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The Lydda “Massacre” of 1948, in the Eyes of Israeli War Veterans

Dec. 29 2014

In his much-vaunted book My Promised Land, the Israeli journalist Ari Shavit devotes a chapter to a “massacre” of Arabs that he claims took place in the town of Lydda during the 1948 war of independence. Last July, the historian Martin Kramer demonstrated in Mosaic that Shavit’s account was unfounded. Kramer recently presented his analysis in Israel, where a Hebrew translation of My Promised Land has yet to be published. The response of his audience, filled with veterans of the 1948 war, many of whom had taken part in the conquest of Lydda, was telling:

I could have dispensed with my own analysis. The reactions tumbled forth in immediate response ‎to Shavit’s text. I heard gasps of disbelief and angry asides. I didn’t ask for a show of hands as to ‎how many thought Shavit’s account had any credibility, and in retrospect I wish I had. But to ‎judge from the audible responses, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this audience was ‎surprised and offended.‎

[N]othing I heard, either in the lecture hall or outside of it, added to the store of ‎testimony about the “massacre” component of Shavit’s Lydda tale. The conquest of Lydda had ‎many moving parts, and most of the veterans I met served in the 89th Battalion under Moshe ‎Dayan. That meant that they were not in the city when the “massacre” supposedly took place, but ‎fought the day before, mostly on the road between Lydda and Ramleh. But I wasn’t looking for ‎new testimony, because there are plenty of recorded recollections from people who witnessed the ‎events. . . . I did want these veterans to know ‎what much of the world (Israel excepted) has been reading about their battle for over a year now. ‎And I wanted them to start to talk about it among themselves and with others.‎

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Ari Shavit, Israeli War of Independence, Lydda, Martin Kramer, Moshe Dayan

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic