community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Remarks on Divestment from Israel
by Mohammed Abed
Tuesday, Apr. 05, 2005 at 10:22 AM
University of Wisconsin Socially Responsible Divestment Campaign - Why divestment in companies that do business with Israel is responsible action.
Remarks to the TAA on Divestment from Israel
Mohammed Abed
Tuesday 15th March 2005
http://www.madisonobserver.org/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=
1112258865&archive=&start_from=&ucat=3&
I'm Mohammed Abed, a graduate student in Philosophy and an organizer with the University of Wisconsin Socially Responsible Investment Campaign. I'm the Teaching Assistants Association member who brought this resolution to the Political Education Committee, so I wanted to explain my reasons for doing so. I hope to persuade you that a vote in favor of this resolution is a vote in favor of the Board of Regents taking their governance responsibilities seriously by implementing
this Universities ethical investment policies. A vote in favor of this resolution is also a signifier of support for the role of the TAA as an important engine for positive social change at this University. By adopting this resolution, the TAA would be actively working towards
implementing University policies that are likely to have a positive impact on people's lives both in our local communities and around the globe. A vote in favor of this resolution is also a vote in support
of domestic, international law and the impartial application of basic humanrights, even when the perpetrator of human rights abuses is a staterepresenting a people whose history has been marked with extraordinary suffering and atrocity.
For the past three years, concerned students and members of the community have attended the Board of Regents annual forum on socially responsible investment. Every year, we have made a strong case for divesting from companies like Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics,General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon
based on overwhelming evidence of their complicity in war crimes and humanrights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli military in the course of 38 years of military rule over 3.5 Million Palestinians living in the WestBank and Gaza Strip. We have provided the Regent'ss with dozens of reports from independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, and Al-Haq; the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and numerous NGOs. These reports meticulously document violations of international law and human rights abuses by Israeli
forces against Palestinian civilians.
As an example, we can consider the case of Caterpillar Corporation which provides the Israeli army with the D-9, a bulldozer built to military specifications. The Israeli army uses the D-9 to demolish Palestinian homes in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other
international covenants. Since 1967, Israel has destroyed, by conservative estimates, 12,000 homes in the West Bank and Gaza. Between 4000-5000 dwellings have been destroyed since the beginning of the current uprising, rendering countless people homeless. Caterpillar equipment is also used to uproot thousands of olive trees, to raze crops, to destroy infrastructure, and to build the illegal wall that
runs deep into West Bank territory and isolates Palestinian villages from their lands, natural resources, from each other, and from important civic institutions and markets. Boeing produces the AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter which has been used in the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians over the last four years. Lockheed Martin
provides the Israeli army with the F-16 Fighting Falcon jet which is often used to bomb Palestinian civilian areas.
Israel's military regime in the West Bank and Gaza has also had a significant impact on Palestinian labor. The unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2004 was 31.2% according the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Over 70% of Palestinians in the territories are
now living below the poverty line. This process of economic
strangulation is a consequence of Israel?s policy of arbitrary closure and curfew. In 2004, to take one example, Nablus was under total curfew for 177 days out of the year. When curfews are lifted, Palestinian freedom of movement is still impeded by an extensive system of checkpoints. Often, these checkpoints are closed or passage through them is agonizingly slow and laborious. Trips that once took half an hour can regularly take 6 hours under these conditions. These policies make it very difficult if not impossible for Palestinians to have access to their places of work and to their markets. By cutting deep into the WestBank, Israel?s wall has significantly worsened these conditions. In
Qalqilya and many other towns and villages, the wall literally separates farmers from their lands in an economy that's heavily dependent on agriculture. To tend their own olive trees, Palestinians must first
of all be issued with the correct papers by the Israeli army and then they must pass through checkpoints in the wall itself. No human being should have to live like this.
By supplying the Israeli army with weapons and other equipment used to implement policies of this nature, the companies we have identified in the resolution are complicit in war crimes and serious breaches of international humanitarian law. They also stand in violation of domestic laws prohibiting the sale of arms or the provision of security assistance to states which engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.? Material support for Israeli practices also infringes UW-System's own ethical investmentpolicies. Destructive Israeli policy is applied exclusively to Palestinians in virtue of their ethnic identity. Corporations that aid the implementation of this policy are therefore condoning through their actions, discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, creed or sex (Regent Trust and Fund Policy 78-1) and shall therefore be divested in as prudent but rapid a manner as possible. Regent Policy 97-1 reiterates the universities' stance on discriminatory practices and adds to it's list of concerns policies that violate, subvert, or
frustrate the enforcement of rules of domestic or international law intended to protect individuals and/or groups against deprivation of health, safety, basic freedoms or human rights.
I'm sure there will be forceful disagreement tonight. This is part of the laborious process of positive social change and it should not obscure the importance of the TAA taking a position in favour of divestment from these companies. Any movement that works for positive social change is invariably opposed by good people who are not motivated by ill will in their hearts. I'm sure the overwhelming majority of dissenters present here tonight support the application of international humanitarian law and reject human rights abuses whatever their rationale. I ask these people to make their core ethical principles the most important determinant of their decision tonight. The systematicsubjection of an entire people cannot be seriously considered a means to the security and flourishing of the Israeli nation. A vote for this
resolution is therefore a vote in support of Israeli rights and interests and is as the resolution states ?an expression of the hope for a free and secure future for every Israeli and Palestinian currently suffering under the burden of conflict.
The arguments for the claims made in this resolution are well founded in fact and supported by extensive documentary evidence gathered from a variety of sources. The scope of the resolution is well defined as
are its terms. Our arguments concern specific companies implicated in specific rights violations. A vote for this resolution is therefore not a vote against the Israeli nation but a vote in support of corporate accountability, UW's own ethical investment commitments, and domestic
and international law. I ask my fellow members to make this the basis of the decision they make tonight.
University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign
Visit us at: http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/
Mohammed Abed
Department of Philosophy
Madison, WI 53706
e-mail: mkabed@wisc.edu
www.madisonobserver.org/index.php
zionist propaganda "It's child soldiers"
by zionist propaganda
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 at 5:20 PM
Was this one a child soldier, too?
Muhammad Mahmoud Rajab a-Jarjawi
19 year-old resident of Beit Lahiya, North Gaza district, killed on 23.11.2006 in Beit Lahiya, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed while on his way home from prayers, which ended at five in the morning.
Get them young and train them
by How about this one?
