The Case of a Missing Children Part Seven: The Hidden Scandal

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June 2, 1998

An article appeared in “Yediot Acharonot”, an Israeli mainstream newspaper, on the 12th of November, 1985, which was written by Dr. Hertzel Rosenblum, who was then the Editor of the newspaper, before he died.

In this article, Dr. Rosenblum addressed the issue of the stolen children in Israel. However, as mentioned in previous articles, it is a common misconception that these crimes were committed only against members of the Yemenite Jewish community. This is evident in the article.

The article is titled “The Hidden Scandal”, and states the following:”We have grown tired of all the ‘Investigation Committees’ of ours. However, when you read of the shocking epopee of the immigrants of ‘The Magic Carpet’ [the operation to bring the Jewish Yemenites to Israel, during the first years of the existence of the State of Israel.], where at the time of their arrival in Israel, the immigration they had longed for, 500 of their babies, which they had brought with them, were stolen from them, and these disappeared into the darkness, as if swallowed by the ground – you cannot avoid demanding, with their devastated parents: ‘An investigation shall take place!’

“Because there is not an exceptional case here, but an organised crime, done by someone, or some people, that turned the immigration of these babies into a business, while they sold them for greed, and this is a deed that if it would happen elsewhere in the world, it would become an international scandal. For instance, a few tens of parents sold their children in Brazil, and see what a scandal has arisen due to that deed, and over there it has happened not with hundreds, but with tens, and not stealing, but miserable parents selling their own children. And here – a terrible silence!

“True: the scandal happened at a time when the country was fighting for its existence, and hundreds of problems it had to deal with were there, but even so – our silence in this terrible matter, that went on for a generation, has turned us into partners in the crime.

“Only with the Yemenite Jews – the quiet, modest and defenseless people – could anyone act like this.

“Any other immigrant community (the Russian, the Iraqi, the American) would organise a pogrom on us a long time ago, and rightfully so. But even the Yemenites – their heart bleeds until this very day for their children, that were stolen from them.

“And there is need to lend them a hand in finding their children – and the stealers of their children.”

According to the “Mishkan Ohalim” organization that turned to former Editor of “Yediot Acharonot”, after Dr. Rosenblum, Mr. Moshe Vardi, the son of Dr. Hertzel Rosenblum, and requested permission to publish this article, Vardi announced that under no circumstances would he allow it. He even forbade them to publish it in any other newspaper, or their own, and his secretary let them know that Vardi even said that, if they do publish it anywhere else, that his newspaper would sue them. Also, you will see that, besides the mistake made by stating that the crimes were committed against the Yemenite Jews only, Rosenblum was also misinformed as to the number of children stolen.

Moshe Vardi, on the 22nd of January, 1998, was “convicted of two counts of illegal audio surveillance” (“The Jerusalem Post”, January 23rd, 1998). According to “The Jerusalem Post”, an English language Israeli newspaper, the two former Yediot Editors that were convicted (Moshe Vardi and Ruth Ben-Ari, former news Editor of “Yediot Acharonot”) “… had listened to a recording of a phone call made from the house of Dov Yudkovsky, a shareholder and former editor-in-chief of Yediot. In another instance, they listened to the tape of a phone conversation between Arnon Mozes, one of Yediot’s editors and Ofer Nimrodi, one of the owners of Ma’Ariv.” (“Maariv” is another mainstream newspaper in Israel. Although “Yediot Acharonot” is the most widely circulated newspaper in Israel, Maariv is its number one competitor). Vardi has admitted to his crimes. He was quoted as saying: “… I listened [to the conversations], I admit. I was found guilty of listening to two recordings, punished and will pay the fine.”

It is not surprising that “Yediot Acharonot” did not publish many stories of children who could have been stolen, with a small number of exceptions. It at least did not publish as many as other newspapers, such as “HaAretz”, and “Yom LeYom”.

The “Yom LeYom” newspaper, for instance, gave personal stories of families who had their children disappear in mysterious ways. One of these stories is that of the Chief Rabbi of Bnei Brak, Rabbi Shlomo Korach. The article reports the detailed search Rabbi Korach and his family have been conducting, in search of his missing sister and niece, who, according to him, were kidnapped. Korach’s family arrived in Israel with substantial assets. They sent their money through London, and so were able to buy their house in Jerusalem, which cost, back then, one million Dollars. Korach was then a sixteen year old boy, and was sent to learn in the “Makor Haim” yeshiva. He tells the newspaper of his story, “My parents, Rabbi Ichia and Naama, may they rest in peace, died in sorrow for this story. They immigrated to Israel, and arrived in Rosh HaAyin in 1949, and the nurses pressured them to hand over their daughter, who was then only nine months old, so they could examine her in the baby ward. They did not want to part with their daughter… But they took her, almost forcefully, and said: ‘We will return her to you soon’. She was an especially beautiful baby. We have not seen her since. One day later, they told us she died. My parents asked, demanded and begged to see the grave. They were treated like rags.” His sister, Yona Hovera, living in Holon today, lost her daughter as well. She and her husband, Haim, came to Ein Shemer where the child, Masha, was taken from her mother to the baby ward. The article reports Yona saying: “One day, I arrived to nurse my daughter and they told me: ‘You can’t nurse her today. She has pneumonia’. I was very surprised, since the child was completely healthy, but they said she needs to be sent to the Pardes Hannah Hospital, for three days. I told them I will go consult my husband and will be right back. We lived about five meters away from the baby ward. Three minutes later, I arrived, with my husband, but they told us: ‘They already took her’.Three days later, a man arrived, announcing that Masha Hovera had died. My husband asked that they bury her. They told him: ‘You are her father? She has died. Sign here’. He said: ‘I’m not signing. I want to see a body and bury it’. They told him: ‘They buried her yesterday, along with another five children’. My husband was in shock. He asked: ‘Are we in Israel or in Germany’? He asked and begged to see the grave, and they did not let him. He said: ‘I am not signing, nor mourning’. Every day, I would go to the manager’s office, and beg that they show me where my daughter was buried. A few days later, they manager told me: ‘Go, there is a room downstairs, they will give you your child, but do not touch her. She will be given to you, wrapped up, and you return her to the grave’. I went, and saw a strange package, that didn’t look like a dead child to me. I felt I was being fooled. I said to myself, I’ll open it, maybe it’s a dead cat. I removed a rag, and another rag, until I reached the last one, and found nothing. Only rags. I started to cry: ‘Why did you give me rags?’, the manager told me: ‘We wanted to calm you down, we didn’t know you were so smart’….”

To this very day, they do not know of their child’s fate. The Ministry of Interior reported to them that the child is not listed as dead. The Population management reported that she left Israel in 1963, and the Welfare Department reported that there was no record found regarding adoption.

The article also reports an interesting twist to this story. Masha was named after an Israeli nurse that assisted the mother, in Yemen, during the birth, and loved the child very much. Members of the family suspect that this nurse, who lives in Savyon (a city, in the Tel Aviv area), has something to do with their child’s disappearance. According to Yona, the mother: “She would tell me ‘Don’t let anyone touch her!’ I did not understand why she was telling me what to do”. The article also reports that the nurse, who tried to delay their immigration to Israel, would come to = Israel once every two weeks. The family members found her address, and went to visit her. The nurse was showing them picture albums, when Yona found a picture of a child, looking much like Masha. She says “I asked her who that child was, and she told me it was her sister’s daughter, as she grabbed the album, and ran to a different room”.

The readers should remember that these are only the stories where the families were extra suspicious of the authorities, and were sure to check everything as thoroughly as possible. This happened mainly with the rich families that felt more “in control” in the camps. In most cases, the parents did not suspect anything because these people, that brought them to Israel, were the only people they could trust. It is commonly believed that most cases weren’t even reported, up to this very day.

Another interesting story reported in the same article tells the story of a Yosef Aharon Hammami, who has already passed away. Hammami came to Israel with two wives, Kadia and Mazal, and one child was taken from each. Hammami died over ten years ago. His wife, Mazal, tells the story of how her son was kidnapped. Hammami’s other wife has passed away by now. The family lived in Bet Dagon, when she was sent to give birth at the “Kaplan” Hospital.

