ISRAEL'S FOUNDING: MIRACLE OR LAND GRAB?
By Rev. Ted Pike
4 Aug 08
Recent articles in Israel's daily Ha'aretz sharply criticize
Israel's failure to effectively punish violence of Israeli settlers
against Palestinians.
Ha'aretz says of Jewish settlers that "the coexistence approach
often seems to make way for violent struggle that aims to deprive
the Palestinians of their land." Jewish settlers "openly
discuss their intention of making the lives of Arab residents a
misery and pushing them out…" Israeli media has reported
a number of violent attacks by settlers on Palestinians this spring. Yet
Ha'aretz complains, "Even those that are heard by a court
usually end in acquittal or a light sentence."
The Israeli human
rights group Yesh Din "argues that police in the West
Bank have failed in completing investigations on suspected attacks
against Palestinians there." "The weak arm [of the law]
avoids enforcing laws on Israelis living in the West Bank, causing
the State of Israel to violate its ethical and international obligations
vis-à-vis the population under our control."
Historic Injustice
Is such official injustice toward Palestinians a recent phenomenon
in Israel? Hardly. Israel was birthed through terrorizing
and expelling Palestinians from their ancestral lands.
Of course, Israel denies it expelled the Palestinians. They
say the 800,000 indigenous Palestinians who fled Israel
during the 1948 Arab-Israel war deserved to lose their properties;
they were disloyal to the emerging State of Israel, defecting to
Israel's Arab enemies at a crucial, vulnerable moment in Israel's struggle for nationhood.
Israel says that the Palestinians eagerly obeyed when Arab generals
urged the Palestinians to vacate Israel so that the Jews could be
slaughtered and driven into the sea. Such refugees, Israel alleges,
were confident the conquering Arabs would return their land and property
-- and more, once the Zionist experiment in Palestine was destroyed. Considering
such alleged treachery, to this moment Israel remains adamant that
no property of refugees who fled in 1948 will be returned to them.
What Really Happened
Let's turn from propaganda to reality. Here's what really happened
in 1948.
In his book The Revolt, 1 former Prime Minister
Menachem Begin, then head of the Zionist terror organization Irgun,
recounts how Irgun fighters attacked the small Arab town of Deir
Yassin east of Jerusalem on April 9, 1948. Begin ridicules
the "Arab
hysteria" that says Irgun massacred its inhabitants. Yet the
International Red Cross was on the scene, even as the butchery continued,
counting the maimed and dismembered corpses of 250 men, women, and
children. Their representative counted 150 bodies stuffed inside
a well. The Encyclopedia of the Palestine
Problem 2 says, "Of
those 250 people, 25 pregnant women were bayoneted in their abdomens
while still alive. 52 children were maimed under the eyes of
their own mothers, and then they were slain and their heads cut off. Their
mothers were in turn massacred and their bodies mutilated." (p.271)
(See, Israel:
Founded on Terror)
Word of this atrocity quickly spread throughout Palestinian Arabs,
causing terrified awe and panic before the ferocity of Irgun. Irgun
trucks, mounted with loud-speakers, drove throughout Arab communities,
proclaiming in Arabic that if the inhabitants did not flee immediately
they would soon experience the same horrific fate. Irgun also
loaded trucks with the surviving Muslim women of Deir Yassin, parading
them naked through the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. 3 Such
humiliation and insult to Muslim morals and womanhood intensified
the searing effect of the massacre. It heightened the mystique that
Zionist terrorists were cruel and vindictive beyond imagination.
Begin Tells All -- Almost
Begin, mixing lies with reality, explains further: "The enemy
propaganda was designed to besmirch our name. In the result
it helped us. Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel." He
tells of strategic Arab towns, resistant to Irgun attacks, suddenly
evacuated. "In the rest of the country, too, the Arabs
began to flee in terror, even before they clashed with the Jewish
forces. Not what happened at Dir Yassin, but what was invented
about Dir Yassin, helped to carve the way to our decisive victories
on the battlefield. The legend of Dir Yassin helped us
in particular in the saving of Tiberius and conquest of Haifa." "Arab
headquarters at Ramallah broadcast a crude atrocity story, alleging
indiscriminate massacre by Irgun troops of about 240 men, women,
and children in Dir Yassin." 4
Begin confirms that indeed word of what happened at Deir Yassin
induced Arab commanders to instruct Palestinians to flee. But
it was not primarily to avoid the violence of Arab destruction of
Israel. At first, Arab leaders commanded Palestinians to stay
put. But as butchery by Zionists escalated, most acceded to
the fact that the Zionists were so capable of such unrestrained atrocities
and carnage that literally no Arab was safe in Palestine. A
large part of the purpose of the Arab invasion was not just to restore
Palestinians to their property but to insure that many more Deir
Yassins would not happen in the months ahead. In fact, in the six
months following Deir Yassin Zionist troops committed at least nine
more massacres against Palestinians, with the Arabs striking back
with two against Jews. 5
Begin concludes, "Arabs throughout the country, induced to
believe wild tales of "Irgun butchery," were seized with
limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight
soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede. Of
the about 800,000 Arabs who lived on the present territory of the
State of Israel, only some 165,000 are still there. The political
and economic significance of this development can hardly be overestimated." 6
Zionists Give Chase
Zionist forces, realizing a tremendous opportunity, used whatever
means necessary to persuade Arabs to join the stampede. The
Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem presents dozens of contemporary accounts,
largely from Israelis, describing the Zionist-induced panic of the
Arabs and resultant carnage. The preferred strategy was to
convince Palestinians that, in view of the present "national
emergency" posed by invading Arab armies, Israeli Arabs should
flee until hostilities subsided. They could then return to
their properties. Of course, this proved a lie. If that
stratagem failed, whole Palestinian towns were given the ultimatum
to flee immediately, taking only the clothes on their backs. Those
who delayed, or attempted to bring belongings, were shot.
