There is a phrase uttered by Palestinians every day: “next year in Al-Quds (Jerusalem).” But, all of Palestine’s enemies (israel and their savage supporters) seem to be keen on one idea: “we’ll kill you all by then!”
Such Savages!
Israel reports that the shooting and killing of 100 Palestinian protesters was unavoidable because they couldn’t act against Hamas without also harming protesters.
It’s the same response Israel has given since the 2007 takeover of Gaza to justify blocking travel, denying outgoing goods, and restricting Palestinian’s caloric intake.
The United Nations Human Rights Council voted 29-2 to investigate the shooting at the Israel-Gaza border — Israel rejected it as an anti-Israel bias.
By treating all Gaza residents as Hamas, Israel has helped the Hamas regime grow stronger.
Hamas gained power in Gaza by handing out food and cash to the poor, hiring the unemployed as public servants, and opening a lucrative trading system with Egypt via tunnels underneath the border.
If it was any other oppressive government committing such atrocities, we would have sanctioned and bombed that government into submission.
Why, then, is the Apartheid state of israel allowed to commit atrocities against Palestinians on a daily basis?
It’s called Ethnic Cleansing, Stupid! It started in 1948 and continues to this day. These savage non-Semite AshkeNazi Jews are evil and their Zionist ideology is parallel to ISIS!
Meanwhile, the Israeli government acknowledges the international law enforcement standard but says its forces will fire live rounds even before a threat to life becomes imminent!
At the beginning of WWI (1914), the Jewish population in Palestine was 38,754 (5% of all population) of which 12,332 were Ottoman subjects and the rest were new European immigrants.
1895 jews
By the end of the British Mandate (1920-1948), which was supposed to bring independence and freedom to the Palestinian people, the Jewish immigrants were increased considerably but were able to hold land of only 6% of Palestine and that through the collusion of the British Mandate.
In addition to helping the Jews obtain land, the British government also facilitated the mass immigration of Jews into Palestine, thus altering its ethnic composition.
By 1946 there were 608,225 (32.96%) Jews including illegal immigrants and 1,237,334 (67.04%) Palestinians (Muslims and Christians); thus in spite of the mass immigration, Jews constituted a minority population, albeit larger than before.
Palestine – pre-1948
The cardinal principle of Zionism had been initiated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in 1923 and applied faithfully by David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. Jabotinsky was very clear; “israel” can only be imposed by brute force and will be shielded by an iron wall. He stated:
Their [the Arabs] voluntary agreement is out of the question… Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is our policy towards the Arabs.
David Ben-Gurion Quotes
Ben-Gurion – Born: October 16, 1886, Płońsk, Poland
Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can bridge it… We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs. Written statement (June 1919), as quoted in Time magazine (24 July 2006)
The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them. Speech in 1937, accepting a British proposal for partition of Palestine which created a potential Jewish majority state, as quoted in New Outlook (April 1977)
What matters is not what the goyim say, but what the Jews do.” An “oft-repeated credo” according to the “Windsor Star – Dec 3, 1973 and repeated in various newspapers (with minor variations) including the Jerusalem post (May 22,2009) “It doesn’t matter what the goyim say, but what the Jews do”
Under the guise of United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 of the Partition of Palestine, which was only a non-binding suggestion and was dropped by the UN and USA in March 1948 in favour of UN trusteeship on Palestine, Ben Gurion initiated his plan, Dalet, to eliminate the Palestinian population from the area of Palestine that was to be governed by the Jewish immigrants. In this area, half of the inhabitants were Arab Palestinians. Ben Gurion would have none of them. He expelled the majority before the state of Israel was (illegally) declared on May 14, 1948.
