Posted on 04/23/2002 12:34:43 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Media reports about the events in Jenin shifted focus from the battle to a number of damaged buildings hit during the fighting between the IDF and the Palestinians. Pictures of a crying woman or the sight of a Palestinian clearing his belongings from underneath the rubble were the order of the day. Many media outlets, especially European, and predominantly British, were quick to pass judgment acting as judge, jury and executioner of Israeli morals.
The character of the European assertions is not surprising to many Israelis and their friends who are aware of European anti-Semitism lurking in the dark and waiting for an opportunity to raise its ugly head.
British collective memory is short when it comes to Jenin. Between 1918 and 1948, Britain was the appointed guardian of Palestine, committed to fulfill the 1917 Balfour Declaration to help establish a Jewish homeland. The British, whose colonial history is full of examples of the use of brute force, set out to remind the world of "Israeli atrocities" while tiptoeing around its own history, including British reprisals against Jenin during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt.
It was Jenin more than any other Palestinian city that was punished by the British military and was the site of major British reprisals in response to attacks against British interests in the Middle East. British commanders of the day did not hesitate to bomb Jenin from the air, to destroy buildings, whole streets, and to hit hard the civilian population.
British actions, and especially their peripheral punishment tactic, are well-documented and show, among others, the use of Palestinians as "human shields" in order to protect troops and police, occasionally using the tactic of preventing the blowing up of railway lines by forcing civilian Arabs to stand on the front of the moving engine.
Some of the tactics were undoubtedly war crimes and are worthy of criminal charges even today. Trying to understand British actions then and now may lead to the conclusion that the "mother of modern democracy" has a strong latent anti-Semitic drive.
A.J. Sherman, a scholar living in Vermont, published in 1997 his book "Mandate Days – British Lives in Palestine 1918-1948" (Thames and Hudson). The book quotes many British officials and others who lived in Palestine, and it opens a window to the hearts and minds of Britons who observed the events in that country.
The book is not a study of British attitudes but rather personal descriptions of the events. The reader may discover many "hidden mine fields" similar to the politically correct attitude of such British newspapers as The Independent, which does not accuse the Jewish people of deliberate atrocities against the Palestinians but at the same time opens the door to those who would like to paint the Arab-Israeli conflict with anti-Semitic colors.
Harsh criticism of the Jews in Palestine was born almost immediately following World War I when British administration officials were recruited mainly from the colonies and were thrust into the reality of the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, growing to favor the Arabs who fitted the concept of "master vs. natives" relationships. The Jewish cause was supported only by a small number of English officials and officers, especially from among those who walked through the country carrying a Bible.
The English, as mentioned by Sherman, said that "Jews, whether of oriental or European origin, known personally or not, were uneasily felt to be less malleable altogether, certainly less amendable to British charm or moral leadership than the Arabs ... whether perceived in ancient archetypal guise as deniers of Christ, clannish and ruthless wanderers, or exotic wielders of vast international power as financiers, revolutionaries or both. The Jews seemed to most British observers more threatening and altogether less appealing than their Semitic cousins. ..." The British preferred to look for the image of the "proud Arab warrior" or the Hollywood double of Rudolf Valentino carrying a damsel in distress to his tent, beautiful belly dancers and Lawrence riding into battle at the head of a Bedouin band.
The animosity toward the Jewish community by the British increased following World War II and turned into open hostility, especially when Jewish underground organizations, outraged by the British attitude towards the Zionist dream, dared to declare war on Albion and managed time and again to hit the British establishment, including the use of terror tactics, such as the bombing (in 1947) of the Mandate government offices in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
The reaction of British generals was not just cruel in its peripheral tactic, which included major curfews, confiscation of properties, closing the gates of Palestine to Jewish immigration, and harsh sentences by military tribunals, including death penalties, but also through expressions which were a clear indication of the socio-cultural background of high-ranking British officials. The British commander, Lt. Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, reacted to the bombing of the King David Hotel by issuing his infamous non-fraternization order to British troops, forbidding them to have "social intercourse with any Jew." In order to punish the Jews "in a way the race dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt to them."
Britain also expressed its anti-Jewish criticism through some of its top politicians, and during the last years of the Mandate, when a Labor government ruled the empire, they continued to turn a deaf ear to worldwide pleas to let Holocaust survivors enter Palestine. When President Harry Truman asked Whitehall to allow 100,000 refugees into Palestine, the British minister of foreign affairs, Ernest Bevin, stood up in Parliament and said, "The United States wished to see 100,000 in Palestine because they did not want to see too many Jews in New York."
Britain tries time and again to belong to those who criticize Israel without hesitating to find ways to continue Bevin's policies in favor of the Arabs. These days, it is shocking to find that while the free world continues to fight terrorism and the British air force takes part in air raids and military operations in Afghanistan, some of them with dire results for civilians, two years after the end of the massive bombardment of the Balkans and more than 10 years after the heavy air raids on Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, British media continue to focus on parts of a Jenin block which was the site of heavy fighting between the IDF and terrorists.
Britain is a leading member of the vocal European orchestra accusing Israel with all sorts of crimes and by doing so is relentlessly trying to convince the United States to join the music. Britain is not alone. This orchestra of shame includes France, which continues to maintain colonies, a country which is deaf to the Holocaust proportion of ongoing massacres in its former colony Algeria; Belgium, whose long rule in parts of Africa was not necessarily conducted with kid gloves; the Netherlands, whose troops were extremely brutal trying to curb Indonesian resistance; Spain, with a long history of brutal colonialism, Fascism and major atrocities towards Jews; and of course Germany, which does not need any description for her part in writing some of the darkest pages of history.
The anti-Israeli drive is not just evil but also dangerous because it makes room for a more anti-Semitic attitude toward Israel and the Jews worldwide and encourages the use of terrorism. The reality is that Israel, a regional power, manages to do more against violence and with less peripheral damage than the British ever did. The Palestinians actually should be grateful that Israelis did not learn from the British or the French models of how to deal with terror and rebellion.
Quote of the Day by clintonh8r, SoDak, Still Thinking, Brett66, & Russ 4/23/02
This being the most poignant part of the whole article. It's not so much the mandatory period that matters in the moral equation, because it's a whole new generation of leaders. But the same leaders and people and parties that wrecked Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia with relentless prolongued bombing campaigns are condemning limited hand to hand combat actions against heavily armed and fortified combatants in a very small (100 sqaure meters?) area. They just have no standing to criticize it given the circumstances.
I also fail to see how occupation is the source of the fighting. It is not. The fighting had been going on long before Israel was even created. Resultion 181 should have been considered as fair back in 1948, as it did respect the indiginous population by creating for them a state of their own. It was rejected by the leaders who would not compromise or accept the fact that the partition that became Israel was majority Jewish populated at that time.
To have justice, the Arab states will have to accept resolution 181. All subsequent violence is the result of their initial rejection of the first UN resolution. You simply cannot reverse cause and effect and expect to come up with a just solution. First things first, and the first thing is the acceptance of a Jewish state right where it sits, now.
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