Israeli soldier recounts the Nakba

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

From all the Arab villages, none were fighting. Almost no one. There were all sorts of groups from Gaza. They themselves were so poor, so miserable. They had no weapons, who gave them weapons ? They had weapons from the Ottoman era, perhaps.

The fleeing of the villagers began when we started to clean the tracks of the convoys. Then we started to expel the villagers…and finally they fled by themselves. They did not think they were fleeing for a long period. They did not think they would never return. And no one ever imagined that an entire nation would not come back. Yes ?

...

The land was not empty as I was told as a child. As children we were told all sorts of stories. The land was never empty. I know this because I lived with Arabs, I know it was not empty.

At that time I did not see anything wrong with what we were doing. I was brought up with it like everyone was brought up. And I fulfilled my duty with loyalty. If I was told to do things that I do not want to mention, I did them with no doubts at all, without thinking twice.

Now, I…Not now… It is already fifty-sixty years, that I am filled with regret. But, what’s done is done. It was done by given orders. And I will not go into, not things such as that… (Long pause.)

...

There was a battle and there was a slaughter.

...

No. I do not want to go there, let it go ! This…These…these are not matters to discuss. Why? Because I did it. Reason ? (Long pause.)

...

This is the first time in a history of thousands of years that these villagers are gone.

...some of them ran away. Some of them we expelled. We shot our guns and they fled to Gaza. We surrounded them from all directions, shot in the air or at them, and they ran away. They had nothing to defend. They knew they had to go to Gaza.

...

And this is how it went in Kaufaha. We surrounded the village and started shooting in the air and everyone started screaming, yes… and we drove them out. Women and children went to Gaza.

....

By the morning, there was nobody there. We burnt their houses, with the hay roofs.

....

The people that were in Gaza wanted to return to their villages. They would go there at nights, and do two things. There was a special kind of agriculture in the dunes north of Gaza where the grapevines needed to be tended. So they would go there at nights. They did not know they would never return. And we waited for them there. It was impossible to let them hang around there like that. And we would shoot and kill them. This was part of the horrible thing we did.

Only after I arrived to the north, I saw villages that I knew, all gone. After a few years, there were also bulldozers clearing the area, and trees were planted over.

...

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Gaza Christians long for days before Hamas cancelled Christmas

Since the Palestinian Authority left the Gaza Strip, festive celebrations and displays of crucifixes have become taboo

Christians in Gaza say they face intimidation and arrest over Christmas celebrations since Hamas took charge in 2007. Photograph: APAimages/Rex Features When the Latin patriarch came to Gaza's Holy Family church to celebrate Christmas mass last week, he instructed a full house of Catholic and Orthodox families to pray for reconciliation. As the archbishop, Fouad Twal, stood at the lectern in Gaza City, Fatah and Hamas leaders were meeting in Cairo attempting to mend differences that have divided the Palestinian factions for four years and rendered Gaza a besieged Islamist enclave.

Of the 1.5 million Palestinians now living in the Gaza Strip, fewer than 1,400 are Christian and those who can are leaving. The church hopes reconciliation will bring them back.

There hasn't been a Christmas tree in Gaza City's main square since Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007 and Christmas is no longer a public holiday.

Imad Jelda is an Orthodox Christian who runs a youth training centre in Gaza City. With unemployment hovering at 23%, he has seen young Christian men leave to study and work abroad in their droves. "People here do not celebrate Christmas anymore because they are nervous," Jelda said. "The youth in particular have a fear inside themselves."

Karam Qubrsi, 23, and his younger brother Peter, 21, are the eldest sons in one of Gaza's 55 remaining Catholic families. Both wear prominent wooden crucifixes. "Jesus tells me, 'if you can't carry my cross, you don't belong to me,'" Peter explained. It's a demonstration of faith that has caused him some trouble.

He describes being stopped in the street by a Hamas official who told him to remove the cross. "I told him it's not his business and that I wouldn't," Peter said. After being threatened with arrest he was eventually let go, but the incident scared him.

The brightly decorated tree in the Qubrsis' living room sits at odds with the sombre mood. Their sisters Rani, 29, and Mai, 27, left Gaza in 2007 when the 30-year-old manager of Gaza's Bible Society bookstore, where their husbands worked, was shot dead, having been accused by radical elements of proselytising. They now live in Bethlehem.

Their parents are currently in Israel where their mother is receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. Israel applies strict restrictions to Palestinians hoping to leave the Gaza Strip, meaning the brothers are unable to join them. A quota of 500 applicants will be given permission to enter the West Bank this Christmas but only people younger than 16 and older than 35 will be considered.

"Christmas for us means going to Bethlehem, being with family. This year we'll do nothing," Karam said.

The Qubrsi brothers hold out little hope for Gaza. They agree that life would be better for the Christians here if the Palestinian Authority were to return but they doubt any factional peace would last.

"Many people want the Palestinian Authority to come back just so they can take their revenge," Peter said.

"This is not a Christian environment. There are no good universities, there is no opportunity to work, no apartments to rent and so no way we can get married. We have no future here."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/23/gaza-christians-hamas-cancelled-christmas?newsfeed=true

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Funny how that works. It's a bad thing what these soldiers did in Palestine, but it's ok when some of those same soldiers where wearing a Soviet uniforms butchering Europeans.

Can anyone say "double standards" ?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

John Galt - once again, your post has nothing to do with the topic. Hamas did not even exist in 1948, so it is not a factor in the events of the Nakba.

However, since you seem to want to discuss Christmas in Gaza, I will start a topic on it and you can post this article there for comments.

Funny how that works. It's a bad thing what these soldiers did in Palestine, but it's ok when some of those same soldiers where wearing a Soviet uniforms butchering Europeans.

Can anyone say "double standards" ?

???

Who said that butchering Europeans was ok ?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

It is more interesting to know what were the reasons for this Nakba. Why, historically, they were never expelled, but we did expel them. All because of the Zionist ideology. This is very clear. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit from ? If the land is empty you inherit it from no one. The land was not empty....

Then we inherited it.

All of our commanders. They also did not know. The high level commanders were the ones to decide what to do and how.

Why did none of your friends see this ? Why only you with a few other individuals reached these conclusions, and the others did not ? I have no clear answer to that question. I’m afraid that the real answer is that we were praised so highly, so every person who was in the Palmach thought of himself as a hero, even though he did not see anyone in the war or fought in the war. There was an apotheosis of the Palmach people. The whole country did that. And they got drunk from that. I have no other explanation.

My whole worldview regarding what happened in the war changed completely. I saw that this was a deliberate deception of the Zionist movement. And they did it successfully - a major success.