Sons of Kings & Sons of Dogs

In March this year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd moved a bilateral motion in federal parliament "celebrating and commending the achievements of the State of Israel in the 60 years since its inception." Rudd's motion (see my 14/3/08 post The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 3) praised the world's last remaining apartheid state for its commitment to "cultural diversity," and "pluralism."

Israel's "cultural diversity" and "pluralism" were on proud display in the mixed port city of Acre on October 15 when an Israeli judge placed a Palestinian-Israeli man under house arrest for a week and suspended him from driving for a month for the heinous crime of driving through a mixed neighborhood on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. The sentence had followed the stoning of the man's car and his narrow escape from a Jewish lynch mob; the retaliatory stoning of Jewish shops, cars and homes by Palestinian-Israelis; the fire-bombing of Palestinian-Israeli homes by Jews; and the man's appearance before a Knesset committee meeting, where he offered up his 'neck' in penance.

"Long-time communist Salim Atrash blamed the disengagement from Gaza, saying an extremist yeshiva that opened in the city following the pullout has been fanning the flames. Atrash pulled out a copy of a notice that has been circulating on the Internet: 'We will no longer buy anything from Arabs, we will not honor any of their holidays or any place of theirs. Arabs of Acre, go find your place in the villages'. The notice was signed with an epigram: 'A Jew is the son of a king, an Arab is the son of a dog'." (Acre Jews warn: Arabs will be killed with knives, Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 12/10/08)

The origins of Israel's commitment to "cultural diversity" and "pluralism" in Acre, as in all other parts of Palestine, go back to the watershed year of 1948. Despite the UN's inclusion of the city in a projected Arab state in November 1947, it was ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces in May of that year. At the time, its population of 25,000, almost entirely Palestinian Arab, had doubled, with refugees fleeing from areas already overrun by Zionist forces, especially Haifa*:-

"The [Zionist-perpetrated] urbicide continued into May with the occupation of Acre on the coast... In the beginning of May, Acre proved once again that it was not only Napoleon who found it hard to defeat: despite severe overcrowding due to the huge influx of refugees from the neighbouring city of Haifa, heavy daily shelling by the Jewish forces failed to subdue the Crusader city. However, its exposed water supply ten kilometres to the north, from the Kabri springs, via an almost 200-year old aquaduct, proved its Achilles' heel. During the siege typhoid germs were apparently injected into the water. Local emissaries of the International Red Cross reported this to their headquarters and left very little room for guessing whom they suspected: the Hagana. The Red Cross reports describe a sudden typhoid epidemic and even, with their guarded language, point to the outside poisoning as the sole explanation for this outbreak.

"On 6th May 1948, in Acre's Lebanese hospital, which belonged to the Red Cross, an emergency meeting was convened. Brigadier Beveridge, chief of the British medical services, Colonel Bonnet of the British army, Dr Maclean of the Medical Services, and Mr de Meuron, the Red Cross delegate in Palestine, met with city officials to discuss the seventy casualties the epidemic had already claimed. They concluded that the infection was undoubtedly water-borne, not due to crowded or unhygienic conditions, as the Hagana claimed. Tellingly, it had affected fifty-five British soldiers who were transported to Port Said hospital in Egypt. 'Nothing like that ever happened in Palestine', Brigadier Beveridge told de Meuron. The minute they had identified the aqueduct as the source, they switched to artesian wells and water from the agricultural station north of Acre. The refugees from Acre already in camps in the north were also examined in order to prevent the epidemic from spreading.

"With their morale weakened by both the typhoid epidemic and the intensive shelling, residents heeded the call from loudspeakers that shouted at them: 'Surrender or commit suicide. We will destroy you to the last man'. Lieutenant Petite, a French UN observer, reported that after the city fell into Jewish hands, there was widespread and systematic looting by the army, including furniture, clothes, and anything that might be useful to the new Jewish immigrants, and the removal of which might discourage the refugees' return." (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe, 2006 p 100)

[*See my 7/5/08 post Bend It Like Benny]

By the time Acre fell to Zionist forces, only 4,000 Palestinian inhabitants remained. Israel's ongoing commitment to "cultural diversity" and "pluralism," of course, continued apace:-

"Lieutenant Petite noted that the Jews had murdered at least 100 Arab civilians in Acre. In particular the Israelis killed many residents of the new city who refused to move into the portion of the old city that was being used as an Arab ghetto. The Israelis considered the new city totally off-limits to Arabs.

"The case of Mohammed Fayez Soufi was typical. He was forced to leave his home in the new part of town and was relocated in the portion of the old city of Acre that had not been demolished. When Mohammed and four of his friends went back to their former homes in the new city to get food, they were stopped by a gang of Israeli soldiers who put a pistol to each of their heads and forced them to drink cyanide. Mohammed faked swallowing the poison but his friends were not so lucky. After about half an hour, three of the Arabs died and were tossed in the sea by the Israelis. Several days later, their bodies were washed up on the shore.

"Lieutenant Petite suspected that the murders of Arab civilians in Acre were the work of Israeli soldiers who were acting without orders from their superiors. But there can be no doubt that the atrocities reflected the contemptuous attitude toward Arab civilians which prevailed in the Israeli army. The Israeli High Command certainly did nothing to punish those who committed the atrocities reported by the UN officials in all parts of the Jewish state." (The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland, Michael Palumbo, 1987, pp 119-120)

Israel - a past master in "cultural diversity" and "pluralism."