“I gave birth in the morning, to a healthy child. My son weighed 2.5 kg, and the entire staff in the birth room, including Professor Cohen, congratulated me. They told me they would return him to me the next day, so I could nurse him. The next day, I waited to get my child returned to me, and the nurse there, who was named Leah, told me: ‘You can’t get your child, he’s in treatment, and don’t worry’. Two more days went by, all the time when I am begging to see my son, and suddenly, the nurse tells me, angrily these words, that I cannot forget: ‘You will never see him. He is in treatment’. I started to cry, and my blood pressure began rising. I asked her: ‘What do you mean ‘in treatment’? If he died, tell me he died’, as I saw they told other women that gave birth to dead children, and saw them, too. I wanted to see what treatment they were giving my son. But she did not let me, and kept on saying: ‘You will never see him. He is in treatment’. I thought I was going crazy, and she started to ‘calm me down’, by saying: ‘Calm down, calm down. You have two children at home. Raise your other children’.

“But me, I didn’t stop asking her: ‘If he’s dead, tell me he’s dead, but what is ‘in treatment’?’ And she ignored me, and again told me ‘in treatment’. I turned to her and said: ‘If someone would take your child, what would you do? Why do you cause me sorrow? If my son is alive, sick, or dead, I want to see him. Let me see my son, just for a moment’. And she answered me, again, ‘You will never see him, he is in treatment’. A few days later, a few doctors and a policeman arrived, and I saw them talking, and looking at me. I began to cry, I was in so much pain: ‘You sold my son to this cop!’. They told me: ‘You are speaking nonsense’. And I, every time I saw a baby, I would go crazy with sorrow, for my own child. A nurse came, and warned me: ‘Don’t talk back to the doctors. They can give you an injection and kill you’. I left the hospital, in great sorrow. Someone in the hospital told me to go to the health department, and complain. But we, what did we know? I would cry all the time. I couldn’t sleep. This is how two years of terrible depression passed… Afterwards, I gave birth to a dead child, and my husband attempted to comfort me, while saying: ‘You see, you can’t cry too much’. If this would happen to me today, I would fight. Maybe even take another child and not leave until they gave me mine, alive or dead.

“But then, we only cried. Up to this very day, I cannot forget my son. I saw him for only half an hour, after birth. And I feel he is alive. If a person is dead, you can forget about him. But a live person, you cannot forget. His soul remains. I was immediately calmed about my dead son, but in this case, I knew all along that he was alive. It haunted me for a great number of years. The Rabbis would tell me: ‘You are right. You cannot forget, but hold back your emotions, don’t show them’.”.

It appears that, in most such cases, this is exactly what thousands of parents have done… held their emotions back… not showing them. However, they never did forgot. They cannot.

The Case of a Missing Children Part Eight: Their Grief Still Remains

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 2, 1998

In Part Seven of this series, you read about Yosef Aharon Hammami and his two wives, and how one child was stolen from each. In the last part, you read about the son taken from his wife, Mazal. His other son was taken from his wife, Kadia, who has since passed away.

The story of the other son is told by Hammami’s daughter, Shosh Philo, living in Tel Aviv. She was quoted as saying: “I was four years old then, when my parents immigrated to Israel, and lived in the immigration camp in Znoach. The nurses found that my brother, who was almost a year old then, would suck two fingers in a ‘strange’ way: he would suck his middle and ring fingers, together, so they told us that they were taking him for treatment. He was sent far away, and they brought him to my parents, sometimes. They bandaged his fingers, so that he would get used to not sucking them that way.

“One day, they told us he had died. My parents could not understand how such a healthy child could just die, and they told them that, since he wanted to suck his fingers, but could not (because of the bandages), he suffered, and died… of course, they brought us no body, and no funeral.

“My parents were naive and could not believe they were being lied to. But a few years later, when the other cases became known, my mother would say sadly: ‘Too bad we were naive. If it would happen today, I would go with him, and stay by him all the time’.” This story, too, was reported in the “Yom LeYom” newspaper.

An interesting report appeared in the “Makor Rishon” newspaper of the 12th of December, 1997. In this report, the journalists Zeev Sharon, and Pini Ben-Or use recorded testimony of a man who was an ambulance driver back then, and has since passed away.

According to the report, there was a letter sent in 1953, by an attorney, Shlomo Perles, to the ambulance driver, who also reported he would drive an ambulance that took infants from a hospital, in the Tel Aviv area, to the WIZO institute, where they were given up for adoption.

The report also speaks of how the ambulance driver chose a child and adopted him. In the letter, Perles offers the driver an opportunity to join an endeavor he is working on, to acquire birth certificates from the government that do not mention the fact of a child’s adoption and look like normal birth certificates, and which would show the adoptive parents as the birth parents. The same article reports the story of Tova Barka, a resident of Tel Aviv, in which she reports that she was adopted at the age of three months and knew nothing of her adoption until she was twelve years old. She says that when she reached that age “… my aunt came to our house, and wanted to speak with me. And so, in the presence of my adopting parents, she told me I had been adopted. I was in shock.

“According to my adopting mother, my biological mother passed away, right after my birth, and they adopted me. I suppose that not even they knew the truth, and were probably told this story. A few years before her death, my adopting mother moved to a new home. While moving her belongings, I opened one of the bags, and found the court order referring to my adoption. It was issued when I was eight, and I found my birth certificate as well.” It was then that Barka realised that she was, in fact, according to the documentation, nonexistent for eight years. She continued, “My adopting mother, who did not deny the validity of the document, claimed she knew nothing about my biological parents, but she mentioned that she did know I was of Yemenite origin.

“When I was thirty eight years old, I decided to go to the ‘Sherut LeMaan Hayeled’ (“The Service in Favor of the Child”) building, on Ibn Gabirol St., in Tel Aviv, in hope of finding my origins, which were yet unknown to me. The social worker in the building [who’s name was not reported by “Makor Rishon”], gave me my mother’s biological name [also not reported], who was born, according to the social worker, in 1921, and immigrated to Israel in 1945. According to the social worker, the documents she was looking at show that my biological mother arrived in Israel with no possessions, no family, or relatives. The social worker also told me that the rest of the facts in the document were blurred, and she could not understand what was written. Afterwards, she said that the information was actually classified. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do or say. I tried calling her on the phone a few times to get her to search for more details. But she told me that she already told me all she knew.

Back then, after I found out I was an adopted child, I would cry during the nights… I very much wanted to know if I had any biological relatives, maybe even brothers or sisters. I didn’t want to upset my adopting parents, so I would only cry at nights, when I was alone. Up to this very day – this entire issue won’t give me rest. I want to know who I am, where I came from, who my family is, and what my roots are. I am already a grandmother, and still cry about this.”

According to Israeli law, an adopted person has the right to look at their personal file, in the presence of a social worker. The fact that so much of the information was classified is baffling, at the least.

Another horrifying story is that of Shlomo and Sarah Adani, who live in Immanuel. The story was told to Yehuda Israelov and Shmuel Amrani, of the “Yom LeYom” newspaper, by their daughter-in-law, Miriam Adani, from Bayit-Vagan, a neighborhood in Jerusalem.

“My mother-in-law, Sarah, arrived in Israel, with her baby daughter, Miriam, then eleven months old. Miriam was highly developed for her age. She was already saying ‘Mom’, and even walking a little.

“Sarah’s husband was not yet in Israel. She was taken to the Rosh HaAyin immigration camp, and they immediately took her baby from her.

“Miriam was still during nursing stage. They took the baby to the baby ward, in Tzriffin. Only once every three weeks did they take the mothers, in a truck, to see their babies, beyond glass, without even allowing any physical contact!

“Every once in a while, when the truck that took them arrived, they would announce the names of the children that died. One day, they announced that Miriam Adani had died. Sarah, the mother, tried to ask for details, and was told that they had buried the child, but showed her no grave.

