{"id":3733,"date":"2016-10-28T22:39:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-01-01T01:14:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T23:14:51","slug":"the-almighty-military-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2016\/10\/the-almighty-military-order\/","title":{"rendered":"The Almighty Military Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Forty-eight civilians, 1 fetus and 10 pennies<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Photographs of the victims
\nare displayed at the Kafr Qassem Massacre Museum. (Photo credit: Dylan Collins)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If your Palestinian neighbors and friends seem slightly on edge today, please excuse them. <\/span><\/p>\n

October 29th brings back horrific memories to Palestinians everywhere, young and old. It was 60 years ago today that a scene of cold-blooded murder fell upon the hill-top Palestinian village of Kafr Qassem<\/span> (also written Kfar Kassim), located in Israel about 20 km east of Tel Aviv, near the Green Line (1949 Armistice Agreement\u2019s demarcation line) separating Israel and the West Bank. It was in Kafr Qassem<\/span> on this day in 1956 where the Israeli military literally mowed down in cold blood 48 innocent civilians, one being a pregnant woman whose fetus is counted as the 49th victim. It was said that all of this was done in the service of the almighty Israeli \u201cmilitary order,\u201d which no one dared to challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sixty years is a long time to
\nmourn a death, even a cold-blooded murder. It is even longer when you must live
\namong those, and under the system of those, who murdered your
\nloved ones. Had this been merely an isolated incident of the Israeli military
\nmachine killing Palestinians, one may have already regulated it to the history
\nbooks. But it was and is not. <\/span><\/p>\n

There were other massacres prior to Kafr Qasssem, such as the case of Deir Yassin in 1948. Since that dark day in Kafr Qassem<\/span> there have been numerous
\nother incidents, too many to list. One that comes to mind is 13-year old Iman
\nal-Homs who, in October 2004, was walking home from school in Gaza <\/span>when an Israeli soldier emptied his magazine into her<\/span><\/a> after she was wounded and lay on the ground. The
\nsoldier was caught on radio communications saying he was \u201cconfirming the kill.\u201d
\nThe most recent example that comes to mind is the <\/span>Israeli soldier caught on camera<\/span><\/a> in Hebron this past March as he executed a wounded and
\nimmobilized Palestinian man lying on the ground by firing a bullet into his
\nhead as his fellow soldiers casually watched on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike today, decades ago
\nIsrael did undertake more serious investigations of actions of its military.
\nThis is not to say that justice was ever served\u2014it rarely is. Such a landmark
\ninvestigation was the Israeli Kahan Commission, established by the Israeli
\ngovernment on September 28, 1982, to investigate the Sabra and Shatila massacre
\n(September 16\u201318, 1982) where 1,000-3,000 (exact number is disputed)
\nPalestinians were slaughtered over three days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kahan Commission was chaired
\nby the Israeli President of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahan. Its other two
\nmembers were Israeli Supreme Court Judge Aharon Barak and Major general (res.)
\nYona Efrat. The Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was found to bear
\npersonal responsibility. Sharon’s negligence in protecting the civilian
\npopulation of Beirut, which had come under Israeli control, resulted in a recommendation
\nthat Sharon be dismissed as Defense Minister. Although Sharon grudgingly resigned
\nas Defense Minister, he remained in the Cabinet as a Minister without
\nPortfolio. Years later, Sharon would be elected Israel’s Prime Minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to Kafr Qassem<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Israeli English
\nnewspaper, Haaretz, reported in a story by correspondent Ofer Aderet (60 years after massacre, Kafr Qasem doesn\u2019t want an apology from the Israeli government<\/em><\/a>, October 28, 2016) that, \u201cIn the 60 years since the [Kafr Qasem]
\ncarnage Israel\u2019s attitude has been complicated. Those involved in it were court
\nmartialed, convicted and some sentenced at first to long prison terms [these
\n\u201clong terms\u201d were less than what the law stipulated for premeditated murder]. [Israeli]
\nJudge Benjamin Halevy coined the phrase \u201ca blatantly illegal order\u201d in his
\nverdict. The instruction to Israel Defense Forces soldiers that they are
\nobliged to refuse an order \u201cthat has a black flag flying over it\u201d has become
\npart of the Kafr Qasem legacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Haaretz story goes on,
\n\u201cBut the convicted parties\u2019 sentence was soon commuted by the chief of staff,
\nthey were pardoned by the president and released from jail. The most senior
\ndefendant, Col. Issachar Shadmi, commander of the brigade in charge of the
\narea, was sentenced to a symbolic fine of 10 pennies for exceeding authority.
\nMajor Shmuel Malinki, commander of the Border Patrol battalion, testified at
\nthe trial that Shadmi had ordered him to enforce the curfew with gunshots.
\nAsked what would happen to those who return to the village after the curfew,
\nKedmi said Shadmi had said \u201cmay God have mercy on their soul.\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And maybe most shocking of
\nall coming from an Israeli newspaper is that, \u201cThe comparison between the Kafr
\nQasem massacre and the Holocaust was first made at the trial, when the [Israeli]
\njudge asked one of the defendants if he would have justified a Nazi soldier who
\nwas obeying orders.\u201d The Haaretz correspondent continues, \u201cIn 1986, 30 years
\nafter the massacre, Shalom Ofer, one of the convicted soldiers, said in an
\ninterview to Ha\u2019ir: \u201cWe were like the Germans. They stopped trucks, took the
\nJews off and shot them. What we did is the same. We were obeying orders like a
\nGerman soldier during the war, when he was ordered to slaughter Jews.\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Many, especially those in the
\nJewish community in Israel and abroad, will rightfully find the above words
\nhard to swallow. I don\u2019t blame them. This horrendous act was revolting and when
\nundertaken in \u201cyour\u201d name it makes one sick to their stomach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aderet’s article offers but a glimpse into the legal proceedings surrounding Kafr
\nQassem<\/span>. One of the first people to document those<\/span>
\nproceedings was <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>attorney Sabri Jiryis in his <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>landmark book,<\/span> The Arabs in Israel<\/em>, published in Haifa in Hebrew in 1966. <\/span> <\/span><\/span>A fuller account of the testimonies
\nrecorded by the Israeli commanders and soldiers who took part in this killing
\nspree can be found printed <\/span>here<\/span><\/a> [with the
\nauthor\u2019s permission] in English. Warning: it\u2019s a disturbing read. <\/span><\/p>\n

And this, my friends, is the
\nburied past and not so buried present, of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), \u201cthe
\nmost moral army in the world.\u201d It is imperative that we all redouble our
\nefforts to not make it its future as well, military order or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam Bahour is a policy adviser to <\/em>Al-Shabaka,
\nthe Palestinian Policy Network<\/a>; Chairman of <\/em>Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy<\/a>;
\nCo-editor of <\/em>HOMELAND:
\nOral History of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a> (Olive Branch Press). He
\nblogs at <\/em>www.epalestine.com<\/span><\/em><\/a>.
\n@SamBahour<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/bit.ly\/the-almighty-military-order<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty-eight civilians, 1 fetus and 10 pennies Photographs of the victims are displayed at the Kafr Qassem Massacre Museum. (Photo credit: Dylan Collins) If your Palestinian neighbors and friends seem slightly on edge today, please excuse them. October 29th brings back horrific memories to Palestinians everywhere, young and old. It was 60 years ago today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[96,438,439,190,440,441],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-3733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-96","tag-438","tag-israeli-defense-forces","tag-kafr-qassem","tag-kfar-kassim","tag-murder"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5611,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/5611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}