Kfar Etzion Massacre

The Kfar Etzion massacre refers to a massacre that took place after a two-day battle between Jewish settlers and soldiers of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion and a combined force of the Arab Legion and Arab villagers, on May 13, 1948, the day before theIsraeli Declaration of Independence. Of the 129 Haganah soldiers and Jewish combatant kibbutzniks who died during the defence of the settlement, Martin Gilbert states that fifteen were murdered on surrendering.^[1] Controversy surrounds the responsibility and role of the Arab Legion in the killing of those who surrendered. The official Israeli version maintains that the settlers and soldiers were massacred by villagers and the Arab Legion as they were surrendering. The Arab Legion version states that it arrived too late to prevent the villagers' onslaught, which was motivated by a desire to revenge themassacre of Deir Yassin, and the destruction of one of their villages several months earlier.^[2] The surrendering fighters are said to have assembled in a courtyard, only to be suddenly fired upon, and that many died on the spot, while most of those who managed to flee were hunted down and killed.^[3]

Four prisoners survived the massacre and were transferred to Transjordan.^[3] Immediately following the surrender on May 13, the kibbutz was looted and razed to the ground.^[3] The members of the three other kibbutzim of the Gush Etzion surrendered the next day and were taken as POWs to Jordan.

The bodies of the victims were left unburied until, one and a half years later, the Jordanian government allowed Shlomo Goren to collect the remains, which were then interred at Mount Herzl. The survivors of the Etzion Bloc were housed in former Arab houses in Jaffa.^[4]

Contents

 

• 1 Background
• 2 The Massacre
• 3 Aftermath
• 4 See also
• 5 References
  • 5.1 Bibliography

Background[edit]

Kfar Etzion was a kibbutz founded in 1943, for military and agricultural ends,^[5] about 2 km east of the road betweenJerusalem and Hebron. By the end of 1947, there were 163 adults and 50 children living there. Together with three nearby kibbutzim established 1945-1947, it formed Gush Etzion (the Etzion Bloc). According to one member of the settlement, relations were good between settlers and local Arabs, with attendance at each other's weddings, until November 1949.^[6]

Casualties of the "Convoy of 35" being brought to burial. January 1948

The United Nations partition plan for Palestine of November 29, 1947 placed the bloc, an enclave in a purely Arab area, inside the boundaries of the intended Arab state,^[7] where, moreover, Jewish settlement was to be forbidden through a transitional period.^[8] For Hebronite Arabs, the bloc constituted an 'alien intrusion' on ground that had been wholly Arab for centuries,' though it had been built on land either purchased by Jews (1928) or acquired by them through a complex circumvention of Mandatory law in 1942.^[5] According to Henry Laurens, Kfar Etzion had started hostilities in the area in December by destroying a local Arab village.^[9] On 10 December, a convoy from Bethlehem en route to the Gush Etzion bloc was ambushed and 10 of its 26 passengers and escorts were killed.^[5][10] Though on January 5, the children and some women had been evacuated with British assistance, and though David Shaltiel recommended its evacuation,^[5] the Haganah, on Yigal Yadin's counsel, decided against withdrawing from the settlements for several reasons: they commanded a strategic position on Jerusalem's southern approach from Hebron,^[11] and were considered, in the words of Abdullah Tall, a 'sharp thorn stuck in the heart of a purely Arab area'. Several relief convoys from the Haganah in Jerusalem had been ambushed.^{[citation needed]} In the months prior to May 15 Haganah militiamen in the bloc's kibbutzim repeatedly fired on Arab civilian, and British traffic, including convoys, moving between Jerusalem and Hebron, under instruction to do so in order to draw and drain Arab forces from the fight for Jerusalem.^[12][13] On two occasions, April 12 and May 3, Arab Legion units were ambushed, and several legionnaires killed or wounded^[13] by the bloc militias, - Kfar Etzion soldiers being directly involved in the incident on April 12^[14]- Arab irregular forces made small-scale attacks against the settlements. An emergency reinforcement convoy attempting to march to Gush Etzion under cover of darkness was discovered and its members killed by Palestinian Arab forces.^{[citation needed]} Despite some emergency flights by an Austerfrom Jerusalem^[5] and Piper Cubs out of Tel Aviv onto an improvised airfield,^[4] adequate supplies were not getting in.