Plan Dalet – called for the conquest of Arab towns and villages inside and along the borders of the area allocated to the proposed “Jewish State” – according to the UN Partition Plan. In case of resistance, the population of conquered villages was to be expelled outside the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was met, the residents could stay put, under military rule.
israeli War Crimes
“War” crimes perpetrated by the Zionist forces against the Palestinian civilian population, included at least 232 incidents, which included atrocities, massacres, destruction, plunder and looting between 1947 and 1956. Almost every one of the thirty Zionist/Israeli military operations was accompanied by one or two massacres of civilians. There were at least seventy-seven reported massacres, half of which took place before any Arab regular soldier set foot in Palestine.
Half of the 77 massacres committed by “israel” in 1948 took place before “israel” was declared
The expelled population, before The British left and before “israel” declared itself as a state, was half the total Palestinian refugees. This could not have happened without killing as many as possible. Half of the 77 massacres committed by Israel in 1948 took place before “israel” was declared.
Of these massacres, we know of the infamous Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948. Few knew about Bureir, where 120 of the inhabitants were killed and their homes torched. A mere 48 hours after the massacre in Bureir, Ben Gurion stood solemnly before the Jewish immigrants’ assembly to announce the foundation of Israel and declared:
We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of “israel” to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
In the following 6 months, the other half of the 77 massacres (out of 156 war crimes listed in the Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966) committed by the israelis established their practice of using massacres as a well-tried weapon of ethnic cleansing. Jabotinsky’s plan was working as Ben Gurion was turning the myth into a fact; Palestine almost became a “land without people”.
Another example of Israel ethnic cleansing arose after the signing of the first Armistice agreement between israel and Egypt on 24 February 1949. This agreement allowed the Egyptian forces to withdraw from a besieged enclave with their arms. Two villages, Faluja and Iraq-al-Manshiyya, lay within this enclave that the Egyptian forces were defending. Under the Armistice agreement endorsed by the U.N., israel guaranteed the safety, the life, and property of these two villages, which the defending Egyptian forces had to leave behind. Disregarding its agreement with the U.N. and Egypt, israel terrorized the two villages with indiscriminate shooting, constant curfews, looting, and attempted rape. Three weeks later, israel forcibly expelled the population in stark violation of the Armistice Agreement.
The israelis reneged on the “agreement” with King Abdullah I of Jordan to divide Palestine between them. In April 1949, the Zionists dictated to him that they must grab extra Palestinian land known as the Little Triangle, in central Palestine. The affected area is about 90,000 acreswhere one 100,000 Palestinians lived. Thus its eighteen villages were annexed outright to israel. There was a condition that the inhabitants must remain in their homes. One of these villages was Kafr Qasem. The people of the Little Triangle were not expelled at the time, but there was an Israeli plan for them. Israel was waiting for the opportunity to carry it out.
It came in October 1956, on the same day of the Tripartite Aggression, or Suez Campaign, in which Israel, Britain, and France conspired to topple Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and regain the Suez Canal. Ben Gurion’s aims were more than that, to convert the Armistice line, which has no legal value as a border, into a de facto border for Israel and to expel the Palestinian population within this “border.” It was attempted in Kafr Qasem under “operation Hafarferet”, an outright expulsion plan. Read More
It took four decades for Israeli historians to have access to declassified Israeli files. Benny Morris was hailed as a brave, objective historian when he found evidence to corroborate what the refugees were saying all along. Curiously he said that these repetitive similar massacres were ‘an accident of war’ not a plan. Not so, said Ilan Pappe. He compared the Palestinian oral history and the Israeli files and found them consistent. He gave it its proper name “Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”.
The Kafr Qasem massacre is, therefore, part of a persistent pattern of ethnic cleansing of which Sabra, Shatila, Jenin, Rafah and the destruction of the Gaza Strip are but a few stations on this bloody trail. But the Kafr Qasem massacre was different in some ways. First, it was against “Israeli citizens”, thus making the claim of Israeli democracy a mockery. Second, the claim that atrocities were committed in the heat of war is false. There was no war in Kafr Qasem, no uprising, no revolt. It was a sheer bloodbath.