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 at 5:22 PM
Teaching hate at a young age
History Buff-Timeline of Zionist Terror
by More Timeline of zionist terror
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 at 5:26 PM
138
June 28, 1947, Palestine. The terrorist Stern gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish terrorists to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6.
139
June 29, 1947, New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts of terrorism as “flagrant disregard” of the UN appeal for an interim truce as Stern terrorists wounded four more British soldiers on a beach at Herzila. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case.
140
June 30, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine government permitted oil companies to raise prices of benzene nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish terrorists blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31.
141
July 1, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Government rejected the UN Commission's move to halt the execution of three Irgun members convicted of terrorism and also said that the UN Assembly truce resolution of May 15 had no bearing on “the normal processes of the administration of justice” in Palestine.
142
July 2, 1947, Haifa. Irgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their “provocative” acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guatemalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison. In Pretoria, South Africa, Prime Minister Smuts, who was a party to the Balfour Declaration, said “the promise of a national home in Palestine never meant the whole of Palestine.” He favored partition into Arab and Jewish states.
143
July 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Dr. Ariem Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnapped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun court-martial.
144
July 14, 1947, Nathanya. The British imposed martial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Nathanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp.
145
July 17, 1947, Nathanya. The Irgun in five mine opera-lions against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16.
146
July 17, 1947, Nethanya. Mines killed a second Briton and injured seven.
147
July 18, 1947, Haifa. The American-manned Haganah refugee ship “Exodus 1947” (formerly the ‘President Warfield”) was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle in which the American first mate, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured. The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a single ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.
148
July 19, 1947, Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengers of the “Exodus 1947” when they learned they were to be returned to France
149
July 19, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish “campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage” has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940.
150
July 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the “Exodus 1947” who had been transferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the precaution of first placing Jerusalem's 90,000 Jews under nightly house arrest.
151
July 23, 1947, Haifa. Haganah sank the British transport “Empire Lifeguard” in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship.
152
July 24, 1947, Amman, Trans-Jordan. Seven members of the UN Palestine Commission flew to Amman and were informed by Jordanian Premier Samir Pasha el Rifai that: (1) Palestine belongs to the Arabs; (2) the Arabs never accepted the Balfour Declaration; (3) the Jews are imperialistic invaders whose immigration “must be stopped forthwith”; (5) Palestine should get unpartitioned independence under the Arab majority; (6) the plight of European refugees does not concern Palestine; (7) the Arabs will justly resist with force any unfavorable decision.
153
July 26, 1947. Jewish terrorists blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station.
154
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Two British soldiers were killed by a booby trap near Jerusalem, raising the week's violence toll to 12 killed and 75 wounded.
155
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, announced from his secret headquarters that Haganah had planned the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 in which 91 persons were killed.
156
July 27, 1947, Palestine. An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded.
157
July 28, 1947, Haifa. Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus.
158
July 29, 1947, Palestine. The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews.
159
July 29, 1947, France. The 4,429 “Exodus 1947” illegal immigrants who sailed from Sate, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were ill went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the “Runnymede Park,” “Ocean Vigour” and “Empire Valour”
160
July 30, 1947, Palestine. Irgun terrorists announced that they have hanged two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Jifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since July 12, for “crimes against the Jewish community.” The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders.
161
July 31, 1947, Nathanya. The bodies of the two murdered British sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Nathanya about 530 AM. A booby trap blew Martin's body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy.
162
August 1, 1947, Tel Aviv. Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish terrorist attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured.
163
August 2, 1947, Tel Aviv. The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish terrorists, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.
164
August 3, 1947, Palestine. Haganah warned in Jerusalem that the Britons who killed five Jews in Tel Aviv On July 31 will be found and punished.
165
August 4, 1947, Paris. An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death “in absentia” and will hang them upon capture.
166
August 4, 1947, Palestine. British troops blew up a Jewish house in a Jerusalem suburb in which arms were found. Jewish terrorists robbed Barclays' Bank in Tel Aviv of $5200 and a Haganah member was killed.
167
August 5, 1947, Palestine. Striking at dawn, British security forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership. In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Krinitzki of Ramat Gan, Arieh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B'rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner's attorney, and David Stern, brother of the late founder of the Stem gang.All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was correspondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem with botulism, anthrax and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria.
168
August 5, 1947, England. Anti-Semitic outbreaks slackened after five days of rock throwing, window-smashing and other incidents including daubing Jewish businesses with swastikas and numerous assaults on British Jews. These incidents occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff (Wales), Leeds, London and Birmingham as retaliation for the murder of two British sergeants in Palestine. Thirty-eight persons were arrested in Liverpool but in the main, the British police ignored the rioters and permitted them to run their course.
169
August 8, 1947, Palestine. The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Can was robbed by Jewish terrorists of $8,000.
170
August 14, 1947, Geneva. The UN Special Subcommittee on Palestine returned to Geneva after a seven-day tour of DP camps in Austria and Germany. The tour took the group to Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg. In Berlin it heard reports August 13 from General Lucius D. Clay, US. Military Governor. Clay testified that anti-Semitism is growing very sharply among the ranks of the US. military units in the US. Zones of Austria and Germany because of the violent, asocial and criminal behavior of the Eastern European DPs, all of whom are Jewish. He recommended that these DPs be allowed to enter Palestine before some incident with American soldiers, who have been beaten, robbed and killed by Jewish DPs, leads to severe spontaneous reactions on the part of other soldiers. His views were seconded very strongly by Sir Brian Robertson, Deputy British Military Governor.
171
August 15, 1947, Palestine. A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgun terrorists claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic.
172
August 16, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to l2 Arabs and l3 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Interracial strife was renewed on August 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. British military curfews imposed on August 13 on slum districts between modern Tel Aviv and Jaffa have failed to prevent mounting casualties. British military authorities, citing captured intelligence and statements from Jewish defectors from terrorist organizations, state that it now appears that the Jewish terrorists are beginning to attack Arabs where ever they found them because Jews wish the Arabs to be driven out of Palestine entirely.
173
August 18, 1947, Palestine. The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization.
174
August 23, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities reported that five Arabs in one family; two men, one woman and two children, were murdered by Jewish terrorists as retaliation for the British arrest of two Irgun leaders on August15.