As the end of the British Mandate drew closer, the fighting in the region intensified. Although the Arab Legion was theoretically in Palestine under British command, they began to operate more and more independently. On March 27, land communication with the rest of the Yishuv was severed completely when the Nebi Daniel Convoy was ambushed on its return to Jerusalem, and 15 Haganah soldiers died before the remainder were extricated by the British. It was ambushes by the Etzion Bloc militias conducted against Arab Legion units on April 12 and May 4 that, according to a Hanagah analysis, tipped the Legion's policy towards the bloc from one of isolating it to destroying it.^[15] On May 4, following the last ambush of a Legion convoy, a joint force of British, Arab Legion and irregular troops launched a major punitive attack on Kfar Etzion. The Haganah abandoned a few outposts but generally resisted, and the attack failed, leaving 12 Haganah soldiers dead,30 wounded, with a similar number of Arab legionnaires killed, and several dozen wounded. Units from the bloc may have attacked Arab traffic the following day, but the failure of the Legion's assault led Hebronites and Legion units to plan a final attack and destroy the Etzion Bloc militarily.^[16] The final assault on Kfar Etzion began on May 12. Parts of two Arab Legion companies, assisted by hundreds of local irregulars, had a dozen armored cars and artillery, to which the Jewish defenders had no effective answer. The commander of Kfar Etzion requested from the Central Command in Jerusalem permission to evacuate the kibbutz, but was ordered to stay. Later in the day, the Arabs captured the Russian Orthodox monastery, which the Haganah used as a perimeter fortress for the Kfar Etzion area, killing twenty-four of its thirty-two defenders.

On May 13, an attack broke through Kfar Etzion's defences and reached the settlement's centre effectively cutting off the perimeter outposts from each other.^[17]

The Massacre

Arab Legion Major Abdullah el Tell (far right) with Captain Hikmat Mihyar (far left) pose with two of the four Jewish survivors of the Fall of Gush Etzion. Around May 13, 1948

In the Israeli mainstream version, when the hopelessness of their position became undeniable on May 13, dozens of defenders, the haverim, of Kfar Etzion laid down their arms and assembled in the courtyard, where they suddenly began to be shot at. Those not slain in the first volleys of fire pushed past the Arabs, and either escaped to hide, or gathered their weapons,^[18] and were hunted down.^[19] The number of people killed and the perpetrators, the Arab legion or local village irregulars or both, are in dispute. According to one account, the main group of about 50 defenders were surrounded by a large number of Arab irregulars, who shouted "Deir Yassin!" and ordered the Jews to sit down, stand up, and sit down again, when suddenly someone opened fire on the Jews with a machine gun and others joined in the killing. Those Jews not immediately cut down tried to run away but were pursued. According to Meron Benvenisti, hand grenades were thrown into a cellar, killing a group of 50 who were hiding there. The building was blown up.^[3] According to other sources, 20 women hiding in a cellar were killed.^[20][21] David Ohana writes that 127 Israeli fighters were massacred on the last day.^[22]

Arab losses during the two day battle, according to a Haganah estimate, numbered 69: 42 irregulars, and 27 legionnaires.^[23] A number of Israeli histories of the Kfar Etzion massacre (such as Levi, 1986, Isseroff, 2005) state that the defenders had put out the white flag and lined up to surrender in front of the school building of the German monastery. An Arab version recounts that a white flag was flown, and drew the Arabs into a trap where they were fired on.^[9] Benny Morris cites a Legion officer's statement that the defenders had not formally surrendered, that some resistance continued, with shooting at Arabs, after others had surrendered, that local villagers shot legionnaires trying to defend prisoners, and that legionnaires had to shoot some villagers engaged in the killings.^[24] The figure of 127 massacred appears to include both those who surrendered only to be slain, and the defenders who had been killed in battle over 12–13 May.^[25]

In another account, after the 133 defenders had assembled, they were photographed by a man in a kaffiyeh, and then an armored car apparently belonging to the Arab Legion opened fire with its machine gun, and then Arab irregulars joined in. A group of defenders managed to crawl into the cellar of the monastery, where they defended themselves until a large number of grenades were thrown into the cellar. The building was then blown up and collapsed on them. About 129 persons died in the battle and its aftermath. Only three of the remaining Kfar Etzion residents and one Palmach member survived. According to their own testimony, the circumstances of their survival were as follows.

• Yaacov Edelstein and Yitzhak Ben-Sira tried to hide amongst a jumble of boulders and branches, but they were discovered by a "wrinkled, toothless, old Arab" who told them "Don't be afraid." Then a group of Arab irregulars rushed up and threw them against a wall. The old Arab tried to shield them with his body. As they argued, two Arab Legionnaires came up and took the two Jews under their protection.
• Nahum Ben-Sira, the brother of Yitzhak, was away from the main group when the massacre started. He hid until nightfall then escaped to a nearby kibbutz.
• Eliza Fauktwanger (Palmach) tried to hide in a ditch with several others. They were discovered and all were murdered except Eliza, who was dragged away by several Arab irregulars. As the group were trying to rape her, an Arab Legion officer (Captain Hikmat Mihyar) arrived, shot two of the perpetrators and sent the rest away. Afterwards the officer gave her bread, waited until she finished eating, and said to her (quote) "You are under my protection".

Names of fallen in Kfar Etzion Memorial

A total of 157 defenders died in the battle of Gush Etzion (Levi, 1986), including those killed in the massacre at Kfar Etzion. About 2/3 of them were residents and the remainder were Hagana or Palmach soldiers.

On the following day, the Arab irregular forces continued their assault on the remaining three Etzion settlements. Fearing that the defenders might suffer the same fate as those of Kfar Etzion, Zionist leaders in Jerusalem negotiated a deal for the surrender of the settlements on condition that the Arab Legion protected the residents. The Red Crosstook the wounded to Jerusalem, and the Arab Legion took the remainder as prisoners of war. In March 1949 320 prisoners from the Etzion settlements were released from the "Jordan POW camp atMafrak", including 85 women.^[26]

The role of the Arab Legion in the massacre is still debated. There is no doubt that the Legion led the attack on Kfar Etzion (probably on the explicit orders of Glubb Pasha)^{[citation needed]}, and at least a few Legionnaires were present when the massacre began. Other than that, the most credible evidence is that of Eliza Fauktwanger, who said that the Legion officer (Captain Hikmat Mihyar) who saved her life released all other wounded and that they were sent to Jerusalem.^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath

Funeral procession leaving from Jewish Agency building, Jerusalem

On October 28, 1948, the Arab village al-Dawayima was conquered by the IDF 89th Commando Battalion. The Al-Dawayima massacre then took place, as the villagers were blamed for the Kfar Etzion massacre. Estimates of the number of murdered Arab villagers range from 80–100 to 100–200, depending on the source.^[27][28]

The bodies of the murdered of Kfar Etzion were left at the site for a year and a half, until in November 1949, the Chief Military Rabbi, Shlomo Goren was allowed to collect their bones. They were buried in a full military funeral on November 17 in Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Their communal grave was the first grave in what is today the military cemetery of Mount Herzl.

The Etzion Bloc became a symbol of Zionist heroism and martyrdom among Israelis immediately after its fall, and this importance continues. The date of the massacre was enshrined as Israel's Day of Remembrance.

The site of the Etzion Bloc was recaptured by Israel during the 1967 war. The children who had been evacuated from the Bloc in 1948 led a public campaign for the Bloc to be resettled, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol gave his approval. Kfar Etzion was re-established as a kibbutz in September 1967, as the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank after the war.