Unlike the massacres that are associated with the Nakba, it was perpetrated after the israeli state was established. It was deliberate, planned, calculated, a cold-blooded murder against workers returning from their fields not having heard that a curfew was imposed over their village. After the massacre, Kafr Qasem was subjected to military cordon and media prohibition, which imposed debilitating isolation after the massacre. No one was allowed in or out of the village and a tight gag order was placed on the news. Twenty-two days after the massacre, news finally reached the world.
And the israelis crimes continue – their barbaric dream is parallel to ISIS, where they wish to establish a “jewish kingdom” from the Nile to The Euphrates!
Rest assured! The Crusaders were expelled from Palestine after 90 years of occupation. So shall the new “jewish crusaders” be expelled. It’s a matter of time.
In the deadly no-man’s land of Gaza’s buffer zone, a small group of Palestinian protesters hidden by black smoke, braved Israeli sniper fire and reached the perimeter fence. Tearing a piece away they made it back to safety, holding their trophy.
The stunt was remarkable given the deaths of nearly three dozen protesters in recent weeks at the hands of soldiers firing across the border fence.
Since the start of the Great Return March four weeks ago, in which Gaza’s refugees are demanding the right to return to their lands now inside Israel, 32 unarmed protesters, including a child, have been killed by Israel’s sharpshooters ranged on the other side.
But this stunt was all the more remarkable given that those who carried it out were women.
Further up the buffer zone other women stood in front of protesting men, trying to provide cover for them against Israeli fire on Friday. One of the women, Taghreed al Barawi, said they did this because “women are less likely to be shot at than men”, although their sex has not protected the 160 or so women who have also been wounded during the last week of the buffer zone protests.
“Then the Israeli snipers called me on the speaker, saying, ‘You, the woman with the keffieh, if you approach the fence again we will shoot you in the head’. But I am not afraid and next time will burn their flag and raise ours.”
Taghreen al Barawi said she had “this feeling of strange courage” as she got closer to the fence. She also spoke of being inspired by Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old West Bank teenager, currently being held in an Israeli jail after she slapped an Israeli soldier outside her home.
Pictures of women in the front line of an Arab uprising are not surprising at first sight – women played a lead role in the Arab Spring, and, as in the case of Ahed Tamimi, are increasingly in the forefront of West Bank protests too.
But in Gaza’s traditional Hamas-run society, as well as living under Israel’s siege, women are also subject to repressive social codes which mean spontaneous public protest
“I would be Ahed if I could,” was a cry heard from many Gaza women after the teenager’s recent sentence was passed. “She is strong, she is beautiful, she is courageous,” said two veiled students, staring adoringly at Ahed’s portrait – wearing jeans, hair uncovered – on a wall outside Gaza’s Islamic University.
Also emblazoned on the wall were portraits of former Palestinian leaders including Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas.
It is not, however, only the social taboo which until now has prevented these women from protesting as Ahed did.
Since Israel’s decision in 2005 to withdraw its troops from bases inside Gaza, redeploying to the perimeter with a blockade at sea and control of the skies, it has been even harder for ordinary Palestinians to resist in the way Ahed Tamimi did.
In the days of the old intifada any Palestinian could land a stone on a soldier with no trouble, as the soldiers were in amongst them. “Now we can’t be like Ahed because we can’t even see a soldier, never mind hit them with stones. We never get close enough to kick or punch. If only we could,” a young man complained.
For those in Gaza this inability to see or hit back at the enemy has created a uniquely desperate despair, which has spilled out into the buffer zone protests of recent weeks. Perhaps for this reason, Hamas understood it could not hold back any protester and allowed women to protest too.
As the marches have continued and the death toll has risen, some in Gaza have withdrawn support for the uprising, saying the protesters are simply “committing suicide” by throwing themselves in front of Israel’s bullets.
But others, including many young women, are determined to continue until the climax on 15 May.
“What do we have to lose? We are dying in Gaza under siege. Why not die in the buffer zone protesting instead. At least there’s a chance our message will be heard,” said Intimah Saleh, 27, protesting with her mother who cooks food for those on the front line.
