done with machine-guns ... hand grenades ... finished off with knives ... I ... turned over ... the bodies, and ... found ... a little girl ... mutilated by a hand grenade ... everywhere it was the same horrible sight ... this gang was admirably disciplined and only acted under orders." [6]

The atrocity at Deir Yassin is reflective of what happened elsewhere. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has meticulously recorded 31 massacres, from December 1947 to January 1949. They attest to a systematic reign of terror, conducted to induce the flight of Palestinians from the land of their birth. As a result, nearly all Palestinian towns were rapidly depopulated and 418 villages were systematically destroyed.

As Israel's first minister of agriculture, Aharon Cizling, stated in a 17 November 1948 Cabinet meeting: 

"I often disagree when the term Nazi was applied to the British ... even though the British committed Nazi crimes. But now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being is shaken." [7] 

Despite these sentiments, Cizling agreed that the crimes should be hidden, creating a lasting precedent. That such barbarism was conducted by Jewish people a mere three years after the Holocaust must have been too ghastly to contemplate, as it would constitute a major embarrassment for the state of Israel, held-up as a "light unto nations;" hence the attempts to bury the truth behind a veil of secrecy and disinformation. What better way to silence enquiry than the all-encompassing alibi of Israel's right of self-defense, condoning the use of disproportionate force and collective punishment against any act of resistance. 

Precisely because Israel was allowed to get away with such crimes, it continued on its bloody path. According to Ilan Pappe, 

"Fifteen minutes by car from Tel-Aviv University lies the village of Kfar Qassim where, on 29 October 1956, Israeli troops massacred 49 villagers returning from their fields. Then there was Qibya in the 1950s, Samoa in the 1960s, the villages of the Galilee in 1976, Sabra and Shatila in 1982, Kfar Qana in 1999, Wadi Ara in 2000 and the Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002. And in addition there are the numerous killings B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, keeps track of. There has never been an end of Israel's killings of Palestinians." [8]  

The slaughter of 1,500 Lebanese civilians in Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of that country in 2006; the daily deaths in the Palestinian territories, the 120 in Gaza in a week ~ including 63 on a single day ~ in March 2008, one third of whom were children, form part of the same bloody thread that links Israel's shameful past with that of today.

Israel will soon mark the 60th anniversary of its establishment. In so doing, Israelis and the Zionist supporters would do well to acknowledge the reasons why, for Palestinians and freedom-loving people throughout the world, there will be no cause to celebrate. Indeed, it will be a period of mourning and protest action; a time to recall the countless victims that lie in Israel's wake, as epitomized by the suffering inflicted on the inhabitants of Deir Yassin, the original site of which is ironically located just a stone's throw away from where the present day Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, was built.

Unless Israel confronts the past, as so many have attempted to do in South Africa, it will continue to be viewed with revulsion and suspicion. Israelis will continue to regard Arab life as worthless and will continue to live by the sword and deceit, feigning surprise when Palestinians violently respond. Without dealing with the agony it has caused there can be no healing and no solution. 

To do so is to create the basis for all life to be cherished and for Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace, with justice. By being aware of the roots of the conflict, and pledging our solidarity, we South Africans can do our bit to help bring about a just solution and the freedom that Nelson Mandela referred to. I believe that South Africans like Zapiro are doing just that.

Ronnie Kasrils is South African Minister of Intelligence.

Endnotes

[1] Nelson Mandela, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Pretoria, 4 December 1997.

[2] See Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel, Pantheon, 1988); David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber and Faber, 2003; Benny Morris, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004); Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006.

[3] David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber and Farber, 2003, p. 249-50.

[4] Yediot Aharonot, April 1972. This letter only came to light with Pa'el's consent in 1972. David Hirst ibid p. 251.

[5] David Hirst, ibid and Report of the Criminal Investigation Division, Palestine Government, No. 179/110/17/GS, 13, 15, 16 April 1948. Cited in David Hirst, p. 250.

[6] David Hirst ibid and Jacques de Reynier, A Jèrusalem un Drapeau flottait sur la Ligne de Feu, Editions de la Baconnière, Neuchâtel, 150, p. 71-6 and Hirst ibid p. 252.

[7] Tom Segev, The First Israelis, Owl Books, 1998, p. 26.

[8] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006, p. 258.