See also

• Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
• List of massacres in Israel

References

1. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem - Illustrated History Atlas,, V. Mitchell 1994, page 93.
2. Jump up^ Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, vol.2, Fayard 2007 p.96.:'According to the Arab Legion version, the Jordanian soldiers arrived too late to impede the massacre by villagers who were keen to avenge Deir Yassin and the losses they had sustained since November (it should be kept in mind that it was the colony that opened hostilities in December by destroying a nearby village)'.(Selon la version de la Légion, les soldats jordaniens sont arrivés trop tard pour empêcher le massacre de la part des villageois désireux de venger Deir Yassin et leurs pertes depuis le mois de novembre (il faut rappeler que c'est la colonie qui a ouvert les hostilités en décembre en détruisant un village voisin).' Laurens adds:'Le plus probable est que tout se soit passé dans la plus grande confusion' (Most probably, everything took place in a situation of enormous confusion.)
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Meron Benvenisti,"Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948, University of California Press, 2000 p.116
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b Gershom Gorenberg, Occupied Territories: The Untold Story of Israel's Settlements,I.B.Tauris, 2007 p.20.
5. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem,(1972) Granada Books 1982 p.217
6. Jump up^ Margalit Zisman, cited Michael Petrou, Is This Your First War?: Travels Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World, Dundurn, 2012 p.167
7. Jump up^ Avi Shlaim, 'Israel and the Arab Coalition in 1948,' in Albert H. Hourani,Phillip Khoury,Mary Christina Wilson (eds.)The Modern Middle East, I.B.Tauris, 2nd ed.2005 pp.535-556, p.545.
8. Jump up^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004 p.370.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b Henry Laurens (scholar), La Question de Palestine, vol.2, Fayard 2007 p.96.
10. Jump up^ Yoav Gelber,Palestine, 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,Sussex University Press p.26.
11. Jump up^ Mark Daryl Erickson, Joseph E. Goldberg, Stephen H. Gotowicki, Bernard Reich, Sanford R. Silverburg (1996). An Historical Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 149. Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-27374-X
12. Jump up^ Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard 2007 p.96.
13. ^ Jump up to:^a b Benny Morris, The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews, I.B.Tauris, 2003 pp.135-7.
14. Jump up^ Chronology of International Events and Documents, Volume 4 Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1947 p.270:'12 April. — Jews in the Kfar Etzion settlement near the Jerusalem- Tel Aviv road fired on an Arab convoy and the Arabs fought back.'
15. Jump up^ Benny Morris,The Road to Jerusalem, p.137.
16. Jump up^ Benny Morris,The Road to Jerusalem, pp.137-8.
17. Jump up^ B. Morris, The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. p. 135–138, 2003.
18. Jump up^ Dov Knohl,Siege in the Hills:: The Battle of the Etzion Bloc, T. Yoseloff, 1958 p.334.
19. Jump up^ Benny Morris, The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews,pp.138-9
20. Jump up^ Anny Latour,The Resurrection of Israel, World Publishing Company, 1968 p.345:'What followed was carnage. Twenty women who had hidden in a cellar were massacred by hand grenades tossed by the frenzied Arabs.'
21. Jump up^ Ruth Gruber ,Israel on the seventh day, Hill and Wang, 1968 p.30.'Twenty women who had hidden in a cellar were massacred by Arabs with hand grenades.'
22. Jump up^ David Ohana, The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites Nor Crusaders, Cambridge University Press, 2012 P.104.
23. Jump up^ Benny Morris, ibid. p269 n.398.
24. Jump up^ Benny Morris, The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews, p.139.
25. Jump up^ Benny Morris, ibid. p269 n.398.
26. Jump up^ Moshe Dayan, 'The Story of My Life'. ISBN 0-688-03076-9. Page 130. Out of a total of 670 prisoners released.
27. Jump up^ Benny Morris (2008), 1948: An History the First Arab-Israeli War, p. 333
28. Jump up^ Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007), Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War, in E. Benvenisti & al, Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Berlin, Heidelberg, New-York : Springer, pp. 59-127

Bibliography

• L. Collins and D. Lapierre, O Jerusalem!, Grafton Books, 1982, ISBN 0-586-05452-9.
• I. Levi, Jerusalem in the War of Independence ("Tisha Kabin" - Nine Measures - in Hebrew) Maarachot - IDF, Israel Ministry of Defence, 1986. ISBN 965-05-0287-4
• D. Ohana, Kfar Etzion: the Community of Memory and the myth of return, Israel Studies, vol. 7 no. 2 (2002) 145-174.
• J. C. Lehr and Y. Katz, Heritage Interpretation and Politics in Kfar Etzion, Israel, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2003, 215–228.
• B. Morris, The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews, I.B. Tauris (2003), ISBN 1-86064-989-0.

Kfar Etzion Massacre in 1948: Kidnappings in 2014

Kfar Etzion Before the Kidnappings, There Was a Massacre

How the national trauma of Kfar Etzion helped bring Israeli Yeshiva boys to the West Bank

The slaughter on May 13, 1948, by Arab militiamen from nearby villages and Jordanian Legionnaires of dozens of surrendering Jewish troops in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion was probably the biggest Arab massacre of Jews in the first Arab-Israeli War.

A year later, in the early morning hours of the fourth day of Iyar, 5709 (May 3, 1949), the first anniversary, in the Hebrew calendar, of the fall of the kibbutz, Col. Shlomo Goren, the IDF chief rabbi, accompanied by a minyan of young Jerusalemites, held a commemorative service on an Israeli hilltop from which could be seen, in the distance, the ruins of the Etzion Bloc. The “bloc” of four kibbutzim—Kfar Etzion, Ein Tzurim, Massu’ot Yitzhak, and Revadim—had been established between 1943 and 1947 in the Judaean hills, amid a cluster of Arab villages in the southern part of the West Bank, which Jordan had occupied in May 1948 and which Israel was to conquer in June 1967. The bloc was located in the heartland of the biblical Land of Israel, between 

Kfar Etzion, Ein Tzurim, Massu’ot Yitzhak,

Memorial candles were lit, chapters of the Mishna were read out, and el maleh rahamim (merciful God), a Jewish prayer for the dead, was chanted. The assembled fired shots in the air “in memory of those martyred in the Etzion Bloc.” They were commemorating the 151 Jewish fighters—of whom 21 were women—killed during the two-day battle; 127 of them died on the second day of the battle, May 13, 1948, the day before the State of Israel was established and proclaimed. Of these, most were murdered in the center of Kfar Etzion, the core settlement of the bloc, while surrendering or after they had surrendered.

The bloc, and especially Kfar Etzion and its southeastern outpost, the disused “Russian Monastery,” had been a thorn in the side of the Palestinians, who had battled the Haganah during the civil-war half of the 1948 War during November 1947-May 1948. The bloc was besieged by Arab irregulars between December 1947 and May 1948; re-supply was possible only from the air (the bloc had a small airstrip). Most of the four settlements’ women and children were evacuated inland. Periodically, the bloc’s defenders had fired on Arab vehicles along the Bethlehem-Hebron road. This riled the Palestinians.

But the bloc was also a problem for the Arab Legion, Jordan’s British-financed, -equipped, and -led army. During World War II Jordan’s King Abdullah, an ally of Britain’s, had “loaned” the British a number of Arab Legion companies, which the British, short of manpower, had used to guard installations around the Middle East. In 1945-1948, these companies were deployed by the British and then challenged by an insurgency of Jewish guerrillas/terrorists, the IZL (irgun zva’I leumi, or National Military Organization) and LHI (lohamei herut yisrael, or Freedom Fighters of Israel), to guard their bases and roads in Palestine. One of these was the Bethlehem-Hebron road, which was a segment of the Jerusalem-Beersheba-Rafah-Suez Canal axis, through which the British and the Legion were supplied from Britain’s Suez-Canal-side bases and along which part of the final British withdrawal from Palestine, scheduled to be completed by May 15, 1948, was to take place.

By May 1948, the Legionnaires should have left Palestine completely as the British steadily shipped their troops home. But the British needed them to secure the roads until the last moment, and Abdullah, who intended to occupy the West Bank on the heels of the British departure, had an interest in keeping them west of the River Jordan as an advance guard for his army. He was also interested in securing the Jerusalem-Beersheba road. So, several Legion companies were still in the Hebron-Bethlehem area in the first half of May. Attacks by the bloc’s defenders in Legion vehicles traveling along the road during April and early May highlighted the future threat posed by the bloc. Besides, the whole area south of Bethlehem had been earmarked by the U.N. General Assembly partition resolution of Nov. 29, 1947, for Arab sovereignty; neither the Palestinians nor Abdullah wanted a cluster of armed Jewish settlements on their territory.