Asked whether she thought the women of Gaza would produce an Ahed Tamimi, she said: “Of course. But we have many Aheds here.”
And asked whether Ahed could be a future Palestinian leader, a group of teenage boys laughed and said: “No. The Israelis will not allow it. Before that happens they’ll make sure she’s shot.”
ATW Comment: Palestinians should not care if the “israeli’s allow it!” Ahed Tamimi would be the best leader in the future! Abbas and his thugs need to drop dead!
‘Erased from Space and Consciousness’ is the product of years of meticulous research to raise awareness of the hundreds of villages Israel destroyed during and following the 1948 war. But is awareness enough to remedy the injustices of the past?
By Tom Pessah
A youth walks among the rubble of the displaced Palestinian village of Iqrit in northern Israel, April 21, 2014. Iqrit’s original inhabitants were forcibly evacuated in the Nakba of 1948. Though the Israeli high court granted the residents, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, the right to return to their homes in 1951, the military destroyed the village and has since prevented their return. Only the village’s church and cemetery remained intact, and are still used by village residents while they campaign for a full return.
Kadman, Noga: Erased From Space and Consciousness – Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948. 2015. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 256 pp.
Noga Kadman’s Erased from Space and Consciousness is one of those rare books that profoundly re-shapes your perspective. Growing up inside the Zionist education system meant that even when I dideventually hear about the “Palestinian narrative,” it seemed distant — not connected directly to my life experiences as an Israeli.
Kadman’s book, a product of visits to the sites of 230 former villages and extensive archival work, traces the points at which the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 was submerged and normalized, until this massive break in the country’s history became almost imperceptible to younger generations of Israelis. Through documenting the points at which these Palestinian experiences were re-coded, the book enabled me to de-familiarize the familiar – to finally notice the ruins and the cacti I regularly passed on bus rides, and to start asking questions about their former inhabitants. As Edward Said notes, “there can be no hope of peace unless the stronger community, the Israeli Jews, acknowledges the most powerful memory for the Palestinians, namely the dispossession of an entire people” (p. 145-6). This acknowledgement can only happenonce we re-read our surroundings and fully perceive what has always been there — in the background.
After a useful forward by Prof. Oren Yiftachel and an in-depth review of the scholarship on the Nakba and its erasure, the book runs through three empirical chapters. The first examines publications from 25 rural Jewish communities that took over the lands of ruined villages, and describes how this transition was narrated there. The second describes in detail two government bodies established following the state’s founding — the Government Names Committee, and the Survey of Israel (the agency responsible for mapping) — both of which determined how the sites of former Palestinian localities would be officially named in Hebrew.
Palestinian citizens of Israel visit the remains of the village of Lubya in northern Israel, May 6, 2014. Lubya was destroyed in the Nakba, literally “catastrophe”, in which more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed before and during the 1948 War.
The third chapter discusses signs and publications by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, which help mold the public’s perceptions of what became nature reserves and holiday resorts, which mask the sites of former villages. Extensive quotes from these sources are accompanied by historical photographs of the sites (new immigrants dancing among the recent ruins), contemporary photographs by the author (ancient cacti still visible among the newer JNF forests), and reproduced illustrations from when the kibbutzim were founded (pioneers marching forward to till the land, with a destroyed house in the background). The appendices include detailed lists of the depopulated villages (but not towns), their location, demographic and topographic features, as well as the communities and parks that were built atop them and the new names they were given.
The process Kadman documents included more than “erasure” or “silencing.” More precisely, the memory of the former Palestinian inhabitants was re-shaped into a form more palatable to Israelis. The mill used by the villagers of Jarisha, inside what is now Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park, is attributed to the “Ottoman period” on the JNF website, with no mention whatsoever of the villagers who used to live there (p. 122).