“A few days later, her husband, Shlomo, arrived, and they tried to build their life anew, but the tragedy repeated itself, and even worse than before. Sarah gave birth to a healthy child, that weighed 4 kilograms, at his time of birth. Everyone congratulated her, and she started taking care of him, and even nursing him, after she gave birth.

“Not many hours passed, when the doctor arrived. He slapped the child’s mother strongly, and told her: ‘You are a bad girl. You suffocated your baby at the time of birth’. The exhausted mother was in shock: ‘I was nursing him only a few moments ago, he was healthy?’, but no one paid attention to her tears.

“Her husband, who was at the hospital that day, was in shock, as well. It was only that morning that they congratulated him, for the birth of his son, and what do they mean, to tell him he died at the time of birth? He asked to see the body, and they only told him: ‘We buried him’. On the same day!

“Every Sabbath and Holiday, for their entire lives, they mention the children that were stolen. My father-in-law has fought fiercely, to be sure his children receive a Jewish, religious education, and he is one of the few who were able to do it as well as he did, but he is in terrible pain for not knowing how his other children were raised.

Did they even circumcise his son? Was he raised as a Jew? The pain is too much to bear”.

The next story in the article is that of Nanjan Cahani, an immigrant from Persia, who recalls how her daughter, Leah, was stolen from her in the hospital in Haifa. Nanjan is certain her child is still alive.

It was only recently that the members of the family received a death certificate, written by hand, from the office of population records, in the Ministry of Interior. The article also mentions that the same office sent Leah’s sister, Mali, a document that states Leah ceased to be an Israeli citizen in July of 1963.

Nanjan, Leah’s mother, recalls a story from a whole new angle, where she was even offered an opportunity to sell her children.

After Nanjan immigrated from Persia, she gave birth to twins, a boy and girl, in the Rambam Hospital in Haifa. The son’s name is Shmuel, and Leah is the daughter, who was stolen. Immediately after the birth, according to Nanjan, the doctor asked to buy one of the children for a certain amount of money. She says that “The doctor told the nurses he would have more of a chance when asking for the daughter, since it seems I was more attached to Shmuel. When I refused, the doctor told me: ‘But, you have other children’.

A few days after I gave birth, I returned home with my twin children. Two weeks later, nurses from the hospital came to my home, and told me that they need to return Leah to the hospital because she has a bruise on her ankle, and if she dies it will be my own fault. My husband and I would go visit Leah in the hospital every day. One day, when I was ill, my husband went alone, only to be told that Leah had died. They refused to allow him to see her. I am convinced that Leah is still alive. I will continue to believe so, until the day I die, and will continue to hope that, someday, I will see her. The death certificate that they sent us now does not change a thing”.

It appears that many of the families who have suffered similar atrocities have exactly the same hopes and expectations… they want to see their lost family members. The men and women that they have not seen for decades, ever since they were infants. They want to meet them, to hear from them, to hear where life has taken them, where they grew up, what they do today… they want contact, however brief. The present situation makes that too much to ask, for most of the families. Their grief still remains.

The Case of a Missing Children Part Nine: Words of a Rabbi

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 2, 1998

As expected, different people reacted to this issue of stolen Jewish infants in the Land of Israel. One such reaction came from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menechem Mendel Shneerson, in his book, “Hitvaaduyot”, written around 1987-88.

To quote from his writings:
“On the matter of the kidnapping of children from their parents in order to educate them not in the way of the Torah.

“It is well known what happened thirty to forty years ago during the Aliyah [immigration] of children from Yemen and Teheran [Teheran, the capital of Iran. It seems that he, too, was unaware of the many different communities from which the children were stolen] to the Holy Land.

“Small children, who came with their parents to the Holy Land, were suddenly taken away from their parents, who were given strange and unfounded reasons for this, such as the need for medical treatment, and that their children were in bad shape. These explanations continued, until the parents were told that their children had died…. And all this for the simple reason that they (the authorities) did not want them to be educated by their parents, who kept Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), but wanted to educate them as they wished, in a way totally devoid of any connection with their Jewish heritage! For this purpose – children were stolen from their parents!!”

What Rabbi Shneerson wrote then was based on the fact that when many religious Jewish men and women immigrated to Israel, there were people in authority that thought that religion was not what the country needed in its first days. Certain actions were taken by these authorities, such as shaving the beards of new immigrants and cutting off their side curls. Not to mention all the Torah Scrolls, Holy Books, and many other possessions taken from the Jewish immigrants back then. Although this explanation is accepted by some, others do not accept this as a possible reason for the kidnapping of children, since so many of these children were sold abroad for profit.

Rabbi Schneerson continues:
“And who was at the time one of those in charge – a Jew who puts on Tefilin (phylacteries) [Another Religious Jewish custom] and prays three times a day, and who in his private life, observes Torah and Mitzvot!

And nevertheless, not only did he not prevent this from happening, he cooperated, and was even amongst those who were in charge of the people who committed this terrible crime!”

Here, Rabbi Shneerson was referring to Rabbi Dr. Issachar Dov Bernard Bergman, who we spoke of extensively in Part Five of this series of articles.

“And when people started an outcry, as to how this could possibly have happened, for it is an act that is the complete opposite of all that is just and right, and the complete opposite of humane behavior, they were told: ‘We saved them from death and gave them a new life, therefore it is as though these children belong to us….’

“And not only did they behave with the children as a man would behave with his “Canaanite servant” [In other words, a slave] who “belonged” to him, but even worse. They treated the children as an object that was their own private posession, that could, if they so wished, be burnt – where in this matter, the burning was of the children’s soul and not of their body, Heaven forbid. [What Rabbi Shneerson says here conflicts with reports of children that know they have been sold in this fashion, when they were children. In these reports, most of the people report that they were raised with love and care, as if they were the real children of their adopting parents].

“During that period, hundreds of small children disappeared without a trace, and until this very day, the parents do not know what was the fate of their children, and where they are today.”

Rabbi Shneerson mentions hundreds of children, although the number of such occurrences is now known to be in the thousands.

“Today, after thirty to forty years, it is still possible to trace these children, for the same offices that dealt with the children then have exact lists that contain the names of all the children, where they were sent to, etc. The trouble is that noone wants to give out the lists of the names of the children!”

As for the lists of the children’s names, not everyone accepts the idea that there are lists of the names of the original families of the children, as so many of them were said to be stolen without the kidnappers even caring who the original parents were. Why should they? It is also commonly believed that, considering all the forged and “confused” documents, there are no real documents. Also, there are those who believe that real documents did exist until Ami Chovav, the investigator mentioned in Part Six, “took care” of the records, as Chovav worked in the national archives, following his investigation. He was quoted in “Haaretz” as saying:

“After the Shalgi committee, all the material was in a mess. The committee finished its job, but none of the documents were catalogued in order, in the archives. The main archive manager asked me to organize all the material, of both investigation committees, in order for the archives. So I sat in the archives, and organized the material, until the order was given to hand the material over to the current (Cohen) committee”.

Of course, there are also those who believe that the documents do exist, some say in a certain safe, in Jerusalem. An article in the “Makor Rishon” newspaper, written by Journalist Pini Ben-Or, describes these suspicions.

To quote the article:
“In these days, when in many countries in the world adoption of children occurs, and adoption certificates are issued, there was no way found in Israel to try and help find children that have disappeared. Even the adopted people themselves are faced with many difficulties in finding their biological parents. Today, the belief is getting stronger that thousands of children disappeared, and were stolen from their parents in the first years of the existence of the State of Israel. ‘Makor Rishon’, which is following the stolen children issue, has checked on the other possibility. The best kept secret in the country – the safe of Mr. George Klein.

“George Klein is the manager of the archives, belonging to the Ministry of Interior, where appear the records of all the people that are removed from the population records: People who have died, been adopted, left the country, and so on.

“From one investigation protocol of George Klein, from the 16th of September, 1997, it is seen that, in his archives, there is a safe where all the adoption records, ever since the British Mandate in Israel, are kept.

