Tag: Palestine

Who’s afraid to reveal the Palestinian ‘secrets’ of 1948?

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You’ve doubtless wondered at some point, as I have, what kind of Arab state the Palestinians envisioned in 1948 if they had won the war. What were their plans? Where did they intend to build their version of the Ayalon Highway? Did they also want to dry up the Hula swamp to make more agricultural land available? Oh, and what were their thoughts about the 628,000 Jews living in what is now Israel on the eve of the war? What did they intend to do with them?

Every week, columnist Ben-Dror Yemini tells his readers in Yedioth Ahronoth about Arab leaders in 1948 who called for the Jews to be thrown into the sea. In other words, they intended a systematic slaughter.

So, without burdening Haaretz readers with dry academic research, I think it’s worth informing them that in 15 years of searching, during which I read hundreds of propaganda documents from 1947 to 1949, I encountered only one case in which an Arab leader mentioned “sea” and “Jews” in the same sentence. That was the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, in a call to expel the Jews from Egypt.

The more familiar quotes (like the one attributed to the Arab League’s secretary general at the time, Azzam Pasha) aren’t backed up by reliable Arabic sources, and it’s not clear

— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Shay Hazkani | 4 Dec 2022

Nullius in verba

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UK apology sought for British war crimes in Palestine

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The people of al-Bassa got their lesson in imperial brutality when the British soldiers came after dawn.

Machine guns mounted on Rolls Royce armoured cars opened fire on the Palestinian village before the Royal Ulster Rifles arrived with flaming torches and burned homes to the ground.

Villagers were rounded up while troops later herded men onto a bus and forced them to drive over a landmine which blew up, killing everyone on board.

A British policeman photographed the scene as women tended to the remains of their dead, before maimed body parts were buried in a pit.

It was the autumn of 1938 and UK forces were facing a rebellion in Palestine, under British control after the defeat two decades earlier of the Ottoman Empire.

— source bbc.com | Tom Bateman | 7 Oct 2022

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Israeli-Arab towns are enshrining Palestinian history

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Twenty years ago, when MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash) was a member of the Haifa city council, he lobbied vigorously to have the name of Hatzionut (Zionism) Avenue changed to Street of the Mountain (Al-Jabal), which had been its name prior to Israel’s establishment in 1948. He also talked about his dream: that anybody who came to Haifa in the future, and who ask where a particular place was situated, could very well receive a response along the lines of: “It’s on Gamal Abdel Nasser Street, between Edward Said and Land Day streets.”

In large measure, Odeh’s dream has come true: The public space of Arab society in Israel, and especially in locales with Arab majorities, is today rife with streets, squares, institutions and monuments whose names commemorate personalities, events, concepts and places that reference Palestinian history, and specifically those that have an association with Israel’s Arab community.

Pass through an Arab town or city today and you’ll find yourself on streets that truly are named for Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser; Land Day (an annual commemoration of the killings of six Arab citizens in 1976 during protests against the state’s appropriation of Arab-owned land), or the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said; and public

Shireen was killed twice

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Israel has for the first time admitted one of its soldiers may have been responsible for the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head May 11th while covering an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Israel said Monday Abu Akleh may have been “accidentally” hit by Israeli troops’ gunfire after they came under fire from Palestinian fighters.

But eyewitness accounts and videos of the area where Shireen was killed do not show a gun battle. She also wore body armor and a helmet clearly labeled ”PRESS.” Investigations by The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post and other media outlets also challenge the official Israeli version of Abu Akleh’s killing. The Times said there were, quote, “no

that statement did nothing other than obscure the truth and avoid responsibility and accountability, as a matter of fact. And time and time again, we’ve seen how Israel is unwilling to hold itself accountable for killings. And as a family and as her niece, we are infuriated. We were not expecting a statement from the Israeli government, the Israeli army, because we have seen how over the past months they’ve been changing the narrative and shifting the narrative.

Here is what we know. We know the facts. We know that Shireen was in Jenin covering a raid. She identified herself to the army, in addition to her colleagues, who were all wearing press vests and a protective helmet. You know, we’re talking here about the most advanced army, one of the most technologically advanced armies, and they still were able to aim precisely in the area right beneath her head and shoot her. In addition, there were continuous fires right after they killed my aunt. Even when they were trying to help her, they were still being fired at. So,

— source democracynow.org | Sep 07, 2022

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The forgotten Victorian crusade to colonize Palestine

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I was deeply dismayed, yet not surprised, to learn that British Prime Minister Liz Truss was considering following Donald Trump’s lead and moving Britain’s embassy in Israel from its current location in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Dismayed, because the move would signify to Palestinians that the British government cares nothing for their rights to freedom, self-determination and equality.

On the day the US embassy opened in Jerusalem in May 2018, 59 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military along the fence of the world’s largest open-air prison, the Gaza Strip, in what Amnesty International called “a horrifying example of use of excessive force and live ammunition against protesters who did not pose an imminent threat to life”.

What responsible government would risk reopening these wounds? Yet I am not surprised, for such behaviour, unfortunately, has a long chain of precedents. In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised Palestine, with an almost 90 percent Arab Muslim and Christian population, as a Jewish homeland.

Over 30 years, Britain enforced the Balfour Declaration’s implications, its heavy-handed repression of the Arab Revolt of 1936–39 leaving Palestinian society broken and

— source middleeasteye.net | Gabriel Polley | 11 Oct 2022

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German Jews file war crimes charges against Israeli leaders

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A Jewish group in Germany has filed criminal charges against Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and defense minister Benny Gantz over the bombardment they ordered in Gaza this summer.

The Israeli surprise attack from 5-8 August left some 50 Palestinians dead, including 17 children. At least 360 people were injured.

“This was a supposed preemptive strike that was carried out without a concrete threat,” Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East said on Sunday.

“In public, this excessive attack was largely portrayed as self-defense against Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who in fact only fired rockets in response to the Israeli bombardment,” the group added. “But even in the opposite case, there would be no justification for such a scale of civilian suffering and destruction.”

“Israel, thanks to international – including German – complicity, has the most modern weapons technology at its disposal and is of course capable of carrying out precise

— source electronicintifada.net | Ali Abunimah | 12 Sep 2022

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50 Palestinians Ordered Off Israeli Bus to Make Room for Three Jewish Riders

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An Israeli bus company has apologized after a bus driver ordered 50 Palestinian workers off a bus near Tel Aviv last week. The driver ordered the Palestinians off the bus after three Jewish passengers got on and refused to travel with the Palestinians. The bus company claims one of the Jewish passengers threatened the driver and claimed he was a Transport Ministry official.

— source democracynow.org | Aug 10, 2022

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