Furthermore the memory of certain villages became synonymous with filth and backwardness: Kibbutz Sasa wrote that “we are mired in the ruins of an Arab village, that even before its destruction we had to run around in it among fleas and dirt” (p. 74). Sometimes the old name remained long after the inhabitants were gone, preserved by informal agents such as Mizrahi immigrant transit camps (whom the Names Committee accused of “distorting the Hebrew face of our state” — p. 103).
In the lexicon of Kabri, one of the many newly-established Jewish community, the entry “orchards in Kabri” describes delicious fruits, without mentioning the residents of the Palestinian village, al-Kabri, who planted the trees (p. 64). The Names Committee listed Moshav Kfar Daniel as “named to commemorate Daniel Frisch, the president of the Zionist Organization of America,” (p. 101) but the name curiously echoes that of the destroyed village that existed on the same site – Daniyal.
Palestinians celebrate during a festival by a natural spring at Lifta, on May 16, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel. Palestinians came to mark the Nakba day. Lifta was a Palestinian village that was destroyed after the birth of Israeli state.
Moshav Ya’ad provides a somewhat different example, in which elements of the older village were actually re-associated with its original inhabitants. The moshav was built on the lands of Mi’ar in the Lower Galilee in 1974, decades after the village was destroyed. Perhaps this is the reason members of the moshav were willing to work with internally-displaced refugees, who managed to stay inside the State of Israel during the 1948 war and today reside nearby. Together they managed to prevent new construction on the site of the former village, and the ancient cemetery was fenced off and protected. However, the majority of Ya’ad members opposed placing a sign to explain the history of the destroyed village.
Yet even this modest example of cooperation is an exception. At most the first generation of kibbutz members sometimes expressed sorrow for the fate of the inhabitants whose land they took. Their questions (“what gives us the right to reap the fruits of trees we have not planted?” Kibbutz Sasa Passover Haggadah, p. 84) remained unanswered and inconsequential, and were not raised again by the following generations. In moshavim, less committed to a socialist ideology with universal pretensions, these dilemmas were entirely absent.
While Kadman’s research on the renaming of Palestinian locales remains groundbreaking, a decade after she began her study, her conclusions may seem too timid for some readers’ taste. During this period, Zochrot, the central Israeli organization trying to raise awareness of the Nakba among the Israeli public, shifted its emphasis from memorialization of the Palestinian catastrophe to actively reversing its results. Zochrot now explicitly calls for the return of refugees to the lands they were expelled from, so that they can live alongside the present Israeli inhabitants. Kadman is doubtlessly right to stress “the importance of memory,” and to document efforts to bring this memory to the consciousness of Israelis, but many Palestinians would argue that memory alone is not enough and cannot replace meaningful efforts to reverse the expulsion of 1948.
Nevertheless there is no doubt that exposing the memory of the former Palestinian locales and the attempts to cover it up is a crucial first step towards reconciliation. Kadman has provided us with a valuable tool for reconfiguring our own consciousness and perceiving the everyday traces of some 85 percent of the Palestinian population of what became the State of Israel – those who remain, to this day, “erased from space and consciousness.”
Tom Pessah is a sociologist and activist, currently studying at Tel Aviv University.
Israeli scum “settlers” take over a Palestinian building in the occupied West Bank. Mamoun WazwazAPA images
Steal my land, kick me out and yet I will protect you, you scum Ashkenazi terrorist!
On Monday Augus 10, 2015, the US government requested that a New York court “reduce” the bond the PA is required to post while it appeals against a ruling that found it liable for a series of attacks between 2002 and 2004 in Jerusalem and present-day Israel.
One of the reasons cited for supporting the PA is that the US regards it as playing an important role in protecting Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
And who is protecting Palestinians? How much in $$ is the US to allocate
to Palestine’s government for security against any and all encroachments
by Israel (and US)?
In fact, the settler’s must go, now or later. I would support US “aid” to Israel (coordinated with Palestine) for their immediate evacuation.