175
September 9, 1947. Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three-hour fight aboard the “Runnymede Park,” 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 “Exodus 1947” illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the “Ocean Vigour's”1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the “Empire Rival's” 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship's hold. Many of the “Runnymede Park's” 1,485 passengers fiercely resisted the debarkation process and British military units had to use fire hoses and truncheons to rout resisters below decks. The Jews were taken ashore screaming “Nazis” to the British. “Runnymede Park” casualties, officially, were 24 Jews and three Britons injured, with 50 leaders of the resistance on that ship taken to jail. German police broke up a Hamburg demonstration by 1,300 Jewish DPs from the Bergen-Belsen camp, where British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was hanged in effigy on September 7. The debarked “Exodus” passengers were interned in Poppendorf camp near Luebeck for screening by nationalities and at first all of them refused to cooperate with British authorities until the passengers were threatened with a diet of bread and water.
176
September 10, 1947, Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the US. had urged Britain to reconsider sending the “Exodus” group to Germany, but Britain replied that there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany.
177
September 11, 1947, Paris. The French government has now announced that it would admit the “Exodus” refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine.
178
September 7, 1947, Paris. French police state a Stern gang plot to attack London with home-made fire extinguisher bombs from the air was thwarted through the cooperation of Reginald Gilbert of St Louis, Missouri, a student and wartime RCAF and AAF pilot He was taken into custody with Rabbi Baruch Korif, of New York, cochairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, and Judith Rosenberger, Hungarian-born Stern gang member, as the three started to enter a private plane last night at Toussus-le-Noble field near Versailles. Gilbert informed French police that Korif had approached him in Paris a week ago with an offer for flying a bombing mission over London the day of the“ Exodus” illegal immigrant landings in Germany. Gilbert accepted for some other pilot who would actually perform the mission. He at once notified Paris police, then worked with them and Scotland Yard while pretending to go through with the Stern gang's plot. Korff was charged in Paris on September 9 with illegal possession of bombs he was intending to drop on London. He began a hunger strike. Paris police state that nine other conspirators were in custody.
179
September 12, 1947, Palestine. Irgun has threatened to assassinate British representatives in the US. Zone of Germany and all British delegations there are under 24-hour guard, the US. command announced in Frankfurt-on-the Main. A probe of Irgun thefts from US. army ammunition depots in Germany was reported on September 7.
180
September 20, 1947, Jerusalem. British raids September 16-19 uncovered several arms caches and terrorist hideouts in the Jerusalem area. The home of David Ben-Gurion, Jewish Agency executive chairman was robbed of important papers September 18. In Paris, Rabbi Baruch Korff, leader of a Stern gang plot to bomb London, ended a hunger strike in Sante prison on September 15.
181
October 13, 1947. Jerusalem. A terrorist bomb damaged the US. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27.In Baghdad, the Iraq foreign office advised an American House Foreign Affairs Committee group not to make a projected visit there because of “high feeling” over US. endorsement of partitioning of Palestine. The State Department in Washington announced it will issue no passports to American citizens who want to take part in terrorism in Palestine; Americans so involved will forfeit protection normally due US. citizens abroad.
182
October 18, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government states that Palestine Arab forces have been sent from the Trans-Jordan frontier to the Syrian and Lebanon borders to replace a British brigade which recently left Palestine. Zionists protested having Arab troops on the border of northern Palestine.
183
November 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The terrorists retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem.
184
November 15, 1947, London. The British Foreign Office denied Jerusalem press reports that Britain planned to take over any financial surplus left in Palestine's treasury to pay for the costs of evacuation and combating unauthorized Jewish immigration.
185
November 16, 1947, Palestine. About 185 European Jews landed near Nahariya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the “Kadimah,” was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus.
186
November 17, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration disclosed that it will sell state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges.
187
November 22, 1947, Haifa. Another Arab was murdered in Haifa by the Stern gang following their execution of four Arabs near Raanana November 20 in retaliation for the British shooting of five Stern gang members on November12. Arabs retaliated against this killing at Raanana by wounding five Jews on a bus near Tel Aviv on November 20.
188
November 30- December 6, 1947, Palestine. A week of disorders brought on by Arab wrath over the UN's decision to partition the Holy Land ended with at least 159 killed in the Middle East, 66 in Palestine. While Jews in Palestine, Europe and the US. celebrated and began planning their new state and the UN moved to implement its plan, war talk was rife throughout the Arab world. The Arab League announced on December 1 that premiers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. But Jewish celebrations there were stoned. Arabs looted and burned a three-block Jewish business district in Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three-day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and l5 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah (unofficial Zionist militia) came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large-scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day's strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 24-hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency's Trade and Transfer Department was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh. On this day Jews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem. On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the-clock curfew, the week's heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Hagariah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week. It becomes clearly evident that the partition is not going as planned and that although the Jews are pleased, the Arabs are not. There appears to be no way to control the Jews or their determination to drive all of the Arabs out of Jerusalem by force if necessary. The Arabs, initially living in peace with the Jewish minority, have been increasingly victimized by the Jews who, now that the British are leaving, are turning their savage behavior against them. The Jews have redoubled their efforts to build a military force and arm them. They claim that this force is to protect the Jewish population against attacks from the Arab countries as well as the Arab population of Jerusalem but an even stronger argument can be made that the Zionists are determined to drive out the Arab population by armed force. The initial Arab response to Jewish harassment over the past year has been very slow in coming but it seems to be quite inevitable and a terrible civil war is foreseen. The United States Department of State announced on December 5, 1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East It appears that the Soviets have been sending weapons – mostly captured German pieces, to assist the Zionists and accompanying these clandestine arms shipments the Soviets have also sent a very sizable contingent of instructors and advisors to Palestine in months past As many of the Zionists are Russian or Polish in origin, these Communist Russians have been received gladly by the Jewish extremists and quickly blend in with the local populations. Soviet interest in Middle East oil and an overriding interest in obtaining warm-water ports are a prime factor in their interest in a Jewish state in Palestine. The most violent reactions in the Arab world to the UN partition idea are Syrian and Egyptian. However, it is noted that the worst outbreak of anti-partition violence outside Palestine occurred in Aden, a British colony at the entrance to the Red Sea. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 5O Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. In Syria, public demonstrations by the Arab population paralyzed business in Damascus earlier this week. The Soviet cultural center and Communist headquarters in Damascus were wrecked on November 30 with four persons killed. The Syrian Communist Party was officially disbanded by the government and the US. and British Embassy flags were torn down. On December 1, Syria introduced military training into all boys' schools and on December 2, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo. In Egypt the Chamber of Deputies resolved on December 1 to help keep Palestine a totally Arab state and to support the Arab population of Palestine against attacks by the Jewish minority. There were repeated anti-US. And British demonstration in Egypt's main cities, and the British Institute in Zagazig was burned on December 2. All public meetings were banned in Cairo after Egyptian police fought with 15,000 people on December 4.In Lebanon, Arab students smashed the windows of the US. Legation in Beirut on December 1 and Lebanese Communists demonstrated against the partition of Palestine and all schools were closed to prevent student disorders. In Iraq, students in Baghdad wrecked the US. Information offices on December 4. In Saudi Arabia, anti-American demonstrations by Arabs in the oil fields were restrained by the government
189
December 13, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists shifted from defense to attack in the second week of conflict with the Arabs since the UN voted for partition of Palestine. The death toll for the past 14 days was at least 220 in Palestine and 336 in the Middle East, including 111 in Aden. Arab retaliatory raids at Jaffa and Tel Aviv had killed 30 Jews and Arabs when local businessmen on both sides arranged for a truce on December 10 to effect an orange harvest On December 11, however, the Arabs renewed their assaults in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was the worst day of the current strife with 41 fatalities throughout Palestine. On December 12, Haganah launched attacks on both the Arabs and British with a death toll of 20 Arabs, five Jews and two British soldiers killed. On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in retaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts.
190
December 14, 1947, Lydda. Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they attacked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first
191
December 17, 1947, Cairo. Premiers of the seven Arab League states called on the Arabs to “prepare for the struggle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until victorious” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate, accused the US. of breaking a promise of neutrality.
192
December 17, 1947, Nevatim. British troops came to the aid of police standing off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba.
193
December 18, 1947, Khisas. Haganah killed 10 Arabs, including five children in a reprisal raid on Khisas in Northern Palestine.
194
December 19, 1947, Damascus. Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year.
195
December 20, 1947, Palestine. Haganah carried out another raid on Arabs by attacking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were wounded.
196
December 21, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency gave official approval for Haganah to make reprisal raids on Arab villages and “exterminate nests of brigands.”
197
December 25, 1941, Haifa. Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews.
198
December 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. Stern gang terrorists machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.
199
December 26, 1947, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nazthaanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds.
The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was murdered in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern gang member.
200
December 29, 1947, Palestine. Irgun members kidnapped and flogged a British major and three sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank The major, E Brett, was seized in Nathanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim received.
201
December 29, 1947, Jerusalem. An Irgun terrorist bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons.
202
December 30, 1947, London. The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens who scrawled on the burned edifice “You whip – we burn.”
203
December 21-31, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish conflict in the Holy Land increased the death toll to 489 from violence in Palestine in the 33 days since the UN decided on partition.
1948
204
January 3-10, 1948, Palestine. Extensive Jewish Agency purchases of US. war surplus high explosives with which to fight Arabs were disclosed in the New York City area. While 191 tons of TNT and the more powerful M-3 were seized before shipment, 73 tons cleared New York for Palestine. The TNT shipment was accidentally discovered when longshore men loading the American Export Lines freighter “Executor” in Jersey City on January 3, dropped a box marked “industrial machinery” and while attempting to repair the box, found cans of TNT bearing US. Army markings. The “machinery” proved to be 32 1/2 tons of TNT, which the US. Customs impounded as contraband because of the ban on American arms shipments to the Middle East On January 10, the FBI was attempting to trace the source of the contraband. The Jewish Agency for Palestine acknowledged on January 10 that it had purchased 199 tons of M-3 from the War Assets Administration at the Army's Seneca Ordnance Depot near Romulous, New York Federal and state agents recovered 126 tons from a farmhouse and trucks near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Barclay Heights and Saugerties, New York on January 8-9 but 73 tons were believed to be en route to Palestine. The Jewish Agency called its transaction with the WAA legal, admitted having set up “Foundry Associates, Inc.” in New York with a Haganah agent in charge, to buy explosives for their war on the Arabs. The FBI said Leonard Weisman, president of three New York firms (Pratt Steamship Line, Material Redistribution Corporation and Paragon Design and Development Co.) gave the Haganah agent office space but did nothing illegal.WAA stopped all deliveries on unfulfilled orders on January 9 in the New York area. It said Foundry Associates, Inc., had sworn that it was a normal trader in explosives, thereby qualifying to buy the M-3, and that the export question was a US. Department of State matter.
205
January 4, 1948, Jaffa. A series of Jewish terrorist bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties. 14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa.
206
January 5, 1948, Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel.
207
January 6, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Government denounced the Semiramis attack as “wholesale murder of innocent people” but the Jewish Agency alleged that “Arab gangs” used the hotel and asked why attacks on Jews had not been equally denounced.
208
14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun terrorist bombs at Jerusalem's Jaffa gate.
209
January 10, 1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll in Palestine since November 29 (when the UN voted for partition) had risen to 646.
210
January 12, 1948, Tel Aviv. Stern gang members looted Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.
211
January 13, 1948. Washington. The US. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized.
212
January 14-15, 1948, New York The FBI arrested six Newark men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey City after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
213
January 16-17, 1948, Haifa. Zionists claimed they had murdered 82Arabs, mostly civilians, in a 24 hour period. In retaliation for the massacres, Arabs machine-gunned 35 Haganah men who were en route to attack another Arab farming settlement.
214
January 17, 1948, Jerusalem: The official death toll of Arabs killed by Jewish terrorists since November 29 had risen to 831.
215
January 25, 1948, Jerusalem. Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded.
216
January 26, 1948, Palestine. Mrs. Gold Meyerson, Jewish Agency political director in Jerusalem, and Mote Sheraton, chief of all Agency political operations, told the UN Palestine Commission that Jews must arm against possible Arab threats and Sheraton demanded a UN policy that would compel the US. to lift its embargo on arms destined
for Jewish groups in the Middle East
217
January 28, 1948, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Silver, chief of the Jewish Agency's American division, cut short a trip to Jerusalem to return to the US. and campaign for American public support of armed Jewish backing for partition and eventual Zionist control of all Palestine. On January 27, his agency called upon 15,000 young men and women to join Haganah by February 15. British intelligence reports indicate that Haganah had grown from 3,500 to 12,000 full-time members since December 1.
218
January 31, 1948, London. British Foreign Office officials revealed that over 1,000 Soviets, all Russian-speaking Communist military technicians, had been intercepted on the immigrant ships “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent”
219
February 1, 1948, Jerusalem. Arab groups took credit for a bombing that destroyed the “Palestine Post” building. The newspaper had an extensive history of inciting the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem to “destroy Arabs and force them out” of Palestine.