Hence, on the morning of May 12, 1948, probably after getting a green light from the British, two Arab Legion companies—backed by more than a dozen gun-mounting armored cars (to which the bloc’s defenders had no real answer) and mortars, and supported by hundreds of Palestinian militiamen—attacked Kfar Etzion and its outposts at the southern end of the bloc. The 150-odd Jewish defenders were badly outgunned, and their positions were demolished and overrun one after another. The defenders put up a stiff fight. But by noon of May 13 the armored cars had taken the Russian Monastery and penetrated the perimeter fences and trench-works and reached the center of Kfar Etzion.

The defenders understood the game was up. Many laid down their weapons and, carrying white sheets, assembled in the kibbutz’s central courtyard (though some defenders in outlying posts held on, and perhaps continued firing, unaware that the main body was surrendering). One survivor recalled: “The defenders began assembling between the [disused German] Monastery and the school building. The first Arabs began arriving. They ordered [us] to sit and afterwards to stand up and raise our arms. One Arab pointed a Tommy-gun at us and another wanted to throw a grenade, but others stopped them. This was taken as another proof that they intended to take us prisoner. A cameraman in European dress, wearing a white kaffiya, appeared and photographed us. Then an armored car, mounting machineguns, arrived … and halted near the school. As soon as the photographer stopped work, firing began from all directions. Those not hit in the first fusillade fled in various directions. A few ran to the cellar, some took up arms again. A mass of Arabs rushed in from all sides and attacked the people in the center of the settlement and in the outposts shouting wildly ‘Deir Yassin’.”

A month before, on April 9, IZL and LHI troops had attacked and conquered the village of Deir Yassin, just west of Jerusalem. Dozens of women and children were killed during and after the battle, and ‘Deir Yassin’ became a rallying cry and a cry for revenge among Palestine Arabs—and to this day ‘Deir Yassin’ is regarded by many Palestinians as the symbolic core and locus of the 1948 War or Nakba (catastrophe).

In the 1950s, the IDF History Branch appointed Maj. Yitzhak Yakobson, a staff officer, to study the Etzion Bloc battle. In his comprehensive report, “The Etzion Bloc in the War of Independence,” he described how three of the prisoners in the courtyard managed to escape and make it to Massu’ot Yitzhak or into the hands of Legion officers who protected them. Another survivor, “Aviva F.,” described how a Legion officer saved her from two Arabs who tried to rape her and shot them both dead and then proceeded to finish off a number of wounded Jews he encountered as he led her to safety. The survivors also testified that Legionnaires had participated in the massacre alongside militiamen.

Yakobson, basing himself on subsequent Legionnaires’ testimony, noted that two Legionnaires had been injured while (unsuccessfully) trying to save three Jews, and other Legionnaires had killed a number of militiamen in firefights. But Yakobson concluded that “first and foremost, the massacre had stemmed from a savage mentality and thirst for revenge and Jewish blood, and was a direct successor of the massacre [of Jews] in Hebron in 1929,” when, as part of the statewide anti-Jewish riots, an Arab mob murdered 66 unarmed ultra-Orthodox Jews.

For his part, the British commander of the Arab Legion, Gen. John Glubb, subsequently offered a number of versions of what had happened. In The Times (London), on July 2, 1968, he wrote simply: “Not a single Jew was massacred at Kfar Etzion.” But earlier, in his A Soldier With the Arabs (1957), Glubb wrote (perhaps hinting at excesses): “The Arab Legion treated all Jews as prisoners of war. As soon as the Arab Legion withdrew, the villagers of the Hebron district looted the Jewish colonies, leaving not one stone upon another. These colonies had been so aggressive that they had deliberately compelled Arab retaliation.” The British minister in Amman, Alec Kirkbride, (falsely) cabled London that “the Arab Legion [had] prevented massacre of inhabitants and looting of colonies which would otherwise have been their fate at the hands of the local Arabs.” The commander of the Legion’s 6th Battalion,Abdullah el Tell, who had commanded the assault on Kfar Etzion, was marginally more truthful. He wrote in his memoirs, The Memoirs of Abdullah Tall (1960): “The remaining Jewish combatants continued to resist from a fortified position. This forced our soldiers to kill all of them. We took only three prisoners. All the Jewish combatants were killed.”