Should they so desire, they could apply to Palestine for housing in competition with the thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to live in camps for decades after coerced dispossession (by force) by Israel. That indeed would be money well-spent.
Any other US policy in support of settlements or in support of PA doing the dirty work (“stability”???) makes the US complicit in Israeli extermination policy. Of course, such policies guarantee war, death, destruction, oppression of Palestinians.
It seems the US has frequently enjoyed participation in brutal oppressions. This is not “news”!
Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Until there are none left.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Now imagine the Allies asking Jews during the Holocaust to be “more tolerant” of Nazis!
Will the people of Gaza continue to support Hamas despite the terrible consequences?
The Palestinians of Gaza are saying we are suffering because of the crimes of Israel. Even with the carnage and their homes reduced to rubble, they say, “Mr. Khaled Meshaal, we don’t want to emerge from this war without breaking the siege. We were dying slowly. Now we are dying instantly because of the F-16s and all the Israeli and American technology.” The Palestinian people have had enough. They do not make distinctions between slow death and instant death. They say, “Our families are targeted in their homes. However, we want to resist, to insist on lifting the siege.” How does the killing stop? What do you want?
Human beings have to defend themselves. If we are starved, if we are besieged, we have to defend ourselves. When [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu stops every effort to reach peace, the rest of the world ought to expect an explosion in the West Bank and Gaza. What do I believe Hamas needs or wants? Peace. But we want peace without occupation, without settlements, without Judaization, without the siege. We want to live on par with every single nation. We need to live in Palestine.
“You think the key is trust. We actually are enemies. They are the occupiers. The solution doesn’t start with trust. … How could I trust my enemy?”
Will you pledge not to eradicate Israel? Do you want to live in coexistence with Israel?
I do not coexist with occupation and with settlements. Do you think that Palestinians who suffer from occupation and settlements can eradicate Israel? No, this is beguiling, misleading propaganda. … We in Hamas believe in moderation of Islam. We are not fanatics. We do not fight the Jews because they are Jews per se. We fight the occupiers. I’m ready to coexist with the Jews, with the Christians, with the Arabs, with the non-Arabs. I do coexist with other religions. … When we have a Palestinian state, then the Palestinian people can have their say. There are disproportionate standards, but we have the upper hand. Every single occupation ends, and the people are victorious.
How do you create trust between Israelis and Palestinians?
You think the key is trust. We actually are enemies. They are the occupiers. The solution doesn’t start with trust. The international community’s full mission is to say to the Israeli occupation, “Stop. Enough is enough.” They ought to compel Israel to withdraw. How could I trust my enemy? We had a number of negotiations. The negotiations failed.
Some suggest, to preserve Israel’s security, the sovereignty of a Palestinian state must be restricted.
Why does the world understand Israeli security issues and not take heed of Palestinian security issues? In order to have a Palestinian state, why ought that state be demilitarized? Who accepts a state without arms? It will be subject to the aggression of others. I cannot accept any tutelage of any other entity. If you say, “Come, you are Palestinian. We can give you a piece here and a piece there in piecemeal fashion”—no. No.
Do you need the approval of the military wing of Hamas to commit to any agreement?
We are not two heads or two bodies. We are one single movement. When the political leadership commits to something, then the military wing will commit itself, too. If the leaders take a decision, then every single person, whether militant or civilian, they will follow.
Why are you in Qatar and not Gaza?
This is a very reasonable question. You can ask not only Khaled Meshaal, you can ask the 6 million people in the diaspora. Why are they not in the West Bank? Why are they not in Gaza? Because Israel expelled the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967. I’m from the West Bank. Since 1967, I was expelled. I used to live in Jordan, in Kuwait, when I used to be a student. Then I moved to Syria and now Qatar. You have hundreds and thousands of Palestinians in America. They long to go back to Palestine. Although they are American citizens, Palestinians long for their home country. That’s why we insist on the return of the refugees, for me and for others to return. My natural existence is there, but I’m compelled to be here.
Attending the World 