“In his questioning in front of the committee for investigating the disappearance of these children, George Klein said that only he has access to the safe, which is located in a safety room. He received the adoption orders, as well as the original personal file of the adopted child, from the bureau of the Ministry of Interior. The material is placed in the safe, and the child receives a new birth certificate, where the names of the adopting parents are found.

According to Klein, he writes the original I.D. number of the child, in the adoption book.

“After writing the details, Klein has the information updated. The original birth certificate, along with the adoption certificate, are placed in an envelope, that is filed in the safe, in the safety room.

Anyone looking in the adoption book only sees the new details of the adopted person, but adding up the new details and what is written in the envelopes that contain the old details – will reveal who the adopted person is.

“The biggest secret is in the hands and safe of George Klein. Maybe there, an answer to the issue of the missing children can be found.”

Since that article was written, it has been rumored that the safe has been moved, although not everyone believes that. Again, it is commonly believed that records of which children went where do not even exist. Although, it is possible that details of a certain number of the missing children can be found there.

To return to the writings of Rabbi Shneerson:
“And the even greater trouble is – that noone gets up to speak of it!

“Lately, a few people have woken up and begun to ask for the lists of the children but unfortunately, this was but ‘the sound of the tune of defeat’, and nothing came of it.

“And not only this, but as always, there are those who immediately make a ‘mockery’ out of everything, and they made a mockery out of this request too!…. And we know that one should not talk with scoffers, and even not sit in their company, as king David said at the beginning of the Book of Psalms – ‘Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked…. Nor sat in the seat of the scornful.’ (Psalms 1:1) Our sages have already told us that a ‘Cult of Scoffers’ is one of the four cults that ‘do not receive the Divine Presence’.

“However, this claim also has no place in the discussion. For, although it might be very hard work, nevertheless, in no situation is one allowed to despair of a Jew, and noone can take the responsibility to say that, as far as so and so is concerned, nothing can be done to bring him closer to Torah and Judaism.”

Here again, it is evident that Rabbi Shneerson believed that these children were stolen to keep them away from Judaism, and Torah.

“And, in any case, as long as not everything possible is being done to correct the situation – it is as though the crime is continuously being committed! Obviously in this matter, doing Teshuvah (repentance) will not help – for Teshuvah is between man and his Master – and so above all, what must be done is to correct the injustice and the crime that was committed against both the children and their parents!

“After all this, if anyone thinks that they (the authorities), regret their past deeds, and certainly will not repeat them, God forbid, ‘Trouble shall not rise up the second time’ (as said in Nachum, 1:9), they are making a bitter mistake.

“Not only do they not show any remorse, and are not even trying to return the situation to its rightful state, but on the contrary – until this very day, they are repeating what they did (to the children stolen back then) with the children of Teheran [Iranian Jewish immigrants], and in a more acute way, and no one is standing up to be heard, and let the world know. And especially those who are meant to represent, so to speak, the demands of the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism – even they are sitting quietly and doing nothing at all!

“It is the holy obligation of anyone who has it in his powers to do whatever they can to prevent and to stop the stealing of children that is currently happening, and in addition, to try and correct what was done in the past.

“And those who cannot do anything, as far as this matter is concerned, should increase their activities in the field of education.

In other words, try and ensure that all Jewish children receive a Jewish education that is in the spirit of the Torah, and no effort should be spared (just as no effort is spared by those opposing the matter), for one is talking about Pikuach Nefashot (the saving of endangered lives)!

“To what can this be compared? To a man who sees a house burning – he surely will not spare any effort to try and save the people who are in the house. Not only that, but even if he is unsure if there is anyone in the house, he will knock on the blinds and the windows, etc., to check if there is anyone in the house, who can be saved. And the moral of the example is an endangered spiritual life.

“Remember: ‘And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death’ (Exodus, 21:16).

And his death, according to the Halachah [Jewish law, as set by the Rabbis… although there are many laws in Halachah, such as this, that are not enforced in these days], is by strangulation.”

This is what the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menacham Mendel Shneerson, has written about the issue of the stolen children. Apparently, Rabbi Shneerson, as well, knew what went on. According to him and others, such things are still happening, although, as many say, on a much smaller scale.

Yechiel A. Mann,
Eshhar, Israel.
e-mail: yam@netvision.net.il

Head of Fatah Youth, Hakim Awad, on Weapons Training

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 26, 1998

IMRA interviewed Hakim Awad, the head of Fatah Youth in the West Bank and Gaza, in Hebrew and English, on May 24:

IMRA: It was reported that last Thursday a group of Fatah Youth completed a two week course in weapons training and combat technique. Was this a one time course or will there be more.

Awad: You have made a big thing out of this. This was one course. It was normal. Nothing dangerous. Like you talk about summer camp or youth camp. Normal exercises. Maybe there is a second or third course.

You have to understand that it is a normal thing. Its an ordinary youth activity.

IMRA: Learning how to shoot guns.

Awad: It is an ordinary activity. There are exercises with weapons but you can’t call it a program. You have to know that all the time there is talk for the Israeli side ‘we want to go into Gaza and the West Bank and if the Palestinians don’t do what we want.’ All the time the Israelis are talking about attacking the West Bank and Gaza.

You have to know that as the Palestinian youth we are defending the peace. the just peace. And as the leader of Fatah youth in the West Bank and Gaza I have attended hundreds of meetings with Israel’s you the organizations like Labor Youth, Peace Now, Mapam. Not only in Israel or Gaza or the West Bank. We organized for several meeting in a Scandinavian country and Europe and other places in the world.

We try to defend the peace all the time but at the same time, all the time we are hearing what Netanyahu is saying. Both sides have to respect the agreement. It wasn’t just signed between the sides. It is an international agreement. All the sides have to respect it.

We are looking for just peace for both sides – the Palestinian side and the Israeli side. We ask the Israeli Government to respect the agreements but at the same time we are hearing the declarations from Binyamin Netanyahu warning the Palestinian side that they have plans to attack the West Bank and Gaza.

As a Palestinian we have to protect the Palestinian National Authority, because it is the whole Palestinian people here.

IMRA: So that’s why you have the training.

Awad: Its not the reason. As I told you, its ordinary training. Its not military training. You can say that part of the training is military training. For one time. Its not a program. I don’t think that there’s is another course.

IMRA: I guess what puzzles me is that under the Oslo Agreement there are only 7,000 guns in Gaza and 18,000 police. That mean that you already have more than twice as many police as guns. What value is there to teach other people how to use guns when there aren’t even enough guns to go around for the police?

Awad: If I have a summer camp and the young people have training in sports and other activities like swimming and one of these activities is guns and military activity this is like having a group from the Israeli side – university or high school to go to an Israeli army camp to have some knowledge about that. its the same thing exactly.

Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O.BOX 982 Kfar Sava
Tel: (+972-9) 760-4719
Fax: (+972-9) 741-1645
imra@netvision.net.il

Minister of Defense Office – No Specifics on Compliance

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 26, 1998

IMRA asked Minister of Defense Media Coordinator Avi Benayahu’s office the following question:

In today’s Cabinet Communique, the Minister of Defense said “Israeli society is now confident that there exist interim stations in the [peace] process for inspection and examination, during which we seek results — whose sum total are that our national security is not affected.” Can you identify a specific thing which is inspected in a particular interim station?

Reply: The Minister means that there is a process which, unlike in the past, has stations – breaks. We don’t just run forward,.

IMRA: But you can’t identify something specific?

Reply: No. There are these breaks. That’s what he means.

IMRA: But the rest of the sentence in his statement is that there are results.

Reply: Yes. We want there to be results.

IMRA: So I am trying to understand if there is a specific thing that one can point to.

Reply: There isn’t anything specific.

Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O.BOX 982 Kfar Sava
Tel: (+972-9) 760-4719
Fax: (+972-9) 741-1645
imra@netvision.net.il

Let Their People Go

By

David Bedein

-

May 26, 1998

YC, a healthy yet distraught young man recently showed up at my office.