David Ben-Gurion later said that the dead of the Etzion Bloc had “saved Jerusalem”—meaning that they had protected the southern approaches to the city and, for months, had diverted away from the battle for the city considerable Arab manpower.

A Zionist that's what I am. So I get todefine it.

There’s an excellent discussion of the ‘Zionism is racism’ question over at Jeremiah Haber’s site, The Magnes Zionist. Haber makes some very good points which are especially compelling since he – a multiculturalist who self-identifies as a Zionist – is making them. Indeed, anyone who reads his site knows that people like him will be an asset in the as-yet-unrealized egalitarian one-state Palestine/Israel. I’ll get to the contradiction implicit in this statement in a moment. First, I want to review why this is an important discussion that cannot exist independently of the anti-apartheid struggle; why can’t we just focus on the tangibles like the ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah?

Any nation-building exercise employs narrative mythologizing at its core. National narratives can help to obviate perceptions of tribal, racial or class differences to create stable, enduring societies. The most successful national narratives embed stories that permit the integration of previously non-national groups. Zionism, whatever it may be, is exclusionary in a space that requires integration.

As a one-stater, I have a real interest in working alongside Israelis to stop the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem. I also have a real interest in forging a new, inclusive national narrative that encompasses the breadth of life experience in Palestine/Israel. Part of that work entails delegitimizing and discrediting the Zionist narrative – which again, is nothing if not exclusionary.

By definition, a Zionist who struggles alongside a Palestinian in East Jerusalem exists in an exceptional, Teflon space. The impermeable bubble of Jewish privilege in the problem of the interaction between the Palestinian and the Israeli; it’s an exercise in political convenience rather than solidarity and cohesion building. Social progress requires the renunciation of Jewish privilege – or Zionism.

But does that necessarily make Zionism racism?

I don’t think many people will argue that the dominant Zionists in Israel historically and today aren’t racists; Avigdor Lieberman springs somewhat clumsily from David Ben Gurion’s loins. I don’t think that’s what Haber takes exception to.

Instead, he argues that Zionism represents a wide spectrum of thought around the principle of Jewish self-determination. Judah Magnes’ life and writings showcase that broad-spectrum variance so describing the entire range as racist is terminologically inaccurate and intellectually dishonest.

The problem here is that this argument uses the exception to disprove the rule. Sociology, philosophy and the humanities generally resist empirically deliverable truths. The exceptions created by the momentary existence of recorded thought make language meaningless if we permit them to.

Zionism is up. Zionism is the early-morning mist suspended above Lake Nakuru  in the spring. Zionism is an adolescent boy who shudders after urinating in a darkened, barren concrete East Coast warehouse. Zionism is not racism.

It’s not out of contempt for “terminological sobriety” or nuance that I describe the complexity of Zionism – the whole of the Zionist experience – as racism. Instead, the definition follows from descriptive reality. Zionists ethnically cleansed Palestine, etc. Some Zionist may define Zionism as ‘up’ but that’s meaningless. Definition heft is borne by what Zionists do – what they’ve done.

Besides being descriptively accurate, defining Zionism as racism serves a psycho-social function. The modern Israeli Jew carries a grotesque historical burden. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was perpetrated in the name of every Jew (according to the Zionists, anyway). By locating the history of racism and ethnic displacement in one capsule we provide a clear opportunity for Israeli Jews and others to unburden themselves – to break with a legacy they may not want to own. By declaring herself a non or anti-Zionist, a young Israeli Jew can experience a cathartic release – a humanistic leveling – to put her within emotional range of the humans on the other side. Here, a lack of terminological complexity is useful.

Finally, defining Zionism is my prerogative. The Jewish privilege conferred by Zionism in Israel and around the world carries with it the greatest privilege of all – the right of association. My Jewish friends in America and Israel can choose to engage with the Zionist enterprise or they can choose not to. The Palestinians have no such choice. I am forced to contend with Zionism every day. But I’ve come to realize that a special power is communicated by our mandatory marriage.

What I can do is choose to take ownership of Zionism. I will describe it authoritatively and with greater weight than any Zionist can or is permitted to. Zionism ceased to belong to Judah Magnes a long time ago and as Zionism’s mandatory object, I possess the power of explication and defamation. I have the right of appropriation. People like me will write the history books – that’s the colonial experience. And that’s partially what this is about – the battle over history.

