10 dec 2016
What does it mean to advocate for compensation and repatriation when these processes are embedded within settler colonial and colonial frameworks?
~Susan Slyomovics
Since 1948, there have been numerous maximalist and minimalist proposals to resolve the fates of Palestinian refugees by those outside the homeland and those internally displaced within Israel. For the State of Israel and many Jewish Israelis, the ideal solution encompasses a hoped-for absorption (i.e. disappearance) of Palestinians into host countries, elsewhere. For Palestinians, the rights of return and reparations (including restitution and compensation for lost properties and human suffering) are non-negotiable.
Discussions continue concerning the ways in which to calculate current equivalent values for Palestinian losses, or, even, to determine recipients to whom compensation is owed. Israel contests the baseline definitions of “refugee” established by the United Nations Work and Relief Agency for the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the international assistance organization for humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Even if Israel were to miraculously reverse position and recognize the Palestinian right of return, further roadblocks are raised to question whether this refers to repatriation within the 1948-67 borders of Israel, or only within the framework of a two-state solution into the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), constituted solely from the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) and Gaza: Would Palestinians accept the principle of acknowledgment of the right of return, but not its full practical application?
Are financial compensation and restitutions collective or individual? None of these issues are insoluble, and many remarkable proposals have been circulated. Numerous visionary overtures and practical recommendations concerning reparations, restitution, return and compensation have been set forth by a plethora of actors and are available in books, articles, lectures, and Internet groups.[i]
Reparations are often discussed without reference to the political entity that dispenses compensation, which may be a one-state Palestine/Israel, the two separate states of Israel and Palestine in negotiation with each other, or any semblance of a federal or confederated framework. In theory, compensation to internally displaced and diasporic Palestinian Arab refugees may be endorsed and underwritten by any number of potential parties and agencies – the State of Israel, the American government (redirecting three billion dollars their annual weapons budget to Israel for reparation and repatriation), and overseas Jewish organizations and donors, including those in which my mother was active (for example, if B’nai Brith and Hadassah-WIZO would enlarge their humanitarian aid on behalf of reparations to Palestinians).
But, what does it mean to advocate for compensation and repatriation when these processes are embedded within settler colonial and colonial frameworks? As with the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, settler colonial societies triumphed because they held on to the majority of land and they did not depart; they succeeded because they laid claim to indigeneity and native-ness for themselves.[ii] As Awni al-Mashni notes, it may be that reparations actually mark the triumph of settler colonialism: Even the millions of dollars in compensation cannot erase the reality of Palestinian displacement, which is no longer a mere objective fact, but has, rather, come to shape and has taken over the Palestinian conscience, much like what the crematories and the concentration camps have done to the Jews. Have German reparations, in spite of their exorbitant amounts, drawn attention away from the crematory?
Even the vision of a one-state solution with equality between Palestinians and Jews is an acknowledgment, at some level, of the triumph of Jewish Israeli settler colonialism. Along these lines, the question is open as to whether reparations from the settler minority to the native majority would diminish or reinforce the power of settler colonialism. For example, compensation for the indigenous Maori of New Zealand was aimed at making up for the manifest legacies of colonialism but, also, to maintaining the continuation of the white settler colonial regime.
Reparations to the colonized may temporarily restructure hierarchies in which social inferiors were hitherto forced to make material tribute to higher status colonizers. But, it must never be forgotten that reconciliation between native and settler is about rationalizing ongoing settler colonialism – by demonstrating “generosity” and paying compensation, the colonizer reinforces their superior position in the social hierarchy. Thus, compensation remains mired in the messy realities of festering disputes between colonizer and colonized, or settler and native, even when opposing sides – such as the Maori native and the white New Zealander – are in agreement that reparative processes must advance.
Susan Slyomovics is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles.