We all hear horror stories of the trials and tribulations of new immigrants.

We have all experienced these stories in our own lives.

However, the story that YC recounted conveyed a new traumatic dimension of Aliya.

YC is a skilled building tradesman.

He contacts companies and offers his services. He speaks with a foreign accent, in broken Hebrew, and manages to get the job interviews because he has the skills to do the job.

Yet on four occasions, when YC showed up for each interview, after he described his skills and after he showed his Israeli identity card to the contractor, the potential employer told him, in no uncertain terms, that contractors today would rather not hire him because he was…an Israeli.

No Jew need apply? In Israel?

Yes, you heard me. Why?

A simple economic calculation.

Many Israeli contractors simply do not want to “pay social benefits”.

These Employers prefer cheap foreign workers, to whom they can pay a lower wage and not have to cover any “social benefits”.

Eliminating these “social benefits” often means that a worker has no rights at the work place whatsoever, and abuses of foreign workers remain rampant. Such practices in Israeli industry began more than thirty years ago, when Israeli contractors “discovered” the UNRWA Arab refugee camps, where the United Nations covers the health, education, electricity, water, and housing needs of Arab refugees,leaving the contractor to hire the UNRWA Arab workers and offer them a low wage.

Such an UNRWA-Israeli contractor “arrangement” fostered a boom in the Israeli economy for many years to come, but with a moral price that Israeli society pays to this day.

Over the coming month, each of the immigrant organizations in Israel will hold their national conventions, beginning with the AACI, the Association of American and Canadian immigrants in Israel.

Perhaps this would be the opportune time for immigrant organizations to discuss the implications of these hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to Israel. These workers take away jobs from Jews who live in Israel.

My elementary school arithmetic was never that great. However, there are 160,000 unemployed Israeli citizens and at least 150,000 foreign workers now in the country.

You do not have to be a mathematical genius to figure out the connection between the importation of foreign workers and the rising unemployment in Israel.

Yet Israel’s powerful private contractors are not alone in promoting foreign non-Jewish workers to come to Israel.

Even Israeli politicians also encourage them.

A case in point: the Mayor of one regional municipal council that comprises twenty three thriving agriculural communities, has made three junkets to Thailand, to actively recruit hundreds of Siamese workers to work in his thriving farming communities. Other mayors have travelled to Romania and to the Balkans, while the cheap worker industry flourishes with labor representatives working in Nigeria, the Phillipines and Korea.

When I asked the Mayor’s spokesperson as to whether the Mayor would make similar visits to immigrant absorption centers, she responded in the negative.

That simple: a new “affirmative action action policy for foreign workers”.

Perhaps the time has come for Israel’s immigrant organizations to remind Israeli society and the decision-makers in Israeli society that Zionism means preferential treatment for Jews.

After all, even the UN canceled the resolution that “Zionism is racism”. At this point in time, employers are actually encouraged by the Israel Ministries of Finance and Labor to hire thousands of non-Jewish foreign workers. Yes, the contractors pay a fine… yet the fine becomes a deductible “tax credit” for the contractors.

That of course nothing to do with the fact that the Israel State Controller warns that building contractors remain the greatest contributors to Israel’s major political parties. The 1995 Israel State Controller report noted with alarm that many of these contractors give to competing political parties.

Jewish immigrants to Israel often feel the brunt of competition from these foreign workers.

“Olim”, defined as Jews who have chosen to live in Israel, are the ones who can combine self-interest with basic Zionist ideology to galvanize the immigrant organizations in Israel to make a stink about this mess and to launch a campaign that will stop the incentives for foreign workers to come to Israel.

In short, let their people go home.

The Telltale Silence of the Post-Oslo Palestinian Press

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 26, 1998

(Lecture for the conference: “A 21st century Dialogue: Media’s Dark Age?” Athens, 24th – 28th May 1998, organized by “Women for Mutual Security”)

The Palestinian Authority oppresses its people and intimidates its press. In what follows I shall give examples of this intimidation, nine in all, picked out of a multitude. But let me say at the start that this fact should not come as a surprise. Oppression may be said to be a corollary of the Oslo agreement. The logic is simple: The strong side, Israel, took advantage of its strength, cutting a deal that gave the weak side, the PLO, as little as possible. The designers of Oslo set up, in other words, a situation where people, a great many people, were bound to oppose the deal they had gotten. Although they lacked the foresight to make real peace, they did foresee the opposition to the nasty, brutish thing that they did make, and they were careful, therefore, to provide the new non-state with a huge police force and plenty of rifles. Imprisonment without trial is the norm. Torture is carried out wholesale. Numerous security organisations vie with one another in extortion, and big brother is everywhere. The curbing of the press is merely a part of this general picture. The most alarming aspect in the story has been the speed with which the press agreed to lay down its weapon, the pen.

The first acts of oppression

The press was the first to be hit. Arafat arrived in Gaza on July 1, 1994. Twenty-seven days later, forces of the Palestinian Secret Security invaded the offices of Al-Nahar, then the second largest daily in the Territories. They forbade the distribution of Al-Nahar in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. (According to the Oslo accords, in fact, they had no jurisdiction at the time in the West Bank – except for Jericho – nor in Jerusalem, but when it comes to oppression, Israel gives the PA a free hand.) No explanation was given, but it was understood that the closing of Al-Nahar had to do with the paper’s pro-Jordanian tendency. The rest of the Palestinian press hardly covered the event. Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Id, then of B’tselem, initiated a protest demonstration, and eight journalists showed up. Perhaps all the others thought it wouldn’t happen to them – They, after all, are not “pro-Jordanian”! The epilogue: Al Nahar began publishing again after several weeks, but it soon collapsed financially. (For the full story Challenge # 27).

Four months later it was the turn of the biggest Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, also published in Jerusalem. On November 18, Authority forces killed fourteen Palestinians during a demonstration at a mosque in Gaza. The opposition party Hamas held a mass rally protesting the massacre. Gaza’s Chief of Police, General Ghazi Jibali, sent the press his estimate that 5000 people had attended. To his consternation, Al-Quds preferred the estimate of a foreign press agency, which had counted 12,500. Jibali’s response was to keep Al-Quds from entering the Gaza Strip. He simply blocked the papers at the Erez checkpoint for a number of days, claiming that heavy rain and floods were preventing their distribution. I interviewed the chief editor of Al-Quds, Maruan Abu Zuluf, concerning the strange weather in Gaza. He firmly adherred to his right to publish whatever he saw fit. (Challenge # 29: “Gaza Weatherman”). Ever since that incident, however, Al-Quds has never dared to publish a word contradicting the official Palestinian line. Not even a paid ad.

The third incident involved an independent Palestinian opposition paper called Al-Uma, which was also located in Jerusalem. In the eighties its owners, members of the Khatib family, had put out a left- wing daily, Al-Mithaq, but Israel had closed it down. In January 1995, however, Israel granted the Khatibs a license for Al-Uma. Four months later the paper published an unflattering cartoon of Arafat. Thirty armed Palestinians, members of Preventive Security, entered the print shop and confiscated the plates. The angry editors alerted human rights organizations. Palestinian figures signed a petition. On May 3rd, the offices of Al-Uma were burned. The Khatibs never went back to publishing (Challenge # 32).

Self Censorship

Since these incidents, the Palestinian Authority has licensed quite a few new media projects. Some of these function as mouthpieces for the Authority – for example, Al Khayat al Jadida or the radio station, Sout Falastin. All, however, mouthpieces or not, practice strict self-censorship. This may seem odd at first, because the Authority itself, with super-democratic panache, forgoes all official censorship. On June 25, 1995, Arafat signed the Palestinian Press Law, which guarantees the right to freedom of opinion and a free press. It does contain, nonetheless, several vague and potentially restrictive provisions. Article 37(3), for example, prohibits the publication of anything that “may cause harm to national unity”.(Human Rights Watch, op. cit.) In reality, censorship Arafat-style has proved to be more zealous and harsh than Israel’s ever was. To quote the Authority’s radio

director, Ali Khayan: “The opposition can express its own opinions, but some things are not allowed because we need time to explain what it means to be democratic.” (Challenge # 32.)