So where does that leave obvious anti-racists like Jeremiah Haber who self-identify as Zionists? My humble suggestion is that another, more appropriate term be identified and descriptively applied. Hebrew culturalism or something like it may work. There’s plenty of room for Hebrew culture in Palestine/Israel. But Zionism has no place in my country.

Livni marries same-sex couple in civil ceremony

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni presided over the wedding of Guy and Tzach, a same-sex couple who broke a traditional glass together, however like them, Livni knows the way to legal marriage equality in Israel is still far.

Justice Minister and Israel's chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni presided over a same-sex civil marriage, despite the fact that Israeli law does not yet recognize gay couples.

Livni arrived Monday night at an event hall in Jaffa and married the couple, after the partners requested she participate in the ceremony and give them her blessing. The justice minister obliged and even spoke at the event, which was conducted in a Jewish fashion, despite the fact that the ceremony was not conducted by an ordained rabbi.

Livni with Guy and Tzach (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"I am not here as justice minister," Livni said, "sadly, I do not have the official legal authority to bind Guy and Tzach in a union recognized by the State of Israel – the county of their birth, for which they served in the army, and in which they want to live their lives together."

Livni lamented the legal situation in which gay couples' civil marriages are not recognized by the State, despite the fact that those conducted by heterosexual couples are.

"Despite my best intentions, I cannot promise that after this ceremony is done you will receive the full rights enjoyed by married couples in this country. But I have come here on the authority of my moral position, and to say that the time has come that the State accept any couple who has chosen to tie their fate together as a couple."

  

During the ceremony, Livni invited the grooms' mothers to say a few words, and then instructed the partners to exchange rings, which, she explained, are a symbol for their commitment to uphold their vows to one another. To conclude the ceremony, Livni orchestrated the traditional breaking of the glass under the wedding hupa (canopy), this time a joint-effort by both grooms.

Livni spoke of her contact with the couple, "when Tzach and Guy contacted me and told me their story I quickly noticed their experience was identical to that of any young couple at the beginning of their lives. The stories they shared with me reminded me of the beginning of my own marriage, which in the meantime has survived for three decades, and that is great. "

Livni also praised the couple, saying that "I was happy to learn that Tzach works for the Foreign Ministry and as part of his work he will represent Israel with Guy by his side, showing the world Israel's true face."

Livni also claimed that the ceremony was not incongruent with Jewish values, and certainly not an affront to them: "I believe that what I have been invited to do by Guy and Tzach is in no way a provocation meant to insult Judaism. We have true respect for this tradition, as we see and understand it, an open Judaism, which accepts people and respects them as those made in the image of God. That is why we have preserved elements of the traditional Jewish ceremony in our current ceremony."

Towards legal equality

Livni's participation in the event is likely to inspire criticism among certain members of the government and Knesset.

In addition to tensions regarding the peace process, the current coalition has also been strained by issues of State and religious, which have at time pitted centrist aspects (Livni's Hatnua and Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid) against the more right-wing members (namely Naftali Bennett's Bayit Yehudi and some Likud and Yisrael Beitienu MKs)

Livni also spoke about the state of legislation regarding same-sex marriages, as well as the changes needed: "In politics, there are those who veto the bills I propose which are supposed to allow (a State sanctioned) union to the people for whom the Rabbinate is an obstacle , thus allowing them to receive official recognition as a couple.

"In my opinion the State is not the authority of love, this is not a finite resource which needs to be regulated, no power in the world can veto love and stand before the will of a couple who has chosen to share their lives with one another… we are here to celebrate the cliché truth that 'love conquers all,' Livni said.

Two different initiatives to recognize same-sex marriage are currently stuck in the legislative process, and political sources describe a political equation according to which Yesh Atid will quietly allow settlement construction in return for support by the Bayit Yehudi to one of the two initiatives.

The Bayit Yehudi party tied its support of the bill to the condition it does not change the legal definition of marriage, but only allow same-sex couples to enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples through different clauses in the law. However, sources in the party say that any headway made in this regard could threaten the coalition, as not all in the party accept this alleged deal.