This is an edited excerpt originally published by The Nakba Files from Slyomvics’ book “How to Accept German Reparations,” University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
[i] For example, see the joint Israeli-Palestinian Zochrot-Badil program of refugee return and restitution emerging their visit to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://www.badil.org/component/k2/item/1806-2?lang=en. See also the concluding chapter, “Toward a New Regime,” in Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 249-271. For great imaginative élan, see Joshua Simon, ed., Solution 196-213 United States of Palestine-Israel (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011).
[ii] Susan Slyomovics, “Who and What is Native to Israel? In Marcel Janco’s Settler Art and Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff’s ‘Levantinism,’” Settler Colonial Studies 3, no.3 (2013): 1-21.
~Susan Slyomovics
Since 1948, there have been numerous maximalist and minimalist proposals to resolve the fates of Palestinian refugees by those outside the homeland and those internally displaced within Israel. For the State of Israel and many Jewish Israelis, the ideal solution encompasses a hoped-for absorption (i.e. disappearance) of Palestinians into host countries, elsewhere. For Palestinians, the rights of return and reparations (including restitution and compensation for lost properties and human suffering) are non-negotiable.
Discussions continue concerning the ways in which to calculate current equivalent values for Palestinian losses, or, even, to determine recipients to whom compensation is owed. Israel contests the baseline definitions of “refugee” established by the United Nations Work and Relief Agency for the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the international assistance organization for humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Even if Israel were to miraculously reverse position and recognize the Palestinian right of return, further roadblocks are raised to question whether this refers to repatriation within the 1948-67 borders of Israel, or only within the framework of a two-state solution into the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), constituted solely from the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) and Gaza: Would Palestinians accept the principle of acknowledgment of the right of return, but not its full practical application?
Are financial compensation and restitutions collective or individual? None of these issues are insoluble, and many remarkable proposals have been circulated. Numerous visionary overtures and practical recommendations concerning reparations, restitution, return and compensation have been set forth by a plethora of actors and are available in books, articles, lectures, and Internet groups.[i]
Reparations are often discussed without reference to the political entity that dispenses compensation, which may be a one-state Palestine/Israel, the two separate states of Israel and Palestine in negotiation with each other, or any semblance of a federal or confederated framework. In theory, compensation to internally displaced and diasporic Palestinian Arab refugees may be endorsed and underwritten by any number of potential parties and agencies – the State of Israel, the American government (redirecting three billion dollars their annual weapons budget to Israel for reparation and repatriation), and overseas Jewish organizations and donors, including those in which my mother was active (for example, if B’nai Brith and Hadassah-WIZO would enlarge their humanitarian aid on behalf of reparations to Palestinians).
But, what does it mean to advocate for compensation and repatriation when these processes are embedded within settler colonial and colonial frameworks? As with the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, settler colonial societies triumphed because they held on to the majority of land and they did not depart; they succeeded because they laid claim to indigeneity and native-ness for themselves.[ii] As Awni al-Mashni notes, it may be that reparations actually mark the triumph of settler colonialism: Even the millions of dollars in compensation cannot erase the reality of Palestinian displacement, which is no longer a mere objective fact, but has, rather, come to shape and has taken over the Palestinian conscience, much like what the crematories and the concentration camps have done to the Jews. Have German reparations, in spite of their exorbitant amounts, drawn attention away from the crematory?
Even the vision of a one-state solution with equality between Palestinians and Jews is an acknowledgment, at some level, of the triumph of Jewish Israeli settler colonialism. Along these lines, the question is open as to whether reparations from the settler minority to the native majority would diminish or reinforce the power of settler colonialism. For example, compensation for the indigenous Maori of New Zealand was aimed at making up for the manifest legacies of colonialism but, also, to maintaining the continuation of the white settler colonial regime.