Under Israeli occupation Palestinian journalists did indeed suffer from oppression. There are stories of chief editors, in house arrest, who edited major dailies from their homes. Numerous journalists were kept in Administrative Detention for renewable periods of six months at a time. But such measures did not intimidate them. When they got out, they went back to their work. Today it is different. Why?

First, there are no rules.

During the period of direct Israeli occupation, every Palestinian editor had to send the entire paper to the censor. (The Israeli media, in contrast, only have to send articles that relate to security). The censor would send the Arab paper back, marking what had to go. The censor decided what was fit to print. There was no guesswork, and there were no personal reprisals.

Today Palestinian editors have to guess what might not be accepted, and if they guess wrong, they find themselves in trouble. According to the data of Human Rights Watch /Middle East (Vol. 9, No. 10, Sept. 1997), in the first two years of self rule, 25 journalists and photographers “guessed wrong.” One of them was Fayez Nur-A-Din, a photographer for Agence France Press. He photographed some boys washing a donkey in the sea at Gaza. This was a bad guess. The Special Intelligence Service detained him for ten hours on May 13, 1996. They beat him and whipped him, accusing him of being in the pay of French intelligence in order to “harm the image of the Palestinians.” The donkey, it seems, should have been a Jaguar.

In the report cited above, Human Rights Watch / Middle East gave many examples of self censorship. Most of the journalists were afraid to give the researchers their names. “The problem,” said one, “is not that Arafat doesn’t want this or that item to be published. The problem is, journalists are afraid that maybe he won’t like it – so they just stay quiet.”

“Frankly,” said another, “we wish the Authority would tell us exactly what we can and cannot publish. That would be easier. It seems that it is impossible to talk about the security apparatus, or violations relating to trials, prisons, and torture, or the president. The president is sacred.”

The latest story of this kind is that of Abbas Momani, a photographer working both for Reuters and Al-Quds. The Authority had attributed the death of Hamas bomb-maker Muhi a-Din Sharif, “Engineer # 2,” to a dispute within Hamas. It claimed that Hamas leader Adel Awadalla had killed Sharif. Shortly after the Authority made this accusation, photographer Momani received a phone call telling him to go to a flat in Ramallah. Here he received a video cassette, in which a masked man claiming to be Adel Awadalla denied having killed Sharif. He brought the cassette to his manager, Paul Holms, and they discussed whether or not to air it. Holms took full responsibility, and the video was distributed and broadcast on April 8. The Authority found the video believable enough to change its story, blaming Adel’s brother instead. (See Challenge # 49.) But it also closed the Reuters office in Gaza. On April 9, photographer Momani received an order to come for investigation to the office of Preventive Security Chief, Jibril Rajoub. When Rajoub heard, however, that Paul Holms was going to accompany him, he cancelled the meeting. Instead, Momani was arrested by another security branch the next day – then released. On May 5 he was arrested again, this time by Rajoub’s men. Four days later, at 3 a.m. he escaped by jumping from a third-floor window of the interrogation building, breaking his leg, and in this condition he managed to reach the hospital. His brother came to help him, and Momani told him how they had hung him by his legs from the ceiling and whipped him with electric cables. (The report was later confirmed by human rights activist, Bassem Id.) They had wanted him to confess, said Momani, that he himself had made the video. His brother helped him leave the hospital for another flat, but here Rajoub’s men caught up with him, arresting him again. As to how they treated him after that, we do not yet know – he was released on May 14, a day before this writing.

According to the Israeli weekly, Kol Ha-Ir, neither of Momani’s employers, Reuters or Al-Quds, reported his first arrest. Nor did any of the Palestinian media. After his escape, most continued to ignore the issue. Journalists Michal Schwartz and Diana Mardi, from our “sister paper” in Arabic, Al-Sabar, contacted Paul Holms of Reuters. He told Schwartz that the agency was following his case, and that it had put out a statement on May 6 for “whoever wanted to publish it.” Mardi asked the editor of Al-Quds, Maher al-Sheikh, why his paper had failed to print a word on the matter, seeing that Momani is one of their journalists. He answered: “Our paper doesn’t publish news of that sort.” Mardi pressed him: “Of what sort”? The editor answered: “News concerning arrests on the part of the PA.” “Why not?” she asked him. He answered: “Because we are afraid. We are afraid of the authorities.” (From an interview on May 11, 1998, published in Al-Sabar.)

The Momani story brings us to the second reason for self censorship.

Second, the journalist stands alone.

Momani stood alone.

Here is an earlier example. At midnight on December 24, 1995, Al-Quds was about to print an article on page eight about Arafat’s meeting with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch. A phone call came, in which editor Maher Alameh was instructed to move the piece up to page one. (How, by the way, could the Authority have known exactly what was to be printed on which page?) In a moment of exceptional courage and resolution, Alameh refused. He was arrested and imprisoned in Jericho for five days. Not a single Palestinian newspaper, including Al-Quds, reported the case. (Human Rights Watch/Middle East, op. cit.). After Alameh’s release, he refused to talk about the matter.

In the post-Oslo situation, when you stick your neck out as Alameh did, you’re practically alone. Pre-Oslo you were a hero, part of a fighting people. Solidarity was widespread. The atmosphere was such that if you hadn’t served time in an Israeli prison, something was wrong with you. Since the entry of the Palestinian Authority, however, most opposition factions have been co-opted, or else they are looking for ways to be co-opted. The atmosphere is one of fear and despair. No lawyer can protect you when you are taken in the middle of the night to be interrogated, say, in Jericho. Nor does it help if you work for a foreign news agency. The agencies want to keep their offices running. This (partially) explains why journalists, who were in the forefront of the Intifada, have retired into the woodwork.

Other kinds of media

Does this mean that Palestinians don’t know what is happening? No. They can get information from Israeli radio and television. Ever since the Oslo process began, however, Israel’s media have either avoided or played down Arafat’s violations of human rights. The Israeli establishment measures him, after all, by the strength with which he curbs the opposition. It is remarkable, for example, how quickly most of the Israeli press adopted, one after another, the Authority’s changing versions of how Hamas Engineer #2 was killed, although no account withstands the slightest examination. (Challenge #49.)

Despite the lack of an uncompromising press, alternative Palestinian channels have opened occasionally, but they too have encountered interference.

The Palestinian National Council (PLC) is an elected Parliament. Each member represents a constituency. One cannot simply arrest him or her without, as it were, gagging a whole group of voters. This fact provides PLC members with a measure of freedom to speak. It was the Council, for example, which exposed the astonishing scope and depth of corruption in the Authority. (Challenge # 43 # 45) The Palestinian papers did not dare publish what the elected representatives had revealed. Journalist Amin Abu Warda told People’s Rights (a human-rights monthly of the organization, Land and Water):”The print media avoided reporting on Council sessions right from the start. Editors consistently censored reports about the sessions, especially when the members criticised Arafat or his associates.” (March 1997.) But outside media could and did. Stories appeared in Al-Sabar and Challenge, and later in the Hebrew daily Ha’aretz. The Ha’aretz article was translated into Arabic, and circulated in the Territories like an underground leaflet.

The Council legislators fought for the right to have their sessions broadcast directly. They finally won this at the beginning of 1997. Viewers watched with interest. Too much, it appears. All through March, April and May,when corruption was on the agenda, all kinds of static broke out on the screen. The manager of the broadcasting company, Da’ud Kuttab, complained about this to the Washington Post. He found himself in jail for a week. The broadcasts have not resumed.

Another path that seemed relatively free was that of local cable TV. The channels carry many open discussion programs, in which people can speak out. During the recent Gulf Crisis, these talk shows were very popular and militant. They too were forced to close, however, after the U.S. pressured Arafat to stop showing solidarity with Iraq. The story of the Palestinian press is sad, if not demeaning. But one can hardly expect to find a free and thriving press alongside a regime that is basically scared of its people. The press will stand on its feet only when Palestinians face the fact that their current leadership cannot be reformed and that peace must be re-negotiated. Only then will it be possible for a democratic sovereign state to arise, one with enough self-confidence to tolerate pictures of children washing donkeys in the sea of Gaza.

