In the early stages of 1948, a week after the British mandate left Palestine, the village of Tantura was targeted by the Israeli militaries. A recent documentary revealed the story of the massacre including testimonies from several IDF veterans affirming that a massacre involving up to 200 Palestinian victims had taken place at that time.
This story has been told before. In 1998, the MA student Teddy Katz wrote his master’s thesis at Haifa University and “proved” that the Alexandroni Brigade committed a massacre in the Palestinian village Tantura. In return, Katz faced a severe defamation lawsuit filed by the veterans of the brigade. Professor Ilan Pappe, who was a professor at the University of Haifa, supported Katz and publicly confirmed that his research met all the academic criteria. The situation created a media firestorm and resulted in the disqualification of Katz’s thesis, and the resignation of Pappe from Haifa University.
Some thought that burying Katz’s thesis also buried the Palestinian Nakba, but when the dead have a story to tell the living need to listen, even if it takes 70 years.
The testimony of the Alexandroni soldiers confessing that they committed war crimes and buried Palestinians in a mass grave raises many ethical questions that I’m not interested in tackling since morality isn’t something the Israeli military is known for. Instead, I will look at the legal aspects that arise from the case.
According to international criminal law a war crime is defined as a violation of the laws of war including intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, take hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilians’ property, deception, rape, pillaging, committing genocide or ethnic cleansing. If you are still unaware that the Israeli military committed all of the above during and after the Nakba, continuing to today, then I’m not sure you’re watching the right channel or reading the right newspaper.
Some are demanding to put the 90-plus-year-old soldiers on trial since they admitted to committing war crimes under the command of the Israeli army; the argument being that the massacre was their individual responsibility and they should pay for it. However, the Alexandroni Brigade is an Israeli defense force elite infantry brigade, and thus the state of Israel is legally responsible for the confessed actions of its soldiers. According to the Geneva Convention that Israel has signed and ratified, the actions as individuals or as agents of the armed forces that act under the state’s commands are considered state responsibility. Hence, political and military authorities have an obligation to take all necessary measures to ensure that the obligations foreseen by humanitarian law are respected (GCI Art. 49; GCII Art. 50; GCIII Art. 129; GCIV Art. 146; and API Arts. 80.1, 86, and 87).
Another question that arises from the case of Tantura is whether Israel should be punished for committing war crimes 74 years after committing them. As defined by the Charter of the Nuremburg International Military Tribunal of 1945 on the prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, there is no statute of limitations on war crimes or crimes against humanity. This means that a state that commits such crimes can be charged at any point in time, and there is a significant responsibility on state parties to do all they can to help investigate the accused country. This has be seen in cases dealing with Nazis who managed to stay under the radar for years and have been convicted and punished for their crimes once they were found.
Many others are calling for an international commission to investigate the massacres committed by Israel in the Palestinian village of Tantura in 1948. MK Ahmad Tibi has requested that the remains of the bodies be removed from the mass grave, and buried according to Islamic Sharia law. This mass grave of Palestinian victims is still being used as a parking lot, and no investigation has been opened regarding this matter. Israel continues to ignore its obligations to ensure dignified management of the dead with consideration for humanitarian forensics. This is one way the state of Israel has continued to breach international human rights laws in the Tantura case until this very moment.
In addition, according to the Sharia laws the burial of the deceased is a collective obligation (farḍ kifāyah) on the Muslim community. Decent burial is necessary to allow families and loved ones to visit the graves. Such concerns remain relevant today. The rule in Islamic law is that every dead body should be buried in an individual grave. It should be noted here that in the case of multiple burials, bodies must be placed respectively side-by-side with suitable space between each.
Finally, the British Army’s operations in Palestine before the period in question were mainly directed against militant Arab groups who were opposed to mass Jewish immigration. The departure of the mandate without introducing alternative international forces led to a civil war that began a week after the the UN declaration in November 1947 adopting the partition plan for Palestine. This raises the question of whether the UN and the world community bear a responsibility in the harming of Arab civilians who were left defenseless against the Jewish paramilitary forces.
It may be the time to turn a critical eye towards the countries that acknowledged the existence of a civil war and massacres in Palestine back then yet refrained from interfering.
I am surprised that this article implies that this new Israeli film is the first to “reveal” the Tantura massacre. Arab Loutfi’s Over Their Dead Bodies exposed this horrific genocidal act back in 2008. Loutfi’s film is compelling, both aesthetically and in terms of its critical content. Her film is thoroughly anti-Zionist (unlike the Israeli film). And it is available for viewing — for free — on Loutfi’s YouTube page. Why do we always give credence to Israeli “revelations” of Zionist violence and criminality while discounting — indeed throwing into to dustbin of history — Palestinian and Arab critiques and exposes? The new Israeli film needs to be called out for what it is: a cooptive work of hasbara. Already journalists in the Arab world are making that case. So why are we in the Anglophone press ignoring the facts?! Loutfi’s film needs to be seen and written about widely. I for one have written about it in my new book on Palestine cinema, part of which focuses on works of Arab Loutfi.
A publication found in the US Library of Congress from 1948 details the brutal atrocities committed by the Zionists against the Palestinian civilians; titled “Jewish Atrocities in the Holy Land”
https://www.loc.gov/item/2017498758/
I checked the Hebrew link provided by Jonathan Ofir and also the recent Ha’aretz article by Giora Erdinast (the attorney who represents the Alexandroni veterans. )I hope it will appear on the English language Ha’aretz website.
In brief: there are serious doubts as to the allegations of a massacre in Tantura, allegations which surfaced 50 years after the event (in contrast to Dir Yassin, which was reported immediately), in Teddy Katz’ thesis and in the present documentary . ( I haven’t seen it yet).
Teddy Katz falsified the testimonies in his thesis. For example one of his prime witnesses, Abu Fahmi, who was quoted by Katz as testifying as to the alleged massacre, stated in fact that no one was shot after surrendering. Mr.Katz retracted his accusations, then retracted the retraction. He was supported by Ilan Pappe . See here on Pappe , and on Tantura:
https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian
According to Erdinast: Mordecai Sokler unfortunately suffers from dementia. He asserted that the events took place in the 1950s. Shlomo Ambar was not present in Tantura when the massacre allegedly took place. The same is true regarding Elhanan Anani. Amitzur Cohen’s testimony was edited so that appears that he’s talking about Tantura. He wasn’t. And so on…
As to the “mass grave under the parking lot”: by all means- dig it up! Let’s see…
Yeah, civil wars are messy. The 1940s were messy as a whole. Lots of massacres all around. I don’t know whether there was one in Tantura or not. Most likely the Alexandroni brigade soldiers executed POWs after losing men in the battle or friends/relatives during the war. Odds are it was one of the many atrocities committed in 1947-1948 on both sides.
Your legal reasoning is pretty shoddy though. You refer to the Geneva Convention. The modern Geneva conventions that you are referring to were codified from 1949 onwards. Israel signed that convention in 1950 and ratified it in 1951. Application of the convention is not retroactive, so it isn’t applicable to a case that might have occurred in 1948. It had to be non-retroactive or pretty much every country involved in the second world war and in its aftermath would be guilty of retroactively breaching it.
There seems to be a reference to the Convention on the prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which went into effect in 1951. Like all IHL it is not applicable retroactively.
The Charter of the Nuremburg International Military Tribunal of 1945 was a specific document signed by the winning Allies that explicitly applied to the actions of the Axis powers during WW2. It has zero legal relevance in any other theater.
The rest of your article is just filler. I was honestly hoping to be educated on the legal aspect of the matter, alas, my hopes were dashed.