wojo!!!!
12.09.02, 23:04
Lata 30-te w Palestynie ,arabstwo zaczelo zaczelo brykac (jak
zwykle ) i Anglicy stlumili powstanie arabstwa krwawa ,ciezka
reka .
Bez opierd...nia sie , potraktowali ich jak trzeba , bo tylko
to rozumieja.
Przyjemnego czytania arabki .
How the British Fought Arab Terror in Jenin
by Dr. Rafael Medoff
April 21, 2002
“Demolishing the homes of Arab civilians…” “Shooting handcuffed
prisoners…” “Forcing local Arabs to test areas where mines may have been
planted…” These sound like the sort of accusations made by British and other
European officials concerning Israel's recent actions in Jenin. In fact,
they are descriptions from official British documents concerning the methods
used by the British authorities to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in
Jenin and elsewhere in 1938.
The documents were declassified by London in 1989. They provide details of
the British Mandatory government's response to the assassination of a
British district commissioner by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in Jenin in
the summer of 1938. Even after the suspected assassin was captured (and then
shot dead while allegedly trying to escape), the British authorities decided
that “a large portion of the town should be blown up” as punishment. On
August 25 of that year, a British convoy brought 4,200 kilos of explosives
to Jenin for that purpose. In the Jenin operation and on other occasions,
local Arabs were forced to drive “mine-sweeping taxis” ahead of British
vehicles in areas where Palestinian Arab terrorists were believed to have
planted mines, in order “to reduce [British] land mine casualties.” The
British authorities frequently used these and similar methods to combat
Palestinian Arab terrorism in the late 1930s. British forces responded to
the presence of terrorists in the Arab village of Miar, north of Haifa, by
blowing up house after house in October 1938. “When the troops left, there
was little else remaining of the once busy village except a pile of mangled
masonry,” the New York Times reported. The declassified documents refer to
an incident in Jaffa in which a handcuffed prisoner was shot by the British
police.
Under Emergency Regulation 19b, the British Mandate government could
demolish any house located in a village where terrorists resided, even if
that particular house had no direct connection to terrorist activity.
Mandate official Hugh Foot later recalled: “When we thought that a village
was harbouring rebels, we'd go there and mark one of the large houses. Then,
if an incident was traced to that village, we'd blow up the house we'd
marked.” The High Commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, defended
the practice: “The provision is drastic, but the situation has demanded
drastic powers.” MacMichael was furious over what he called the “grossly
exaggerated accusations” that England's critics were circulating concerning
British anti-terror tactics in Palestine. Arab allegations that British
soldiers gouged out the eyes of Arab prisoners were quoted prominently in
the Nazi German press and elsewhere.
The declassified documents also record discussions among officials of the
Colonial Office concerning the anti-terror methods used in Palestine. Lord
Dufferin remarked: “British lives are being lost and I don't think that we,
from the security of Whitehall, can protest squeamishly about measures taken
by the men in the frontline.” Sir John Shuckburgh defended the tactics on
the grounds that the British were confronted “not with a chivalrous opponent
playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers.”
There were many differences between British policy in the 1930s and Israeli
policy today, but two stand out. The first is that the British, faced with a
level of Palestinian Arab terrorism considerably less lethal than that which
Israel faces today, nevertheless utilized anti-terror methods considerably
harsher than those used by Israeli forces. The second is that when the
situation became unbearable, the British could go home; the Israelis, by
contrast, have no other place to go.
----------------------------------