Roni Ben Efrat
Editor of Challenge
Ma’agalei Yavne 7/23
Jerusalem 93582, Israel
Tel & Fax (+972-2) 679-2270
e-mail: odaa@p-ol.com
(Source: INFOPAL)

NAKBA: The Palestinian Arabs Miss Their Opportunity…

By

David Bedein

-

May 19, 1998

As Israel celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with appropriate pomp and circumstance, the new Palestine Authority, the entity that rules all of the Palestinian Arab population in Gaza and 95% of their population on the west bank, had planned memorial day of reckoning of their own for May 14th, 1998, the date that marks the Gregorian calendar day marking the pioneering of the state of Israel. That day is referred to in Arabic lore as “Nakba”, the day of “disaster”.

To commemorate the Nakba, the official television station of the Palestine Authority, the PBC, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation, ran two days of military marching music that accompanied file footage of Palestinian Arabs firing weapons and hurling stones at Israeli troops and civilians. In addition, the PBC ran a special children’s program, screening it every hour on the hour, during which Arab children are portrayed running from their burning homes, with the children picking up the charred wreckage and declaring that they will fight to liberate and reclaim their homes in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Acre. Palestine Authority chairman Arafat also repeated a canned speech on PBC-TV, in which he echoed the call for “resistance” and demanded “Al Awdah”, the “right of return”.

Not all Israelis saw Palestinian Arab commemoration of the Nakba in itself as an entirely negative phenomenon. In the words of Prof. Gad Gilbar, rector of Haifa University, such a day should indeed be observed with reverence by the Palestinian Arab people, as a time of reckoning, introspection and second thoughts.

After all, Gelber noted, the Palestinian Arabs had rejected the chance for a state of their own that had been legislated by according to the November 29, 1947 UN resolution #181 that had mandated two states to be carved out of the former British mandate – one Jewish and one Arab. The failed attack of seven Arab armies and the Palestinian Arab militias to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state thwarted Palestinian Arab hopes, and, for fifty years, the United Nations has sparked the hope of return for three million Palestinian Arabs who are descended from the half a million Arabs who became refugees as a result of that war. The UN did that by maintaining them as refugees, under the promise and premise of repatriation to homes and villages that no longer exist. Back in 1958, Abba Eban, Israel’s eloquent ambassador to the UN, warned that Arab nationalists were “prolonging” the suffering of refugees so as to use it as a humanitarian weapon against Israel

Eban, now head of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and just as eloquent, continues to express his fear -forty years later- that the Palestinian Arab leadership will continue to manipulate the refugee/right of return issue, just as they are on the threshold of an opportunity for their own national state. In the oft-repeated words of Abba Eban, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Gelbar’s call to the new Palestine Authority, will be more realistic this time, and to use the NAKBA as a genuine opportunity to adopt an idea and ideology of coexistence for a Jewish and Arab national entity that could make peace with each other.

Yet Palestinian Authority attention on the day of the Nakba did not focus on the UN “partition resolution” #181 or the UN “territories for peace” resolution #242. Instead, what the PA repeatedly proclaimed and quoted was UN resolution #194, a decision enacted on December 10, 1948 that mandates the “right of return” for Palestinian Arabs who left their homes and villages to return to the villages where they came from, even if they do not exist. The PA is well aware that the US, Canada, the EU nations, Japan and Scandinavian countries introduce #194 every year, and that renewed mandate serves as the basis to provide funds for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which operates more than thirty refugee camps, in Gaza, the west bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, confining three million Palestinian Arabs to what the UN defines as “temporary shelters” for all of these years.

Encouraged by the UN, Palestinian Arab refugee camp residents will not settle for life on the west bank and Gaza. The first decision of the Palestine Authority, indeed, was to disallow housing improvement in these UNRWA camps, since these homes are temporary dwellings.

On Thursday, May 13, the morning that the rioting started, Omar Bessisso, the head of Relations and External Media Department in the PA’s Ministry of Information, granted an interview to Raanana journalist Aaron Lerner, in which he stated that “the central message of today is that ‘… our Palestinian refugees must return to their homeland.” Bessisso stressed that every refugee must be given the right to choose between compensation and returning to within Israel.

It was therefore no surprise when Palestinian Arabs, carrying United Nations flags in every city and refugee camp under the control of the Palestine Authority began their processions on Thursday, which very quickly erupted into violence. Since Israeli troops no longer patrol Arab cities in the west bank and Gaza, casualties were not as great on both sides as they could have been.

Missing from the lips of Palestinian Authority spokesmen in Arabic for the past four years has been any call for Palestinian Arab independence that would be confined to the west bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Arafat could could have had his moment of international media attention without Palestinian Arab dead and wounded. After all, the PA orschesrated a well-planned moment of silence with sirens, along with large mock-up keys to the lost homes and pictures of the no-longer existant five hundred and eighteen Arab villages that would assure good media coverage. The PA also organized parades from the refugee camps, where family clans marched with signs around their necks that depicted where each and every Arab refugee family had left in 1948.

Tragically, Arafat’s violent focus on the 1948 refugees and his continuous cries to liberate Jerusalem have moved the Palestinian Arab people away from a compromise with the workable deal that the vast majority of Israel would be prepared to live with.

Abba Eban’s premonition that the Palestian Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity could not have been more true on the day of the Nakba.

PALESTINE: 50 Years of Occupation – Call For Action

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 19, 1998

In The Name of Allah, The Most Merciful The Mercy-Giving

Islamic Association For Palestine (IAP)
P. O. Box 74353
Dallas, Texas 75374
Tel: (+97-2) 669-9595
Fax: (+97-2) 669-9597
E-mail: info@iap.org Homepage: www.iap.org/50years

“Glory to (Allah) who did take his servant for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque (al-Aqsa mosque) whose precincts We did Bless – in order that We might show him some of Our signs: for He is the One Who hearth And seeth all things.” (Qur’an, Surah 17, Verse 1)

The year 1998, marks the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine; the displacement of its indigenous population; and the destruction of it’s cities and villages. In 1917, the British government issued the infamous Balfour declaration which viewed “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People… ” At the time of the Balfour declaration, the Arabs of Palestine owned 97.5% of the land, while Jews owned only 2.5% of the land.

In the 1948 war, “the zionists” occupied 80.48% of the total land of Palestine, expelled 800,000 civilians from their homes and lands, committed 120 massacres, and destroyed more than 475 villages. According to a 1997 United Nations study, there are approximately 3,093,174 Palestinian refugees registered.

In 1998, we, the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians, did not forget Palestine. We did not forget Yaffa, Haifa, and Bisan. We did not sell our lands, nor did leave them voluntarily, and nor did we permit anyone to take our homes and fields. Fifty years later, we, the children of refugees, are intent on coming back to our homes, villages and fields. If it was not possible in the past fifty years, then insha’Allah, it will be in the next fifty years.

During the month of May, the Islamic Association For Palestine is launching a long series of events to commemorate the 50 years of occupation of Palestine and the Palestinian dispossession and resistance.

List of events planned in all cities:
(for more details, please contact IAP)

New Jersey, NJ:
* 5/17 Rally, Downtown NYC.
* 5/24 One Day Conference: “Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation”

Los Angeles, CA:
* 5/16 One Day Conference: “United for Al Quds”

New York, NY:
* 5/17 Rally, Downtown NYC.
* 5/24 Conference: “Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation”

Detroit, MI:
* 5/15 Rally at 2:00 p.m., by IAP joined by 8 local organizations.
* 5/15 Conference at 7:00 p.m. by IAP joined by 15 local organizations in English.
* 5/17 Conference at 12:30 p.m. to be held at St. Mary’s church, by Detroit-area Arab-American Coalition in commemorating Palestine * 5/17 Lecture at 8:00 p.m. in the Cultural Association of Franklin.
* 5/29 Conference by IAP (in Arabic).
* 5/30 Rally and cultural program @ Cobo Hall, by Detroit-area Arab-American Coalition in Commemorating Palestine.

