Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Elder of ZiyonTEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) -- When the sun descended behind the Al Khalil mountains on May 15, 1948, the inhabitants of the verdant village of Kafar Qasem in Palestine were once again waiting for the men to return from the fields.Say what? A massacre on the very day of Israel's independence? And Begin heading the Haganah?
Reports then began trickling in of a massacre of Palestinians carried out by members of the terrorist organizations the Hagana and the Stern Gang in a nearby village.
The family of Mahmud al-Natsha, one of the poor farmers of Kafar Qasem, was waiting for him to return, but suddenly a terrible sound descended over the entire village.
The Zionist terrorists, backed by British colonial forces, entered the village and massacred innocent women and children.
Hagana’s leader at the time was none other than Menachem Begin, who later went on to become prime minister of the Zionist regime, despite his terrorist past.
The Hagana’s terrorist attack left over 200 dead just in Kafar Qasem, all of whom were innocent women and children.
Of course, the author, Hassan Hanizadeh, is a bald-faced liar, but he knows that his normal readership at MehrNews and Al-Jazeerah.info and far-left Western media outlets will be even more ignorant than he is.
There was a bad incident at Kafr Qassem - in 1956, not 1948. And that incident, as unfortunate as it was, underscores the differences between a fundamentally moral nation and a fundamentally immoral one:
On October 29, 1956, on the eve of the Sinai Campaign, the Israeli army ordered all Israeli Arab villages near the Jordanian border placed under a wartime curfew that was to apply from 5 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to Israeli Border Police units at 3:30 before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. Many of them were at work at the time.
At Kfar Kassem, villagers began to arrive from work to their homes after the curfew. Israeli Border Police opened fire on them. A total of 47 Israeli Arabs were killed (some sources say 51 dead). The news of the killings was censored and the general Israeli public did not learn what happened until several weeks later when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced the findings of a secret inquiry.
There are the facts. And the aftermath of that event shows the difference between Israel and Palestinian Arabs:
The event was shocking to the Israeli public who demanded, and got, a full investigation. Prime Minister Ben Gurion said the act, "struck at the holiest principles of human morality", perhaps reminded of Nazis who claimed they were "just following orders".
The extensive investigation revealed that the local commander had issued an illegal order. As a result, about two years after the event, eleven border policemen were charged with crimes and eight were convicted of murder on the grounds that it is immoral to fire on unarmed civilians and no possible military order could justify that act. Among the convicted were the unit’s commander who had instructed his soldiers to "kill anyone who violated the curfew." ...
The Israeli Supreme Court made a new ruling on the right and duty of soldiers to disobey unlawful orders. That ruling has been incorporated into Israeli martial law. On the 43rd anniversary of the incident (1999), Israeli civics teachers were instructed to lead a one-hour discussion on Kafr Kassem in their classes. Israel wants its future soldiers to understand the need to identify and disobey an illegal order in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.
So there was a crime that occurred there, and the Israeli public was stunned.
No handing out candies, no dancing, no celebrations. No annual holidays to commemorate the deaths of Arabs. They displayed deep shame rather than the deep pride that accompanies Arab murderers.
The lesson from Kafr Qassem is the exact opposite that the lying author is trying to convey. The real lesson is that while Israel is far from perfect (and indeed the murderers even got out of jail much earlier than they should have), the Israeli psyche is the polar opposite of the Arab psyche that celebrates the deaths of innocents and idolizes the murderers.
So I must thank the propagandist Hassan Hanizadeh for allowing me to learn once again how utterly immoral his society is compared to Israel's.
