Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 25)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 25)
- المحتوى
-
May 15,1948, 400,000 Palestinians
were driven from their homes. The
single most glaring atrocity committed
in this expansionist drive was the April
9th massacre at Deir Yasin where the
Irgun and Lehi were joined by Hagana
cadres in their slaughter of 250
Palestinians, including women,
children and elderly. This was not an
excess committed in the heat of war,
but part of a premeditated strategy to
strike fear in the Palestinians, leading
them to flee, while simultaneously
clearing the road to Jerusalem where
the Zionists attacked and occupied tiie
Katamoun quarter on April 29th. It is
also probable that the Zionists hoped
that their expansionist drive would
precipitate the Arab armies’ entry into
Palestine, so they could cover their war
on civilians with claimed ‘self-defense’
against combined Arab forces - a fre-
quent theme in Zionist propaganda.
Though world opinion tended to
forget these facts until the Palestinian
revolution revitalized the Palestinian
cause in the late sixties, the Zionists
themselves officially recorded their ac-
tions. Ben-Gurion wrote: «As April
(1948) began, our War of Independence
swung decisively from the defence to
attack... Field troops and Palmach in
Picture by Suleiman Mansour.
Lided
anti IVTTFTH AT
) ==
| tt 1 —=
; (Ada fol 7
Hi {
. _— ee _——
: ==
SS
TT ~— ES
. pe =
—
= —
eee ee
a —,
———_ a
— ————
_—_——__ =
—————— —
——— —_—--—
ee
—J =
data ld MISS OL +
EC AAAN AHERN TRAHAN
Mir /
Oe oF
ne e
os ee °5” é
°
Sead
°
eo
e e@
e
i
e
L 4
“eos
@%nce @
m, %. 0%
e
e
°
e
e
Mtr v7 Cree.
Va
particular were deployed and quickly
showed the mettle that was soon to
animate our army and bring it victory.
In operation Nachshon, the road to
Jerusalem was cleared at the beginning
of April, amost all of New Jerusalem
occupied, and the guerrillas were ex-
pelled from Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberius,
Safad while still the Mandatory was
present.» ’ In The Revolt: Story of the
Irgun, Menachem Begin wrote that
there would not have been a state of
‘Israel’ without the «victory» at Deir
Yasin. An IDF Intelligence Branch
report from June 30, 1948, which was
recently found in a private Israeli
library, surmises that «more than 70%
of the Arab exodus from Palestine by
June 1948 was caused by Jewish
military attacks.» It speaks of «the
depopulation of some 250 villages and
several towns by June 1948.» Contrary
to some attempts to pin the worst
atrocities on the Irgun and Lehi, rather
than mainstream Zionism, the report
stated that «at least 55 per cent of the
total exodus was caused by our
(Hagana/IDF) operations and their in-
fluence.» 8
Indeed, the 1948 war was fought and
won before the Arab armies entered
Palestine. The warriors were almost
exclusively the Zionists. The Palesti-
nians, though they put up resistance
some places, had been lacking in arms
and military forces since the brutal
suppression of the 1936-39 revolt. Ben-
Gurion’s reference to guerrillas is more
a propaganda ploy than a reflection of
the facts, like the Zionists’ claim in
1982 to be fighting ‘terrorists’ in
Lebanon, while they themselves were
terrorizing the whole population.
TRICKING THE ARAB
ARMIES
In mid-May, the British withdrew
from Palestine, the Zionists proclaimed
their state and the Arab armies entered
Palestine. The fighting was scattered
and inconclusive, and within a week the
UN was arranging a ceasefire, ordering
the two sides to desist from bringing in
more arms or military forces. In fact,
the Zionists used the interval until July
9th, when fighting resumed for nine
days, for a massive build-up. In The
Seven Fallen Pillars, Jon Kimche (pro-
Zionist historian) wrote: «Israeli
emissaries scoured the whole of Europe
and America for possible supplies...
When the truce ended, a coherent
Jewish army with a tiny but effective >
25 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 24
- تاريخ
- مايو ١٩٨٧
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
Contribute
Not viewed