220
February 1, 1948, Milwaukee. WI, Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency political director, stated that statements that Communist agents were among the intercepted “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent” immigrants from Bulgaria were untrue. Shartok cited a statement from Cyprus refugee camp commissioner, Sir Godfrey Collins, confirming his statement Collins subsequently denied making such a statement .Shertok further said that the Jews of Palestine welcomed all Jews into their country and that Jewish Communists were equally welcome. He denied rumors of Soviet clandestine assistance to various Jewish terrorist groups.
221
February 3, 1948, Jerusalem. Stern gang terrorists killed two British policemen because the bombers of the “Post” had allegedly worn police uniforms. Arabs attacked the Jerusalem Central Prison but were driven off by the guards.
222
The British Foreign Office sent Bulgaria a note of rebuke for “deliberately conniving” in the transshipment of illegal Soviet immigrants to Palestine.
223
February 10, 1948, Jerusalem. British military units prevented Arabs from bringing dynamite and firebombs into Jerusalem's Old City in an attempt to blow up its Jewish Quarter.
224
February 10, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorist groups murdered ten Arabs near an RAF camp in central Palestine A further 23 Arabs were murdered by Jewish groups throughout Palestine.
225
February 11, 1948, Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship “Beleaguered Jerusalem” off Nahariya and its 679 Jewish illegal immigrants were transshipped to Cyprus.
226
February 13, 1948, Palestine. A British Army sergeant was arrested in a probe of the death of four Jewish terrorists who were arrested at their sniper post and then released in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews were immediately stoned to death by the Arabs.
227
February 15, 1948, Galilee. Jewish terrorists raided an Arab settlement in upper Galilee, killing 30 Arabs, including 10 children, and blew up bridges.
228
February 16, 1948, New York The UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council that it would take a UN military force to save the Palestine partition from “catastrophic” failure. The report criticized “(c)ertain elements of the Jewish community,” for “irresponsible ads of violence which worsen the security situation.” The Commission quoted official British figures on Palestine casualties during November 30-February 1:869 killed, including 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, 46 British and 15 of other nationalities; 1,909 wounded, including 1,035 Arabs, 725 Jews, 135 British and 14 others.
229
February 20, 1948, Jerusalem. Twelve Jewish terrorists, including Moshe Svorai, second in command of the Stern gang, escaped from the Central Prison in Jerusalem.
230
February 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Two truckloads of high explosives were detonated in Ben Yehuda Street in the Jewish section of Jerusalem. The blast leveled a three block Jewish business center, killing at least 60 with 20 missing and 200 injured. Jews blamed the British because armored trucks with police insignia had escorted the truck bombs into the area.
231
February 23, 1948, Palestine. Northern Palestine Arabs took credit for the BenYehuda bombing and said they had carried out the attack as retaliation for a Jewish bombing that had killed seven Arabs in Ramleh.
232
February 27, 1948, Jerusalem. Two anti-Communist Polish residents of Jerusalem were murdered by Stem gang terrorists who claimed the Poles were “pro-Arab.”
233
February 29, 1948, Rehoveth. The British Mandate Government denounced the Jewish Agency after 28 British soldiers were killed and 35 seriously injured when a Haifa-bound train from Cairo was blown up. Stern gang terrorists took credit for the bombing of the British train as revenge for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem.
234
March 1, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Mandate government accused the Jewish Agency of circulating false charges that Britons had committed the BenYehuda bombing and of tolerating Jewish terrorists “for political reasons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate murder” would mean “forfeiture by the Jewish community of all right … to be numbered among civilized peoples. ”Immediately after issuance of this statement, the car of British Commander Lt Gen. McMillan was bombed near Jerusalem but the general was not in the car at the time.
235
March 2, 1948, Haifa. Stern gang terrorists detonated a truckful of explosives at an Arab office building in Haifa, killing at least 14 Arabs.
236
March 4, 1948, Ramallah. In retaliation for the Haifa bombing of March 2, Arabs ambushed and killed 17 Haganah youths near RamaIlah
237
March 5, 1948, Tel Aviv. Haganah killed 15 Arabs near Tel Aviv in revenge for the March 4 ambush of their members
238
March 5, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency stated that large-scale Jewish arms shipments were ready in various Mediterranean ports destined for the arming of Jewish partisans in Palestine to “fight and drive out” the Arab population of what the Agency stated “was eternal Jewish land” that could not be occupied by either the British or the Arabs.
239
March 11, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency's building in Jerusalem was bombed with 13 persons killed and 84 injured. An American car, believed to have been stolen from the US. consulate by an Arab chauffeur, was driven through the agency's elaborate barricades with a load of explosives. The driver escaped.
240
March 11, 1948, New York. Communist and their left wing labor unions turned out over 10,000 persons in a protest rally against US. “betrayal” of partition.
241
March 12, 1948, New York Columnist Drew Pearson said in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that President Harry Truman had given Democratic party leaders the following reason for holding back on enforcement of Palestine partition after having championed this in the UN last year: Russia was after a US. Army-built railroad north from the Persian Gulf, plus all Arab oil regions and the Eastern Mediterranean. On March, Pearson had stated in the same forum that President Truman had told a New York publisher that New York Jews were “disloyal” to the United States.
242
March 12, 1948, New York An Arab Higher Command paper was issued that charged the Jewish Agency with massing Soviet trained and equipped illegal immigrants in Eastern Europe for war service in Palestine and had “set up laboratories for bacteriological warfare.”
243
March 30, 1948, Palestine. British authorities released the latest casualty figures: In March, 566 persons, including 271 Jews 256 Arabs, 39 British and others were killed.
244
March 30, 1948, New York Soviet and Jewish groups informed the UN Security Council that they defended the UN's previous decision for a separate Jewish state. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, told the Security Council that partition was “a just solution,” that he was not convinced that it could not be carried out peacefully and that by “wrecking” it the US. would have to take the full blame for “a serious blow upon the UN organization”
245
April 1, 1948, New York The UN found that it had transversed a circle – from one special General Assembly session to another – in its year-long effort to solve the Palestine problem. Britain referred the Holy Land dispute to the UN April 2, 1947, and asked for a special Assembly session, Events since then:
April 28-May 15, 1947. Assembly met, decided on special committee inquiry into the Palestine situation.
August 31. Special Palestine Committee (UNSCOP) recommended partition, internationalized Jerusalem.
November 29. Assembly approved partition, 33-13 (10 abstentions): US. led the fight for a separate Jewish state. Intensified Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine.
December 11. Britain set May 15 as the date for surrender of its mandate over Palestine.