Reparations to the colonized may temporarily restructure hierarchies in which social inferiors were hitherto forced to make material tribute to higher status colonizers. But, it must never be forgotten that reconciliation between native and settler is about rationalizing ongoing settler colonialism – by demonstrating “generosity” and paying compensation, the colonizer reinforces their superior position in the social hierarchy. Thus, compensation remains mired in the messy realities of festering disputes between colonizer and colonized, or settler and native, even when opposing sides – such as the Maori native and the white New Zealander – are in agreement that reparative processes must advance.
Susan Slyomovics is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles.
This is an edited excerpt originally published by The Nakba Files from Slyomvics’ book “How to Accept German Reparations,” University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
[i] For example, see the joint Israeli-Palestinian Zochrot-Badil program of refugee return and restitution emerging their visit to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://www.badil.org/component/k2/item/1806-2?lang=en. See also the concluding chapter, “Toward a New Regime,” in Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 249-271. For great imaginative élan, see Joshua Simon, ed., Solution 196-213 United States of Palestine-Israel (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011).
[ii] Susan Slyomovics, “Who and What is Native to Israel? In Marcel Janco’s Settler Art and Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff’s ‘Levantinism,’” Settler Colonial Studies 3, no.3 (2013): 1-21.
11 sept 2016
Palestinian refugees leaving a village near Haifa, June 1948
Turning Israeli settlers into victims is the prime minister's most staggering act of chutzpah yet. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948, when some 700,000 Arabs were forced to leave their lands.
Israel knows a thing or two about ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about propaganda. The video he posted on Friday proves both points. Here’s the real thing — yet another record for Israeli chutzpah: The evacuation of settlers from the West Bank (which has never happened, and presumably never will) is ethnic cleansing.
Yes, the state that brought you the great cleansing of 1948 and that has never, deep in its heart, given up on the dream of cleansing, and that never stopped carrying out methodical microcleansings in the Jordan Valley, in the South Hebron Hills, in the area of Ma’aleh Adumim and in the Negev, too — that state calls the removal of settlers ethnic cleansing. That state compares the invaders of the occupied territories with the children of the land who clung onto their lands and homes.
Netanyahu proved once more that he is the real thing, the most authentic representative of the “Israeliness” that created reality for itself: Turning night into day, shamelessly and without any sense of guilt, without inhibition.
In Israel, many people, perhaps a majority, will buy these goods. The settlers of the Gaza Strip became “expellees,” their removal “deportation.” Not only is an aggressive and violent action — settlement — legitimate, but its agents are victims.
The Jews as victim. Always the Jews, only the Jews. An Israeli prime minister less brazen and arrogant than Netanyahu would not dare to utter the term “ethnic cleansing,” given the plank in his own eye. Few propaganda campaigns would dare go so far. Yet occasionally, reality intrudes.
And the reality is razor-sharp. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948. Some 700,000 human beings, the majority, were forced to leave their homes, their belongings, their villages and the land that had been theirs for centuries. Some were forcibly expelled, put on trucks and removed; some were intentionally frightened into fleeing; still others fled, possibly unnecessarily. They were never allowed to return, save for a few, even if only to recover their belongings.
Being barred from returning was worse than the expulsion. It is what proved that the cleansing was intentional. Not a single Arab community remained between Jaffa and Gaza, and all the other areas are scarred with the remains of villages, the vestiges of life. That is ethnic cleansing — there’s no other term for it. More than 400 villages and towns were wiped off the face of the earth, their ruins covered over by Jewish communities, forests and lies. The truth was concealed from Israeli Jews and the descendants of the deportees were forbidden to commemorate them — neither monument nor gravestone, to paraphrase Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
The number of settlers now exceeds the number of expellees. They invaded a land that was not theirs, with the support of successive Israeli governments and the opposition of the entire world, and they knew that their enterprise was built on ice. They and the Israeli governments not only crudely violated international law, which earns no respect in Israel. They also broke Israeli law, with the support of a subjugated judiciary.
