This Thursday, May 15, synagogues, movie houses, newspapers
and TV screens will be filled with ceremonies and celebrations of the goodness
of God to the Jews and the bravery of those first pioneers who established the
State of Israel, the “only democracy in the Middle East .”
At the same time, very little will be mentioned concerning
the plight of the Palestinians who lost their land and freedom. More than
750,000 driven from their homes, many raped, robbed and massacred to make room
for a Jewish state. Over 500 Arab villages
destroyed, bulldozed down and covered up, creating the largest refugee problem
in modern history.
Someone said, “Kill one person and it’s a crime. Kill a
thousand and it just a statistic.”
However, the Nakba has flesh on it. I received a reply to one
of my earlier blogs:
Tom, this is when my wife Aida and
her family fled Palestine
Multiply that story by a thousand times and it is easy to
understand why Israel
I think of Elias Chacour, whom I met about 30 years ago.
When Elias Chacour was about nine years old, his father
called the family together. “There was a monster up in Europe
who persecuted and killed Jews. He is
dead now, but the Jews still do not feel safe there. So, they are going to come and live with us
for a while.” Chacour remembers being
excited to move out of his bedroom to make room for their guests. After all,
Jews were also the children of Abraham. They were blood brothers.
Only they did not come as guests. They came with guns. In one day Chacour and his family were driven from the home up into the
hills at gun point “ One soldier growled, “This land is ours. Get out now. Move.”
What they did not know was that all over the Galilee , Palestinians were being driven from their homes.
In the struggle, parents were separated from their children, some never saw them
again. Some older folks did not make it.
Little Elias and the other people of Biram tried to climb up to a little cross
road village called Gish. Surely their neighbors would help them. But, the
strangest thing. When they finally arrived in Gish, there was no one
there. The homes and shops were empty.
Everyone wondered what had happened to the people of Gish.
Several days later, the children of Biram were playing in a
near-by field. Their ball rolled down a ravine. Elias went to retrieve it. As he
reached down he saw the hand of a small child sticking up out of the sand. He had
just discovered what had happened to the people of Gish. They had been rounded up and executed. [1]
This was not an isolated case. It reflected the official goals
of Zionism. Historians list at least 33 massacres of Palestinians villages. Israeli
historian Tom Segev writes:
In 1940, Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s
Colonization Department, said:
Between ourselves it must be clear
that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not
achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this country. There is no other way than
to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries – all of them. Not one
village, not one tribe, should be left.[3]
Raphael Eytan, IDF Chief of Staff said:
We declare openly that the Arabs
have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel
It is amazing that Israel
has managed to sell to the Western world, (meaning the US ,) the smoke and mirrors that, in spite of the
facts, Israel
I have known Elias Chacour for almost three decades and in
spite of having been savagely beaten by Jewish soldiers who accused him of
being a nine year old terrorist, he says only, “I cannot hate them. They are my
blood brothers. Perhaps confused and afraid. but never the less, my brothers.”
So, this Thursday, May 15th, as Israel Israel
I am an American and there is much about my country of which
I can be proud, but our celebration of Israeli atrocities is not one of them.
Thomas Are
May 14, 2014