February 16, 1948. Assembly's Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition over Arab resistance.
February 24. US. sidestepped endorsing forcible partition, asked the Council to seek Arab-Jewish agreement
March 19. After the Big Five conciliation efforts failed, the US. abandoned its partition plan and proposed UN trusteeship over Palestine.
April 1. The Security Council agreed (Russia abstaining) to US. proposal for a special Assembly session to reconsider the Palestine problem and passed the US. resolution urging an Arab-Jewish truce.
246
April 4, 1948, New York A Zionist rally in New York's Madison Square Park was attended by 100,000 persons, including 40,000 Jewish war veterans.
247
April 6, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorists invaded the British Army's largest Palestine camp near Pardes Hannan south of Haifa in a raid for firearms and murdered seven British soldiers.
248
April 9, 1948, Washington The US. Department of State refused to lift its embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East
249
April 9, 1948, Jerusalem. Irgun and Stern gang terrorists stormed an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, Dir Yashin, killing 250 Arabs, half of them women and children.
250
April 25, 1948, Jaffa. The Irgun launched an attack on Arab Jaffa claiming that it was a stronghold for Arabs. They also attacked Tel Aviv with 2,000 men, armored cars and mortars and captured the Arab district of Mansielt. Their advance was halted when British fighter planes and light artillery were used against the Irgun.
251
April 27, 1948, Palestine. Initially condemning the Irgun for its attack on Jaffa, the Haganah reached an agreement with Irgun and the latter agreed to operate under Haganah control. Both groups then attacked, Haganah seizing Jaffa's eastern and southern suburbs. The Arab city was encircled by April 29, and all but 15,000 of Jaffa's Arab inhabitants had been driven from the city, although the town was officially termed an Arab area. In Tel Aviv, the Stern gang robbed Barclays Bank of $1 million.
252
April 30, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah scored victories against the Arab residents after fruitless UN efforts to arrange a truce that would protect historical shrines in the ancient Walled City. Jewish extremists threatened to dynamite the Arab Dome of the Rock Mosque unless all Arabs immediately evacuated Jerusalem. The British response was that if this happened, they would blow up the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the destroyed temple. The Haganah agreed to respect both Arab and Christian monuments but insisted all Arabs and Christians must leave Jerusalem. In a move they described as “defensive,” the Haganah overran the Christian Arab Katamon quarter in southwestern modern Jerusalem and captured most of the Moslem Mamilla cemetery. Jewish workers seized the general post office in Jerusalem. In Katamon, Haganah captured St Simon's Greek Orthodox Monastery, drove out the monks and vandalized the building. British troops stepped in to prevent further massacre of the Arabs.
253
May 2, 1948, Jerusalem. The British finally halted wide-spread strife in Jerusalem by rushing several thousand mechanized army units and Royal Marine commandos back to Palestine. Their primary purpose was to protect Arab civilians who were being slaughtered by rampaging Zionists.
254
May 5-8, 1948, Palestine. The Haganah, now styling itself a “Jewish Army,” struck Upper Galilee in northeastern Palestine and claimed to have crushed any Arab resistance by the end of the week. Safad, capital of Upper Galilee and normally a city of 15,000 Arabs, was reported by the Jewish Agency as having been “cleansed” of Arabs by May 6. The only remaining occupants of the town were 2,000 Jews. Haganah announced that all Arab property had been confiscated from the owners and would be given to Jewish settlers.
255
May 4, 1948, Tel Aviv. The 37-man Jewish Legislative Council met in Tel Aviv and heard Premier-designate David Ben-Gurion declare that 150,000 Arabs had been driven from their homes in the past five months but that the Jews “haven't lost a single settlement” The Stern gang resumed “direct war” against the British for protecting the Arab population of Jerusalem. Seven British soldiers were killed near Nethanya. At the same time, the Stern gang took credit for a letter bomb which killed the young brother of a British army officer in England.
256
May 6, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah was redesignated as the Jewish State Army and reported that 200 aircraft, later revealed by British authorities as having come from Czechoslovakia, whose new communist government is almost entirely composed of Zionists and who have been pouring weapons into Palestine, are slated to reinforce the new army. The army will be increased to 85,000 immediately.
257
May 16, 1948, New York The number of states recognizing Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission to the UN. Russia immediately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it recognized Israel's government as the de jure (legal) government while the United States recognized Israel only as the de facto (in fact) government
258
May 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Thomas Wasson, US. Consul General in Jerusalem and a member of the Council's Truce Commission, was fatally wounded by a Stern gang sniper near the US. Consulate. Two other Consulate members were also assaulted, one dying the next day.
259
September 17, 1948, Jerusalem. Angered by his order to readmit 8,000 Arab refugees driven from three villages near Haifa by attacks of Jewish terrorists, the Stern gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator for Palestine. Also killed in the attack was French Col. Andre Serot, chief of France's 100-man contingent in the unarmed UN truce-observer team.
The Bible:
by one atrocity after another
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 at 11:53 PM
(Note: In the Bible, words having to do with killing significantly outnumber words having to do with love.) GE 3:1-7, 22-24 God allows Adam and Eve to be deceived by the Serpent (the craftiest of all of God's wild creatures). They eat of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," thereby incurring death for themselves and all of mankind for ever after. God prevents them from regaining eternal life, by placing a guard around the "Tree of Eternal Life." (Note: God could have done the same for the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the first place and would thereby have prevented the Fall of man, the necessity for Salvation, the Crucifixion of Jesus, etc.)
GE 4:2-8 God's arbitrary preference of Abel's offering to that of Cain's provokes Cain to commit the first biblically recorded murder and kill his brother Abel.
GE 34:13-29 The Israelites kill Hamor, his son, and all the men of their village, taking as plunder their wealth, cattle, wives and children.
GE 6:11-17, 7:11-24 God is unhappy with the wickedness of man and decides to do something about it. He kills every living thing on the face of the earth other than Noah's family and thereby makes himself the greatest mass murderer in history.
GE 19:26 God personally sees to it that Lot's wife is turned to a pillar of salt (for having looked behind her while fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah).
GE 38:9 "... whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked ..., so the Lord put him to death."
EX 2:12 Moses murders an Egyptian.
EX 7:1, 14, 9:14-16, 10:1-2, 11:7 The purpose of the devastation that God brings to the Egyptians is as follows:
to show that he is Lord;
to show that there is none like him in all the earth;
to show his great power;
to cause his name to be declared throughout the earth;
to give the Israelites something to talk about with their children;
to show that he makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt.