Land theft is even a violation of the law practiced in Israel and the territories. When Israelis, and the world, began to become accustomed to this situation, to accept it as inevitable, along comes the prime minister and takes his chutzpah up one more level: The settlers are actually victims. Not the ones they expelled, not the ones they disinherited of their land. In the reality according to Netanyahu, the settlements that were built for the purpose of precluding arrangements with the Palestinians are not an obstacle, and he equates them with the she’erit haplita — the remnants of the Palestinians that remained in Israel, to borrow a term from the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Language can be twisted to any use, propaganda to any moral perversion. Farewell, reality, you’re not relevant here anymore.
Turning Israeli settlers into victims is the prime minister's most staggering act of chutzpah yet. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948, when some 700,000 Arabs were forced to leave their lands.
Israel knows a thing or two about ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about propaganda. The video he posted on Friday proves both points. Here’s the real thing — yet another record for Israeli chutzpah: The evacuation of settlers from the West Bank (which has never happened, and presumably never will) is ethnic cleansing.
Yes, the state that brought you the great cleansing of 1948 and that has never, deep in its heart, given up on the dream of cleansing, and that never stopped carrying out methodical microcleansings in the Jordan Valley, in the South Hebron Hills, in the area of Ma’aleh Adumim and in the Negev, too — that state calls the removal of settlers ethnic cleansing. That state compares the invaders of the occupied territories with the children of the land who clung onto their lands and homes.
Netanyahu proved once more that he is the real thing, the most authentic representative of the “Israeliness” that created reality for itself: Turning night into day, shamelessly and without any sense of guilt, without inhibition.
In Israel, many people, perhaps a majority, will buy these goods. The settlers of the Gaza Strip became “expellees,” their removal “deportation.” Not only is an aggressive and violent action — settlement — legitimate, but its agents are victims.
The Jews as victim. Always the Jews, only the Jews. An Israeli prime minister less brazen and arrogant than Netanyahu would not dare to utter the term “ethnic cleansing,” given the plank in his own eye. Few propaganda campaigns would dare go so far. Yet occasionally, reality intrudes.
And the reality is razor-sharp. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948. Some 700,000 human beings, the majority, were forced to leave their homes, their belongings, their villages and the land that had been theirs for centuries. Some were forcibly expelled, put on trucks and removed; some were intentionally frightened into fleeing; still others fled, possibly unnecessarily. They were never allowed to return, save for a few, even if only to recover their belongings.
Being barred from returning was worse than the expulsion. It is what proved that the cleansing was intentional. Not a single Arab community remained between Jaffa and Gaza, and all the other areas are scarred with the remains of villages, the vestiges of life. That is ethnic cleansing — there’s no other term for it. More than 400 villages and towns were wiped off the face of the earth, their ruins covered over by Jewish communities, forests and lies. The truth was concealed from Israeli Jews and the descendants of the deportees were forbidden to commemorate them — neither monument nor gravestone, to paraphrase Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
The number of settlers now exceeds the number of expellees. They invaded a land that was not theirs, with the support of successive Israeli governments and the opposition of the entire world, and they knew that their enterprise was built on ice. They and the Israeli governments not only crudely violated international law, which earns no respect in Israel. They also broke Israeli law, with the support of a subjugated judiciary.
Land theft is even a violation of the law practiced in Israel and the territories. When Israelis, and the world, began to become accustomed to this situation, to accept it as inevitable, along comes the prime minister and takes his chutzpah up one more level: The settlers are actually victims. Not the ones they expelled, not the ones they disinherited of their land. In the reality according to Netanyahu, the settlements that were built for the purpose of precluding arrangements with the Palestinians are not an obstacle, and he equates them with the she’erit haplita — the remnants of the Palestinians that remained in Israel, to borrow a term from the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Language can be twisted to any use, propaganda to any moral perversion. Farewell, reality, you’re not relevant here anymore.
