Recently declassified transcriptions of the trial of soldiers who shot in 1956 fifty Palestinians from Israel, shattered the previously retained thesis of an isolated blunder.
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No one is aware of the Kfar Qasim massacre in Israel. The killing of 1956, during which some fifty Israeli Palestinians were killed by soldiers for having violated a curfew of which they were unaware, was even the subject of official apology from the Israeli authorities . It is engraved in the collective memory, as an indelible fault, of course, but an isolated crime, whose authors have been judged and punished.
But the publication, on July 27, of part of the 7,000 pages of transcription of the trial, in 1957, of eleven of the Israeli soldiers involved in the massacre, reveals another reality. The documents show that soldiers thought they should help the implementation of a forced transfer plan for Palestinians citizens of Israel from the center of the country towards the neighboring West Bank, then under Jordanian sovereignty. The plan, called “Hafarperet” (“La Taupe”, in Hebrew), was part of the Nakba, the forced exodus of 700,000 Palestinians to the creation of the State of Israel. It was finally abandoned, a few hours before the Kfar Qasim massacre.
“This killing was part of a project”
“For sixty-six years, Israel has lied, has been indignant Ibrahim Sarsur, former deputy for Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and ex-mayor of Kfar Qasim, whose twelve family members were killed in 1956. The massacre was not an error made by a few soldiers. The documents prove, without the shadow of a doubt, that this killing was part of a project, thought in depth by the greatest Israeli officials of the time ” , whose Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion.
During the 1957 trial, the question of whether “politics was to get rid of the Arabs”, the commander of the Israeli border guards in the sector, Chaïm Levy, replied that such an order was verbally given . “Having the curfew enforcement could he have helped to increase the desire to flee in connection with [the plan] taupe?”, Inquired the judge. “Yes,” said the commander. The instructions of his superior was clear: “It is desirable that there are some deaths.”
“The trend consisted in leaving a few dead in each village so that the next day, when the borders would be open, the Arabs divide into two groups: those who run away and those who remain. The latter would then act like sheep innocent, “said another soldier. The army made sure not to block the entrance to the village overlooking Jordan. He had also been planned to transfer residents inside Israel.
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