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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: (Whose) Terrorism? (Also Reply to Bill and Oded)
Message-ID: <3@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 22:07:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.3
Posted: Fri Nov 15 22:07:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 15:14:12 EST
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 65


Summary: Just who are the Bad Guys? Lies, distortions or misunderstandings?
   
[ Reference Unknown] 
> The Jewish underground did engage in violence, but only against legitimate
> military targets including the British Army and various armed Arab groups.
> There were at most a few deviations from this policy on the part of small
> sub-groups.  These few cases (i.e. attacks on innocent bystanders) were
> strongly denounced by most of the underground and denied by those groups
> accused of them.  There was an explicit ideology, "tohar haneshek", i.e.
> "purity of arms", against targeting the innocent.

This is one way to distort history. I have been asked (I think) to give my own
distorted version of history concerning Israel (Right Oded?). So here it is. 
This should explain why I consider Israel to be militarily aggressive.
  
1. On January 5, 1948, the Semiramis hotel in the Arab district of Jerusalem
   was blown up. 23 people were killed - all civilians - including the Spanish
   Consul. Haganah (headed by Golda Meir), an arm of the Jewish agency (which
   was about to become the provisional government of Israel) claimed       
   responsibility.
2. On April 9, 1948, a combined force of 100 Irgun (headed by Menahem Begin),
   Stern (A jewish terrorist group) and haganah members attacked a small Arab
   village outside Jerusalem and killed 250 men, women and children, most of
   them *blown up with dynamite in their houses*. David Shaltiel, the Haganah
   commander in Jerusalem gave the permission to attack the village.
3. In the same year, another massacre of civilians happened at Dawaymeh,
   another Arab village. The Jewish soldiers also invaded and looted a
   christian convent at Tiberias. Both events were confirmed by the UN and
   the U.S. consulate.
4. On October 15, 1953, a "reprisal" action was carried out by an Israeli
   military unit of around 300 soldiers against the Jordanian village of
   Kibya (a border village in a demilitarized zone). Once again, 53 civilians
   were blown up using *heavy mortars, torpedoes, grenades and dynamite*. The
   attack was planned and executed by two men, both of whom later became
   *Ministers of Defence* of Israel: Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon. On October
   18, the U.S. State Department issued a formal statement describing the
   attack as "shocking" and confirmed publicly that aid to Israel had been
   *suspended*.
5. In February 1948, The American consul General in Jerusalem wrote to the
   State department. He noted that Jewish tactics included raiding Arab
   villages in strength and blowing up selected Arab *civilian* quarters. 
6. In June and July of '48, the U.S. consuls in Jerusalem and Haifa reported
   massive amounts of new arms and thousands of trained soldiers being flown
   in from Eastern Europe, the use of Arab prisoner-of-war labor, and forced
   movements of Arab civilian populations to allow repositioning of Haganah
   troops, all violations of the UN truce agreement and/or the Geneva
   Conventions.
7. In the same year, Israel was engaged in "systematic violations of the UN
   truce" including forward movement of Israeli troops from *agreed* truce
   positions, *continued* firing against Arab positions and organized
   violations of the UN arms embargo, according to the Secretary of State
   Marshall. 
     
These events can not be written off as actions by a small group of extremists.
They all involved people who either held or would later hold key positions in
the Israeli government. I am sure some people in the Israeli government
objected to these but the people responsible were powerful enough to get
away with all that and stay in power.
  
  Farzin Mokhtarian
   
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