EX 9:22-25 A plague of hail from the Lord strikes down everything in the fields of Egypt both man and beast except in Goshen where the Israelites reside.
EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
EX 17:13 With the Lord's approval, Joshua mows down Amalek and his people.
EX 21:20-21 With the Lord's approval, a slave may be beaten to death with no punishment for the perpetrator as long as the slave doesn't die too quickly.
EX 32:27 "Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
EX 32:27-29 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay 3000 men.
LE 26:7-8 The Lord promises the Israelites that, if they are obedient, their enemies will "fall before your sword."
LE 26:22 "I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children."
LE 26:29, DT 28:53, JE 19:9, EZ 5:8-10 As a punishment, the Lord will cause people to eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and fathers and friends.
LE 27:29 Human sacrifice is condoned. (Note: An example is given in JG 11:30-39)
NU 11:33 The Lord smites the people with a great plague.
NU 12:1-10 God makes Miriam a leper for seven days because she and Aaron had spoken against Moses.
NU 15:32-36 A Sabbath breaker (who had gathered sticks for a fire) is stoned to death at the Lord's command.
NU 16:27-33 The Lord causes the earth to open and swallow up the men and their households (including wives and children) because the men had been rebellious.
NU 16:35 A fire from the Lord consumes 250 men.
NU 16:49 A plague from the Lord kills 14,700 people.
NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
NU 21:6 Fiery serpents, sent by the Lord, kill many Israelites.
NU 21:35 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay Og "... and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ...."
NU 25:4 (KJV) "And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun ...."
NU 25:8 "He went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly."
NU 25:9 24,000 people die in a plague from the Lord.
NU 31:9 The Israelites capture Midianite women and children.
NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord's command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and "... every woman who has known man ...." (Note: How would it be determined which women had known men? One can only speculate.)
NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.
DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.
DT 7:2 The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" and shown "no mercy" to those whom he gives them for defeat.
DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."
DT 20:16 "In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes."
DT 21:10-13 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites are allowed to take "beautiful women" from the enemy camp to be their captive wives. If, after sexual relations, the husband has "no delight" in his wife, he can simply let her go.
DT 28:53 "You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you."
JS 1:1-9, 18 Joshua receives the Lord's blessing for all the bloody endeavors to follow.
JS 6:21-27 With the Lord's approval, Joshua destroys the city of Jericho men, women, and children with the edge of the sword.
JS 7:19-26 Achan, his children and his cattle are stoned to death because Achan had taken a taboo thing.
JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.
JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites.
JS 10:28 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah.
JS 10:30 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites.
JS 10:32-33 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish.
JS 10:34-35 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites.
JS 10:36-37 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites.
JS 10:38-39 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites.
JS 10:40 (A summary statement.) "So Joshua defeated the whole land ...; he left none remaining, but destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."
JS 11:6 The Lord orders horses to be hamstrung. (Exceedingly cruel.)
JS 11:8-15 "And the lord gave them into the hand of Israel, ...utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed ...."
JS 11:20 "For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be utterly destroyed, and should receive no mercy but be exterminated, as the Lord commanded Moses."
JS 11:21-23 Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim.
JG 1:4 With the Lord's support, Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek.
JG 1:6 With the Lord's approval, Judah pursues Adoni-bezek, catches him, and cuts off his thumbs and big toes.
JG 1:8 With the Lord's approval, Judah smites Jerusalem.
JG 1:17 With the Lord's approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath.
JG 3:29 The Israelites kill about 10,000 Moabites.
JG 3:31 (A restatement.) Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad.
JG 4:21 Jael takes a tent stake and hammers it through the head of Sisera, fastening it to the ground.
JG 7:19-25 The Gideons defeat the Midianites, slay their princes, cut off their heads, and bring the heads back to Gideon.
JG 8:15-21 The Gideons slaughter the men of Penuel.
JG 9:5 Abimalech murders his brothers.
JG 9:45 Abimalech and his men kill all the people in the city.
JG 9:53-54 "A woman dropped a stone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, 'Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can't say a woman killed me.' So his servant ran him through, and he died."
JG 11:29-39 Jepthah sacrifices his beloved daughter, his only child, according to a vow he has made with the Lord.
JG 14:19 The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a man and causes him to slay thirty men.
JG 15:15 Samson slays 1000 men with the jawbone of an ass.
JG 16:21 The Philistines gouge out Samson's eyes.
JG 16:27-30 Samson, with the help of the Lord, pulls down the pillars of the Philistine house and causes his own death and that of 3000 other men and women.
JG 18:27 The Danites slay the quiet and unsuspecting people of Laish.
JG 19:22-29 A group of sexual depraved men beat on the door of an old man's house demanding that he turn over to them a male house guest. Instead, the old man offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine (or wife): "Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing." The man's concubine is ravished and dies. The man then cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
JG 20:43-48 The Israelites smite 25,000+ "men of valor" from amongst the Benjamites, "men and beasts and all that they found," and set their towns on fire.
JG 21:10-12 "... Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones.... every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy." They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use.
1SA 4:10 The Philistines slay 30,000 Israelite foot soldiers.
1SA 5:6-9 The Lord afflicts the Philistines with tumors in their "secret parts," presumably for having stolen the Ark.
1SA 6:19 God kills seventy men (or so) for looking into the Ark (at him?). (Note: The early Israelites apparently thought the Ark to be God's abode.)
1SA 7:7-11 Samuel and his men smite the Philistines.
1SA 11:11 With the Lord's blessing, Saul and his men cut down the Ammonites.
1SA 14:31 Jonathan and his men strike down the Philistines.
1SA 14:48 Saul smites the Amalekites.
1SA 15:3, 7-8 "This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ....' And Saul ... utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."
1SA 15:33 "Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord ...."
1SA 18:7 The women sing as they make merry: "Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands."
1SA 18:27 David murders 200 Philistines, then cuts off their foreskins.
1SA 30:17 David smites the Amalekites.
2SA 2:23 Abner kills Asahel.
2SA 3:30 Joab and Abishai kill Abner.
2SA 4:7-8 Rechan and Baanah kill Ish-bosheth, behead him, and take his head to David.
2SA 4:12 David has Rechan and Baanah killed, their hands and feet cut off, and their bodies hanged by the pool at Hebron.
2SA 5:25 "And David did as the Lord commanded him, and smote the Philistines ...."
2SA 6:2-23 Because she rebuked him for having exposed himself, Michal (David's wife) was barren throughout her life.