Chicago, IL:
* 5/15 Rally at the Downtown
* 5/17 Palestine Day

Dallas, TX:
* 5/16 One Day Conference – “Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation”

San Francisco, CA:
* 5/16 One Day Conference – “United for Al-Quds”

Toledo, OH:
* 5/16 One Day Conference – “United for Al-Quds”

Columbus, OH:
* 5/7 The Palestinian Heritage Exhibition of Traditional Arts & Crafts
* 5/12 The Documentary Film: In the Memory
* 5/14,15 Remembering the Martyrs: Candle Light Vigil
* 5/16 Conference: Peace and Justice for Palestine 50 Years of Occupation

Washington, D.C.:
* 5/15 Rally
* 6/16 One Day Conference: “United for Al-Quds”

For more details about the above activities as well as other activities in different cities, please conatct IAP. If you like, and we do encourage you, to do a similar activity in your area, campus, mosque, church etc., and you need help, please feel free to contact IAP. A request form for materials and other resources that can be used in different activities and programs will follow, In Sha’a Allah.

PA Ministry of Information on Right of Return

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 19, 1998

IMRA interviewed Omar Bessisso, Head of Relations and External Media Department in the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information, in English, on May 14, 1998:

IMRA: What do you see as the central message of the events taking place today (the “march of the million”)?

Bessisso: The central message is that we are here. This is our homeland. Our Palestinian refugees must return back to their homeland. That is the central message.

IMRA: When you say that the refugees must return to their homeland….

Bessisso: According to UN Resolution 194 which means that the refugees have the right to come back or have compensation.

IMRA: Is it their decision? Do they have to be offered the choice between the two?

Bessisso: Yes, yes. According to United Nations Resolution 194 which dates from 1949 in the United Nations.

IMRA: Do you have any sense as to what the proportion of refugees would return if offered the choice between compensation and return?

Bessisso: It is up to everybody but I think that most of them now are realistic and they are ready to have a realistic solution. Which means a solution which can live. But it is up to every refugee to decide what he wants. Either to return back to his home or to have compensation. I can not decide on behalf of them.

IMRA: The Israelis who I speak with tell me that the underlying assumption that they made in the Oslo Process was that they would not have the refugees coming back into Israel because they want separation and if the Palestinian refugees come back then Israel turns into a having a very substantial Arab population rather than an Arab minority.

Bessisso: For us, according to the Oslo Agreement, the refugee question is postponed to the permanent solution.

IMRA: They talk of Beilin-Mazen and they think that this means what while there may not be a formal understanding that there is some kind of understanding that in the end the refugees of ’48 won’t come back into Israel.

Bessisso: You see, once a Jewish person who has nothing to do with Palestinian land has the right to return – to come to Israel – as an Israeli citizen, then the Palestinians, who is the real owner of the land, must have the same right. This is in principle. But, once we have negotiations of a settlement we have to be realistic and negotiate over every option. The Beilin-Mazen plan is one of the options.

IMRA: You said before that you cannot impose on a refugee that he can’t come back and instead takes compensation.

Bessisso Yes, yes. But actually you know we have about three hundred thousand refugees in Lebanon and the same number in Syria and about more than a half million in Jordan. These Palestinians must have the right to return back to the Palestinian state which we declared in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, or to their homeland which is known as Israel now. But, the Israelis up to now are now saying that the refugees don’t have the right to return to the West Bank and this is one of the main problems.

IMRA: I guess that what I am puzzled by is that on the one hand the Palestinian Authority will negotiate with Israel on some kind of arrangement but on the other hand you are telling me that whatever is negotiated the Palestinian refugees would have the options of picking between some kind of negotiated compensation and returning. So what’s the deal? Whatever you would negotiate you would still leave open the option to the refugees to return to within ’67 borders.

Bessisso: Yes. You see, once we agreed to establish our state on the 1967 border we must have full sovereignty. That means a state which can decide its fate. It can decide who are its citizens and all Palestinians – the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as those living outside of the country – even the Palestinians in Europe or the United States must have citizenship in this state.

IMRA: But if they say that they are originally from Jaffa and want to return there rather than to Nablus then they would still have the right to say ‘I don’t want to go to Jaffa, Nablus doesn’t interest me.’

Bessisso: No. I think that once we sign a final settlement this kind of talk must be stopped.

IMRA: You mean you would stop them from deciding to go to Jaffa instead of Nablus?

Bessisso: I think that once we reach a historic solution between us and the Israelis I think that every claim must be stopped. The Israelis must stop calling the West Bank “Yehudah and Shomron” and once the Palestinians solve the problem according to UN Resolution 194 they must stop talking about return to Jaffo.

IMRA: But I thought that you just told me a minute ago that Resolution 194 does give them the right to return to Jaffo.

Bessisso: Yes. They have the right. But remember They must be realistic. They cannot go.

IMRA: So you would deny them the choice afterwards.

Bessisso: I think the situation now, denying them the right to return. But as a symbolic gesture maybe they can get three thousand or five thousand of the Palestinians to return and that’s all. Under the framework of uniting families.

IMRA: You mean a limited number.

Bessisso: Yes, yes.

IMRA: So only some would be allowed to truly make the choice.

Bessisso: Yes yes.

IMRA: Do you see from a practical standpoint the possibility that you may be creating a problem by focusing so much on the return of the 1948 refugees that they may get a hope that they will be able to return to Jaffa when here you are telling me that in the end they won’t be returning back. For example, yesterday when you had the march with the keys [to homes with Israel]. Doesn’t this have the problem of raising expectations that they will be able to come back?

Bessisso: We don’t raise new expectations by this demonstration and activity. Actually, as I told you in the beginning, we have one message: We are here. It is our homeland. We have the right to establish our independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip according to the announcement in Algeria and the refugee problem must be solved in accordance with the UN resolution and that’s all.

IMRA: Resolution 194 which would allow them to return to within the Green Line.

Bessisso: Yes. Yes.

IMRA: You say in Algeria which resolution are you talking about?

Bessisso: The announcement of the Palestinian State.

IMRA: How does that fit in with the earlier plan of stages. That the PLO will take whatever land it can get as a stage.

Bessisso: No. You mean the 1974 Nine Point Program. This is very old. We have overcomed it by the announcement of the Palestinian state. Once we recognized Resolution 242 and 338 we accept to establish a Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

IMRA: Ehud Barak said two days ago that his red line is that the large settlement blocs would remain under Israeli control. Is that a total impossibility?

Bessisso: I think that it is possible if the settlers are ready to obey Palestinian law.

IMRA: You mean Palestinian sovereignty.

Bessisso: Yes.

IMRA: Not Israeli sovereignty.

Bessisso: Right. They can have Israeli citizenship but they must observe our law.

IMRA: You would ignore the issue as to whether the settlements are on Palestinian owned land?

Bessisso: No. I think that since the Palestinian question is a very special case we have to have a very special solution.

Even if we accept them for a period of time maybe they will accept to live in peace with the Palestinians and this is OK and maybe they will decide to leave the Palestinian land and return back to Israel.

IMRA: Does the same apply to Jerusalem – to those Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line like Ramat Eshkol and French Hill?

Bessisso: The Jerusalem question is very special and specific. It is a religious and nation case and has to be handled from a very special point of view. I think that for Arab Moslems and Christians, Jerusalem must be under Palestinian sovereignty. We hope for an open city in Jerusalem for all followers of religion – Palestinians and Israelis.

IMRA: But the status of those Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line would be under Palestinian sovereignty.

Bessisso: Yes, yes. We have to think about a special solution for Jerusalem, but under the principle that Israeli forces and administration must return to the pre 1967 borders.

Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O.BOX 982 Kfar Sava
Tel: (+972-9) 760-4719
Fax: (+972-9) 741-1645
imra@netvision.net.il

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