Palestinian towns were bombed and strafed from the air. Leaflets
threatening massacre were dropped from airplanes. Arabs were
mowed down in the streets by machine gun fire. With
800,000 Arabs in flight, the surrounding Jewish population descended
on evacuated Arab towns, ransacking and looting their homes and businesses.
In fact, a small "new rich class" was established in Israel
as Jews actively bought, sold, and traded the wealth of hundreds
of Arab cities, towns, and villages. Meanwhile, many Zionist soldiers
robbed fleeing Arabs and raped Arab women. It was imperative to the
Zionists that Arab property was destroyed as much as possible, to
prevent them from returning. 7
With exodus of the majority of Arabs from Palestine, Begin says
the struggle to create a unified state of Israel was largely won. Twelve
cities or major towns and 830 small towns and villages were occupied
by Zionists. Most were soon bulldozed, replaced by modern Jewish
towns or kibbutzes. They were given Jewish names, their original
ones soon forgotten. 8 In the decades that followed, Israeli
propaganda encouraged the world to believe the original Arab towns
never existed. In fact, it says today that before the Israelis created
the towns now bearing Jewish names Palestine was empty, virtually
deserted land. It says that, untended and underdeveloped by a tiny
indolent Arab population, the many Jewish towns, collectives, orchards,
and fields in Israel are a testament to fulfillment of divine prophecy
that God would make Israel "blossom as the rose."
Who Gave Victory to Israel?
In defense of their Palestinian brethren, the Arab armies at first
prevailed over Zionist forces. But then, in what Zionists and evangelicals
describe as one of the very greatest miracles of divine intervention
on behalf of Israel, Zionists rallied and were able to repulse the
Arabs.
In reality, it was not God but Joseph Stalin who delivered Israel. (This was the same Stalin who, 15 years earlier, systematically
starved to death five million Ukrainian Kulaks. Their crime? They
wanted to grow vegetables in their backyards for themselves, not
collectives.) Stalin personally ordered the Skoda Works in communist
Czechoslovakia to send massive shipments of the latest arms, equipment,
and fighter planes to help Israel in her time of need. Such
military firepower, not the power of God or a righteous cause, empowered
Israel to prevail.
Most evangelicals believe that mass exodus of the Arabs, making
room for "God's chosen people" to dwell in their promised
land, plus Israel's victory over vastly outnumbering Arab armies,
are two of the greatest miracles of history, making possible Israel's prophesied rebirth as a nation. Zionists, both Jewish and evangelical,
believe these are undeniable proofs that God fought and still fights
for His people, as in the Old Testament. As a result, Christian
America should unflinchingly support Israel today, right or wrong.
We see, however, that Israel was founded by terror and the deviousness
of the most wicked men, not God. Her rebirth as a nation happened
not because of heaven-sent successes but as a result of something
very different:
What the Bible calls "lying wonders" of the last days
that "deceive, if possible, even the elect." 9
Endnotes:
1. The Revolt, Menachim Begin, Henry Schuman, NY, 1951
2. The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, Intercontinental
Books, 1991. This definitive work by Christian Palestinian lawyer
and diplomat Dr. Issa Nakhleh is available in most university libraries.
3. Ibid, p. 271
4. The Revolt, p. 164
5. Israeli historian Benny Morris chronicles massacres by
Jewish or Arab terrorists of at least 10 civilians or disarmed soldiers
in the months following Deir Yassin. Israel committed many more slaughters
of unarmed Palestinian townspeople but under the cover of a "military
operation."
A. Massacres of Arabs by Jews:
- Qalunya,
April 12, 1948 -- 14.
- Ein al Zeitun, May 3, 1948 -- 37 to 70.
- Abu Shusha, May 14, 1948
-- estimated at 60 to 70.
- Al-Kavri, May 21, 1948 -- undetermined.
- Al-Dawayima, October 29,
1948 -- 80 to 100.
- Sassaf, October 29, 1948 -- 50 to 70 (?).
- Saliha, October 30, 1948
-- 60 to 80.
- Hula, October 1948 -- 35 to 50.
- Arab al-Mawasi, November 2, 1948
-- 14.
B. Massacres of Jews
by Arabs:
- Hadassah medical convoy, April 13, 1948 -- 78 (Arabs claimed
the convoy actually carried arms and explosives).
- Kfar Etzion,
May 13, 1948 -- 50 to 120.
(Wikipedia, "List of
Massacres Committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War)
6. The Revolt, p. 164. In 1914, at the beginning of Zionist presence
in Palestine, the census showed there were 606,619 non-Jewish inhabitants
of Palestine. Contrary to Begin's figure of 800,000 non-Jews
in Palestine at the time of the Deir Yassin massacre, there were
an estimated 1,440,274.
7. The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, p.251-68
8. Ibid, p.234
9. 2 Thess. 2:9, Matt. 24:24
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
Let the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith teach you how they
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