10 sept 2016
In a video message broadcasted on Friday, PM Netanyahu termed Palestinian calls for the complete removal of Jews from a future Palestinian state 'ethnic cleansing'; US State Department calls the comments 'inappropriate and unhelpful.'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said the Palestinians wanted to form a state devoid of a Jewish population and termed it "ethnic cleansing", drawing sharp criticism from the United States.
In a video message, Netanyahu said in reference to the removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, "The Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews. There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has stated that a future Palestinian state would not permit a single Israeli settler to live within its borders.
After viewing the video clip that was circulated on social media, US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said at a briefing in Washington that the Israeli leader's words were "inappropriate and unhelpful."
"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.
Most countries view Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel rejects this, saying Jews have been living in the territory for thousands of years.
Trudeau added in her briefing that the United States feels the settlement policy raises "real questions about Israel's long-term intentions in the West Bank."
Last week, after Israel approved the building of 284 new housing units in West Bank settlements, the United States said the policies could expand settlements in a "potentially unlimited way."
US officials said the criticism from the US State Department marked the first time it has suggested in public that Israel may be moving towards unlimited settlement expansion on land the Palestinians seek for their state.
The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the latest language was unusually strong but reflected a change in tone rather than any major shift in US policy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said the Palestinians wanted to form a state devoid of a Jewish population and termed it "ethnic cleansing", drawing sharp criticism from the United States.
In a video message, Netanyahu said in reference to the removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, "The Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews. There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has stated that a future Palestinian state would not permit a single Israeli settler to live within its borders.
After viewing the video clip that was circulated on social media, US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said at a briefing in Washington that the Israeli leader's words were "inappropriate and unhelpful."
"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.
Most countries view Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel rejects this, saying Jews have been living in the territory for thousands of years.
Trudeau added in her briefing that the United States feels the settlement policy raises "real questions about Israel's long-term intentions in the West Bank."
Last week, after Israel approved the building of 284 new housing units in West Bank settlements, the United States said the policies could expand settlements in a "potentially unlimited way."
US officials said the criticism from the US State Department marked the first time it has suggested in public that Israel may be moving towards unlimited settlement expansion on land the Palestinians seek for their state.
The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the latest language was unusually strong but reflected a change in tone rather than any major shift in US policy.
9 sept 2016
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Today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted another of his English language videos about the conflict. This one said that those who want to create a Palestinian state are seeking “ethnic cleansing” of Jews from the occupied territories, and some enlightened countries are supporting this program.
Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a state with one precondition: No Jews. There’s a phrase for that, it’s called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous… Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage. Ask yourself this, would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state, a territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks? Since when is bigotry a peace?… I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. |
And the State Department was quick to slam the prime minister today, and it included descriptions of the actual ethnic cleansing, that of Palestinians. Shades of a new assertiveness by the Obama administration in its waning days?
MS [Elisabeth] TRUDEAU: So we have seen the Israeli prime minister’s video. We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.
Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties. We share the view of every past U.S. administration and the strong consensus of the international community that ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution.
We have repeatedly expressed our strong concerns that trends on the ground continue to move in the opposite direction. Let’s be clear: The undisputed fact is that already this year, thousands of settlement units have been advanced for Israelis in the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units have been retroactively legalized, more West Bank land has been seized for exclusive Israeli use, and there has been a dramatic escalation of demolitions resulting in over 700 Palestinian structures destroyed, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
As we’ve said many times before, this does raise real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.
QUESTION: So you’re not a big fan of the video, I take it?
MS TRUDEAU: Correct.
QUESTION: So have you made your – not you personally, but has the Administration made its feelings clear to – other than your comments just now to the Israelis?
MS TRUDEAU: Yes. We are engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli Government on this.
QUESTION: And I mean, is there anything that you can do? I mean, he said this; he apparently believes it and it’s a pretty strong sentiment. You – even though disagree with it, I mean, what have you asked him to do? I mean, have you asked him to walk it back at all or --
MS TRUDEAU: I’m not going to get into our diplomatic discussions. What I would say is: unhelpful, it’s inappropriate. We’ll have our conversation with our Israeli allies and friends and we’ll see where that goes….
