Fondly remembering Hebron

Last weekend, Arabs demonstrated against the 1948 “disaster” inflicted on them by the creation of the state of Israel. Arab press watchdog the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has released a video that was broadcast on Hamas-Gaza TV, which places the Arab claims in perspective.

In the video, a 92-year-old Arab woman, originally from Hebron, glowingly recalls on Hamas-Gaza TV how in 1929 – almost 20 years before the 1948 “Nakba” – without provocation the Arabs of Hebron, including her father, massacred the peaceful Jewish neighbours they had lived beside for years. In the film, she makes it clear that she wants a repeat of the Hebron massacre.

On 24 August 1929, sixty seven Jews were massacred in an orgy of sadistic violence. Jewish children were murdered in front of their parents, limbs were severed, women were brutally raped and Jews were burned alive.

The British High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, issued a statement following the massacre, in which he stated:

“I have learned with horror of the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evil-doers, of savage murders perpetrated upon defenceless members of the Jewish population regardless of age or sex, accompanied as at Hebron, by acts of unspeakable savagery, of the burning of farms and houses in town and country and of the looting and destruction of property.

“These crimes have brought upon their authors the execration of all civilized peoples throughout the world.”

Lest it be considered that only elderly Arab ladies still desire Jewish blood, in an interview on Hamas Al Aqsa TV, Yunis al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament, spelled out his organisation's vision for the genocidal annihilation of the Jewish people.

Al Astal described the ingathering of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel in terms of a divine plan that would give the Arabs “the honour” of annihilating “the evil of this gang.”

In a few years, he predicted, the Zionists will understand that they were brought here for the purpose of being slaughtered in “a great massacre.”

In terms reminiscent of Adolph Hitler’s anti-Jewish rants in the 1930s, al Astal said the Jews were more dangerous than all of the world's lethal birds of prey, dangerous reptiles and lethal bacteria put together.

Meanwhile, an official of the “moderate” Hamas party, said that the political programmes of both Fatah and Hamas were identical. This statement should cause concern in that the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel and Yunis al Astal wants to exterminate the Jews.

A minor catastrophe day

At least one person was killed and dozens were wounded as IDF soldiers tried to prevent nearly a thousand Syrian Arabs invading the Golan Heights during Nakba Day protests. Syrian troops at the border did not prevent the infiltration.

Analysts had predicted that Syria might allow the crossings to draw the attention of its citizens attention and participation away from the ongoing rebellion in the country and the regime’s harsh crackdown on civilian protestors.

At the same time of the Nakba protest, Syrian soldiers a shot and killed a women and wounded five others, including a Lebanese soldier, during a protest against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Hundreds of Syrian Arabs have crossed into Lebanon to flee Assad’s security forces who have already killed nearly 800 demonstrators.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas marked “Nakba Day” by reiterating his hard-line positions on future control of Jerusalem.

Abbas, who is praised as a “moderate” and Israel’s best hope for peace, played to the West’s view of him on Saturday by declaring he believes in the two-state solution. However, he told a group of Palestinian dignitaries in Ramallah on Saturday that he would never accept a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital.

Abbas demands the “right” of millions of “Palestinian refugees” to take up residence both in a future Palestinian state and within the borders of sovereign. “The Palestinian leadership will never give up the right of return”, he said.

Flooding Israel with millions of Arabs claiming refugee status was a goal his predecessor and mentor, Yasser Arafat, readily admitted. If successful, such a strategy would demographically destroy the Jewish state.

So long as Abbas clings to these demands, no Israeli government will ever sign a final status peace agreement with him.

Marking Nakba Day in Tel Aviv, an Arab truck driver went on a rampage through the streets of Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring at least five more.

The 22-year-old driver reportedly smashed into parked and moving vehicles in the heart of Tel Aviv for more than a mile before coming to a halt when he rammed a bus (pictured).

A 40-year-old man who was sitting in one of the parked cars that was hit died of his injuries.

Witnesses said that after hitting the bus at the end of his rampage, the driver leapt from his truck and began shouting and hurling objects at people nearby. In the process, he injured a young Jewish girl.

Following his arrest, the driver told police that the incident was a simple traffic accident caused by a blown tyre.

Some commentators say the violence was not as great as expected.

Doesn't the fact that we can breath a sigh of relief that a day of violence, on which less people are killed and injured than we expected, tell us something about the Palestinian people?

Am Yisrael Chai!

This Sunday, 14 May, demonstrations will be staged across the Palestinian Authority to mark the “Nakba” (the “catastrophe”), the Arabic term used to describe the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Jews in Israel are planning a Zionist response to the planned activities. Had the state of Israel been established earlier than it was, the real “catastrophe” – six million Jews murdered in the Death Camps of Europe, who had nowhere to escape to – would have been avoided.

Activists from the Samaria Residents’ Council plan to stand at major intersections throughout Israel and hand out Israeli flags to drivers, stating:

“This Sunday, we will all raise with pride the flag of Israel.

“‘Nakba Day’ is translated into Hebrew as Yom Hashoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day].

This is how the ‘Palestinian’ Authority leadership has chosen to refer to the establishment of Israel. Indeed, it is not surprising, since at the head of that terror authority is Holocaust denier Abu-Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas].

“This year the Authority is trying to intensify the events of that day, as a propaganda step on the way to their one-side declaration of a state in September.

“The hysteria which the PA and its PR people from the far left are trying to inflict on the citizens of Israel is nothing but a balloon filled with hot air.

“They too know very well that according to international law, only whoever is controlling an area can establish a state, and to our delight Israel is the one controlling it. Those PR people who are trying to frighten the public in Israel remember well that the UN already voted in 1988 in favour of the establishment of a ‘Palestinian’ state (by a majority of 104 against 2) and Arafat even officially declared it. All this had no meaning since Israel controls most of Judea and Samaria, the cradle of the Jewish people, and protects the whole country from there [ the high ground of Judea and Samaria overlooks the entire coast of Israel, its most populated urban area which, in other hands, would make that part of Israel vulnerable to missile attacks].

“On Sunday, we will all raise the Israeli flag everywhere: on cars, on our homes and on our Facebook accounts.

“Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens in cities across the country will raise the flag along with us.

“We will raise the flag proudly, and say to the world: ‘Am Yisrael Chai’[the people of Israel live]!”

Of course, the establishment of the Jewish state was a catastrophe for Arabs living in the land. But the Jews were not the cause of the Nakba; it was the Arab leaders who refused to recognise the Jewish homeland and launched an attack on Israel the day it was founded. If the Arab nations had been prepared to concede land, the catastrophe of loss of life on both sides of the conflict could have been avoided.