“There was no battle and no resistance (and no Egyptians). The first conquerors killed from eighty to a hundred Arabs [including] women and children. The children were killed by smashing of their skulls with sticks. Is it possible to shout about Deir Yassin and be silent about something much worse?” For the first time ever, a letter quoting one of the Israeli soldiers who were part of the Al-Dawayima massacre in October 1948 is published in full.
On Friday, February 5th 2016, Haaretz published an article in Hebrew by Israeli historian Yair Auron, which covers one of the biggest massacres of 1948. The massacre is of Al Dawayima, west of Al-Khalil (which is often referred to as Hebron). In a 2004 interview with Haaretz, Israeli historian Benny Morris refers to this as a massacre of “hundreds”.
After the massacre, a letter was sent to the editor of the leftist affiliated newspaper Al-Hamishmar, but never published. As Auron notes, there are still many archives of the time which are classified. Auron also states that there was an investigation that was never concluded and “died out” as a massive amnesty was provided to military personnel in February 1949.
This is a very exhaustive article, but I found it useful enough to translate this letter in full on its own. The letter, which first “disappeared,’ was provided to Auron by historian Benny Morris. Although these matters have been referred to in passing in historical summaries, the letter has never been published before in full.
The letter is brought forth by a member of the MAPAM leftist party, S. Kaplan, who got the letter of testimony from the soldier. It is written to Eliezer Peri, editor of Al Hamishmar, and dated 8th November 1948 (10 days after the massacre):
To comrade Eliezer Peri, good day,
Today I have read the editorial of “Al Hamishmar” where the question of our army’s conduct was aired, the army which conquers all but its own desires.
A testimony provided to me by an officer which was in [Al] Dawayima the day after its conquering: The soldier is one of ours, intellectual, reliable, in all 100%. He had confided in me out of a need to unload the heaviness of his soul from the horror of the recognition that such level of barbarism can be reached by our educated and cultured people. He confided in me because not many are the hearts today who are able to listen.
There was no battle and no resistance (and no Egyptians). The first conquerors killed from eighty to a hundred Arabs [including] women and children. The children were killed by smashing of their skulls with sticks. There was not a house without dead. The second wave of the [Israeli] army was a platoon that the soldier giving testimony belongs to.
In the town were left male and female Arabs, who were put into houses and were then locked in without receiving food or drink. Later explosive engineers came to blow up houses. One commander ordered an engineer to put two elderly women into the house that was to be blown up. The engineered refused and said he is willing to receive orders only from his [own] commander. So then [his] commander ordered the soldiers to put the women in and the evil deed was performed.
One soldier boasted that he raped an Arab woman and afterwards shot her. An Arab woman with a days-old infant was used for cleaning the back yard where the soldiers eat. She serviced them for a day or two, after which they shot her and the infant. The soldier tells that the commanders who are cultured and polite, considered good guys in society, have become vile murderers, and this occurs not in the storm of battle and heated response, but rather from a system of expulsion and destruction. The fewer Arabs remain – the better. This principle is the main political motive of [the] expulsions and acts of horror which no-one objects to, not in the field command nor amongst the highest military command. I myself was at the front for two weeks and heard boasting stories of soldiers and commanders, of how they excelled in the acts of hunting and “fucking” [sic]. To fuck an Arab, just like that, and in any circumstance, is considered an impressive mission and there is competition on winning this [trophy].
We find ourselves in a conundrum. To shout this out in the press will mean to assist the Arab League, which our representatives deny all complaints of. To not react would mean solidarity with moral corruption. The soldier told me that Deir Yassin [another massacre, by Irgun militants, April 1948] is not the peak of hooliganism. Is it possible to shout about Deir Yassin and be silent about something much worse?
It is necessary to initiate a scandal in the internal channels, to insist upon an internal investigation and punish the culprits. And first of all it is necessary to create in the military a special unit for the restraint of the army. I myself accuse first of all the government, which doesn’t seem to have any interest to fight the phenomena and perhaps even encourages them indirectly. The fact of not-acting is in itself encouragement. My commander told me that there is an unwritten order to not take prisoners of war, and the interpretation of “prisoner” is individually given by each soldier and commander. A prisoner can be an Arab man, woman or child. This was not only done at the exhibition windows [major Palestinian towns] such as Majdal and Nazareth.
I write this to you so that in the editorial and in the party the truth will be known and something effective would be done. At least let them not indulge in phony diplomacy which covers up for blood and murder, and to the extent possible, also the paper must not let this pass in silence.
Kaplan
Truth and tears leak out. Most moral army? Maybe, because how moral is any army? But moral? Not in my book. And keeping this thing secret so many years? were they hoping for 100 years? For forever?
Some people, politicians notably among them, are described as having an intelligence a mile wide and an inch deep. The truth-hiders are, I believe, in this group. Truth is bad for the state, bad for the Jews. Hide it.
What will our American heroes say of this? Of the doing? Of the hiding? Of how much longer this rotting corpse can be hidden?
Yossi Gurvitz wrote a blog post a few years back in which he said that there were very few memoirs written by ’48 war veterans. He suggested that the reason was that many of them could not admit to themselves, much less the Jewish community, what they had done. So they kept silent and thereby left the field free for Leon Uris and his ilk to come along and enshrine Zionist mythology as “History.” They had a willing accomplice in successive Israeli governments who made sure to indoctrinate their (Jewish) citizens in the mythology and deny their responsibility in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
“..the commanders who are cultured and polite, considered good guys in society, have become vile murderers, and this occurs not in the storm of battle and heated response, but rather from a system of expulsion and destruction.” Not for the last time would “cultured and educated” men be responsible for horrible atrocities. There were plenty of them running around German in the last century.
By the by is Benny Morris still on the outs with the rest of the Zionist community?
Please tell me more about how Israel only lost its soul due to the occupation, like liberal Zionists claim.
Please tell me more about how Israel was a fundamentally good and democratic society before that.
Please tell me more about how the ethnic cleansing was carried out only due to the “hectic” necessities of war and not as a planned campaign of expulsion for ethnic hegemony.
Please tell me more about how Israelis never target civilians due to their “purity of arms”, unlike their evil Arab enemies.
Please keep telling me how Israel isn’t a colonial racist state founded by racist immigrants from Europe who swallowed the whole pill of western superiority and white supremacy.
Thank you for publishing this myth-busting historical document. A succinct account of other buried historical facts surrounding this slaughter are online at “War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror”.
The problem with building on a foundation of lies is that denial becomes even more powerful and required and the path to madness and delusion is assured.