Notice the reference to Israeli house demolitions and displacement of 1000 Palestinians. That’s a start.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Scott Roth, who tweeted: “@IsraeliPM are you a serious person? All evidence suggests you’re not.”
MS [Elisabeth] TRUDEAU: So we have seen the Israeli prime minister’s video. We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.
Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties. We share the view of every past U.S. administration and the strong consensus of the international community that ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution.
We have repeatedly expressed our strong concerns that trends on the ground continue to move in the opposite direction. Let’s be clear: The undisputed fact is that already this year, thousands of settlement units have been advanced for Israelis in the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units have been retroactively legalized, more West Bank land has been seized for exclusive Israeli use, and there has been a dramatic escalation of demolitions resulting in over 700 Palestinian structures destroyed, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
As we’ve said many times before, this does raise real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.
QUESTION: So you’re not a big fan of the video, I take it?
MS TRUDEAU: Correct.
QUESTION: So have you made your – not you personally, but has the Administration made its feelings clear to – other than your comments just now to the Israelis?
MS TRUDEAU: Yes. We are engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli Government on this.
QUESTION: And I mean, is there anything that you can do? I mean, he said this; he apparently believes it and it’s a pretty strong sentiment. You – even though disagree with it, I mean, what have you asked him to do? I mean, have you asked him to walk it back at all or --
MS TRUDEAU: I’m not going to get into our diplomatic discussions. What I would say is: unhelpful, it’s inappropriate. We’ll have our conversation with our Israeli allies and friends and we’ll see where that goes….
Notice the reference to Israeli house demolitions and displacement of 1000 Palestinians. That’s a start.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Scott Roth, who tweeted: “@IsraeliPM are you a serious person? All evidence suggests you’re not.”
21 june 2016
It seems that we are standing in front an intensified zionist strategy to poison the wells of the Palestinians to commit genocide against them and force them out again from their homes and villages, like what they have already done for long as it was explained by the jewish historian Ilan Pappe.
This is not a new zionist technique but they have been using it since the inception of the zionist state as a mean to kill and ethnically cleanse the natives, as the zionists were the first to introduce and use the chemical weapons in the Middle East .In May 1948 the Zionist gangs besieged the well-fortified Palestinian city of Acre, which could stand the siege for a long time.
The city water supply came from a nearby village name Kabri through an aqueduct. To shorten the siege and to enter the city, the Zionist gangs injected typhoid in the aqueduct. Many Palestinians and some 55 British soldiers, who were in the city, got infected. This crime was called operation “Shlach Lachmecha” as described by the Israeli military historian Urin Milstein [Wendy Barnaby’s “The Plague Makers: The Secret World of Biological Warfare”, London, Vision Paperbacks, 1997, pp 114-116]
During the Ethnic cleansing of Palestine 1947-1948, this technique of poisoning the wells was used in different villages in Palestine- which was documented by both the International Red Cross and the British Mandate authorities- in a systematic way to cause panic and force the Palestinians out of their villages for the zionist settlers.
This was not the only case……….. on the 6th May of the same year, many cases of typhoid erupted suddenly in the area. The British Army and Red Cross medics found 70 cases of the disease. It was clear that the disease was coming from the water source and was not being caused by poor sanitation, as the Israelis claimed. A week before the British left Palestine, the British Mandate Authorities instructed the Arab residents of Israel to drink water only from the city’s wells. They started to chlorinate the aqueduct. The Zionists’ claim that poor sanitation caused the epidemic was dismissed when 55 British soldiers were also infected and rushed to the Royal Hospital in Port Said Egypt….
This didnt happen only during the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947-8, but it followed for long after that. As an integral part of the ethnic cleansing process, the zionists used to raze the native villages and poison the wells to prevent any expelled native from coming back as an Israeli historian explained:
Israeli military historian, Uri Milstein, eclaims that during this period, “in many conquered Arab villages, the water supply was poisoned to prevent the inhabitants from coming back.” According to Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that occurred in the Palestinian village Acre before it fell to Jewish terrorists was a deliberate biological attack and not just a coincidence of war.
However, the criminal zionists continued, and are still continuing their criminality while the world is turning a blind eye, hoping for the beast to be tamed.
Sara Leibovitz-Dar is a persistent investigative journalist. The trauma experienced by her parents in their native Lithuania left an indelible mark on her. She abhorred injustice and, particularly, the meek acceptance of it. She investigated the Gaza and Acre poisoning and shooting down of the civilian Libyan aircraft. The Israeli military historian, Uri Milstein, identified for her the names of the officers responsible for biological crimes.
In the recent years, the zionist settlers have repeatedly poisoned the wells of the Palestinian villages in reported news killing hundreds of goats, sheep and cows where the the Palestinians herd their cattle, and the surprise is that none of the zionist settlers was arrested or accused in any crime.
This is not a new zionist technique but they have been using it since the inception of the zionist state as a mean to kill and ethnically cleanse the natives, as the zionists were the first to introduce and use the chemical weapons in the Middle East .In May 1948 the Zionist gangs besieged the well-fortified Palestinian city of Acre, which could stand the siege for a long time.
The city water supply came from a nearby village name Kabri through an aqueduct. To shorten the siege and to enter the city, the Zionist gangs injected typhoid in the aqueduct. Many Palestinians and some 55 British soldiers, who were in the city, got infected. This crime was called operation “Shlach Lachmecha” as described by the Israeli military historian Urin Milstein [Wendy Barnaby’s “The Plague Makers: The Secret World of Biological Warfare”, London, Vision Paperbacks, 1997, pp 114-116]
During the Ethnic cleansing of Palestine 1947-1948, this technique of poisoning the wells was used in different villages in Palestine- which was documented by both the International Red Cross and the British Mandate authorities- in a systematic way to cause panic and force the Palestinians out of their villages for the zionist settlers.
This was not the only case……….. on the 6th May of the same year, many cases of typhoid erupted suddenly in the area. The British Army and Red Cross medics found 70 cases of the disease. It was clear that the disease was coming from the water source and was not being caused by poor sanitation, as the Israelis claimed. A week before the British left Palestine, the British Mandate Authorities instructed the Arab residents of Israel to drink water only from the city’s wells. They started to chlorinate the aqueduct. The Zionists’ claim that poor sanitation caused the epidemic was dismissed when 55 British soldiers were also infected and rushed to the Royal Hospital in Port Said Egypt….
This didnt happen only during the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947-8, but it followed for long after that. As an integral part of the ethnic cleansing process, the zionists used to raze the native villages and poison the wells to prevent any expelled native from coming back as an Israeli historian explained:
Israeli military historian, Uri Milstein, eclaims that during this period, “in many conquered Arab villages, the water supply was poisoned to prevent the inhabitants from coming back.” According to Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that occurred in the Palestinian village Acre before it fell to Jewish terrorists was a deliberate biological attack and not just a coincidence of war.
However, the criminal zionists continued, and are still continuing their criminality while the world is turning a blind eye, hoping for the beast to be tamed.
Sara Leibovitz-Dar is a persistent investigative journalist. The trauma experienced by her parents in their native Lithuania left an indelible mark on her. She abhorred injustice and, particularly, the meek acceptance of it. She investigated the Gaza and Acre poisoning and shooting down of the civilian Libyan aircraft. The Israeli military historian, Uri Milstein, identified for her the names of the officers responsible for biological crimes.
In the recent years, the zionist settlers have repeatedly poisoned the wells of the Palestinian villages in reported news killing hundreds of goats, sheep and cows where the the Palestinians herd their cattle, and the surprise is that none of the zionist settlers was arrested or accused in any crime.