2SA 8:1-18 (A listing of some of David's murderous conquests.)
2SA 8:4 David hamstrung all but a few of the horses.
2SA 8:5 David slew 22,000 Syrians.
2SA 8:6, 14 "The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went."
2SA 8:13 David slew 18,000 Edomites in the valley of salt and made the rest slaves.
2SA 10:18 David slew 47,000+ Syrians.
2SA 11:14-27 David has Uriah killed so that he can marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.
2SA 12:1, 19 The Lord strikes David's child dead for the sin that David has committed.
2SA 13:1-15 Amnon loves his sister Tamar, rapes her, then hates her.
2SA 13:28-29 Absalom has Amnon murdered.
2SA 18:6 -7 20,000 men are slaughtered at the battle in the forest of Ephraim.
2SA 18:15 Joab's men murder Absalom.
2SA 20:10-12 Joab's men murder Amasa and leave him "... wallowing in his own blood in the highway. And anyone who came by, seeing him, stopped."
2SA 24:15 The Lord sends a pestilence on Israel that kills 70,000 men.
1KI 2:24-25 Solomon has Adonijah murdered.
1KI 2:29-34 Solomon has Joab murdered.
1KI 2:46 Solomon has Shime-i murdered.
1KI 13:15-24 A man is killed by a lion for eating bread and drinking water in a place where the Lord had previously told him not to. This is in spite of the fact that the man had subsequently been lied to by a prophet who told the man that an angel of the Lord said that it would be alright to eat and drink there.
1KI 20:29-30 The Israelites smite 100,000 Syrian soldiers in one day. A wall falls on 27,000 remaining Syrians.
2KI 1:10-12 Fire from heaven comes down and consumes fifty men.
2KI 2:23-24 Forty-two children are mauled and killed, presumably according to the will of God, for having jeered at a man of God.
2KI 5:27 Elisha curses Gehazi and his descendants forever with leprosy.
2KI 6:18-19 The Lord answers Elisha's prayer and strikes the Syrians with blindness. Elisha tricks the blind Syrians and leads them to Samaria.
2KI 6:29 "So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."
2KI 9:24 Jehu tricks and murders Joram.
2KI 9:27 Ahaziah has Jehu killed.
2KI 9:30-37 Jehu has Jezebel killed. Her body is trampled by horses. Dogs eat her flesh so that only her skull, feet, and the palms of her hands remain.
2KI 10:7 Jehu has Ahab's seventy sons beheaded, then sends the heads to their father.
2KI 10:14 Jehu has forty-two of Ahab's kin killed.
2KI 10:17 "And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord ...."
2KI 10:19-27 Jehu uses trickery to massacre the Baal worshippers.
2KI 11:1 Athaliah destroys all the royal family.
2KI 14:5, 7 Amaziah kills his servants and then 10,000 Edomites.
2KI 15:3-5 Even though he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord smites Azariah with leprosy for not having removed the "high places."
2KI 15:16 Menahem ripped open all the women who were pregnant.
2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men.
1CH 20:3 (KJV) "And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes."
2CH 13:17 500,000 Israelites are slaughtered.
2CH 21:4 Jehoram slays all his brothers.
PS 137:9 Happy will be the man who dashes your little ones against the stones.
PS 144:1 God is praised as the one who trains hands for war and fingers for battle.
IS 13:15 "Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the
sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their ... wives will be ravished."
IS 13:18 "Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."
IS 14:21-22 "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers."
IS 49:26 The Lord will cause the oppressors of the Israelite's to eat their own flesh and to become drunk on their own blood as with wine.
JE 16:4 "They shall die grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."
LA 4:9-10 "Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food. ... pitiful women have cooked their own children, who became their food ..."
EZ 6:12-13 The Lord says: "... they will fall by the sword, famine and plague. He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon them. And they will know I am the Lord, when the people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak ...."
EZ 9:4-6 The Lord commands: "... slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women ...."
EZ 20:26 In order that he might horrify them, the Lord allowed the Israelites to defile themselves through, amongst other things, the sacrifice of their first-born children.
EZ 21:3-4 The Lord says that he will cut off both the righteous and the wicked that his sword shall go against all flesh.
EZ 23:25, 47 God is going to slay the sons and daughters of those who were whores.
EZ 23:34 "You shall ... pluck out your hair, and tear your breasts."
HO 13:16 "They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."
MI 3:2-3 "... who pluck off their skin ..., and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron."
MT 3:12, 8:12, 10:21, 13:30, 42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, LK 13:28, JN 5:24 Some will spend eternity burning in Hell. There will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
MT 10:21 "... the brother shall deliver up his brother to death, and the father his child, ... children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."
MT 10:35-36 "For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own family."
MT 11:21-24 Jesus curses [the inhabitants of] three cities who were not sufficiently impressed with his great works.
AC 13:11 Paul purposefully blinds a man (though not permanently)
www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.html
The Missing Peace
by IMRI
Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006 at 10:14 AM
PA foreign minister: Cease-fire just a liberation tactic
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud a-Zahar declared this week
that the present cease-fire (hudna) does not constitute recognition of
Israel, but is rather one of a number of tactical steps on the way to the
"complete liberation" of Palestine.
"We as Muslims are the owners of this land and we shall not give up a single
handful of Palestinian soil," Zahar told students at Gaza City's Islamic
University on Sunday (10 Dec).
He declared that a solution to the conflict is not the creation of a
Palestinian state according to the 1967 boundaries, but the total liberation
of "all Palestinian lands" -- a popular euphemism for the territory
"occupied" by the State of Israel. The establishment of a Palestinian state
would be followed by an "Islamic cultural enterprise."
Zahar told the students that Israelis have already begun to question whether
Israel will continue to exist in the next few coming decades.
Zahar demanded that the PA renounce all agreements it signed with Israel,
which he said have brought disaster upon the Palestinian people. In
addition, he rejected any type of security coordination with Israel, which
he termed "a betrayal of the homeland."
PA Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs Salah Alrakab told the students
that Islam forbids signing a peace agreement with Jews, because "The
conflict with the Jews is a religious, existential struggle and is not a
conflict over borders." At most, he said, Islamic law permits signing a
temporary hudna (cease-fire).
The Jews have no claim to a Land of Israel but that stated in the Torah, he
continued, which has already been proven to be a forgery. Liberation of the
land will be accomplished only by jihad through the general mobilization of
the Islamic nation, he said, which is the shortest way to restore
Palestinian rights and shrink "the greed of the Jews."
![[masthead]](/images/masthead_140.png)