Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
24 February
ISRAEL SIGNS AGREEMENT, THEN TREACHERY
On this day in 1949, Israel agreed that Palestinians of Faluja could remain, secure in their property rights. Local Palestinian and Egyptian forces were undefeated but surrounded. UN observers then reported beatings, robberies, attempted rapes by Israeli soldiers, “firing promiscuously”. Foreign Minister Sharett later regretted that, “It is not possible in every place to arrange what some of our boys engineered in Faluja [where] they chased away the Arabs after we signed an...international commitment.”
توقع إسرائيل الاتفاقية ، ومن ثم تغدر
ابريل 20
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1949 ، وافقت إسرائيل على بقاء الفلسطينيين في الفلوجة آمنين في حقوق ملكيتهم. لم تُهزم القوات المحلية الفلسطينية والمصرية لكنها حوصرت. ثم أفاد مراقبوا الأمم المتحدة عن حالات ضرب، سرقة، ومحاولات اغتصاب من قبل الجنود الإسرائيليين "و اطلاق عشوائي للنار". وأعرب وزير الخارجية شاتر في وقت لاحق عن أسفه لأنه "ليس من الممكن في كل مكان ترتيب ما صممه بعض أولادنا في الفلوجة" [حيث] طردوا العرب بعد أن وقعنا ... تعهدًا دوليًا."
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who became his country's president six years later, was deputy commander of the Egyptian forces that secured the Faluja pocket. By August, his brigade was surrounded by the Israeli Army. Appeals for help from Jordan's Arab Legion went unheeded, but the brigade refused to surrender. Negotiations between Israel and Egypt finally resulted in the ceding of Faluja to Israel.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle
"Faluja was not taken over by the Israeli military in 1948. Instead, it was part of a small enclave, known as the Faluja pocket, that the Egyptian army and local Palestinian forces had managed to hold through the end of the war.
"The area was surrounded by Israeli forces, however. When Israel and Egypt signed an armistice agreement in February 1949, the latter agreed to withdraw its soldiers, but it insisted that the agreement explicitly guarantee the safety and property of the 3,100 or so Arab civilians in the area.
"Israel accepted that demand. In an exchange of letters that were filed with the United Nations and became an annex to the main armistice agreement, the two countries agreed that "those of the civilian population who may wish to remain in Al-Faluja and Iraq al Manshiya (the two villages within the enclave covered by the letters) are to be permitted to do so. . . . All of these civilians shall be fully secure in their persons, abodes, property and personal effects."
"Israel violated the terms of agreement almost immediately intimidating the population into leaving by April 21st 1949. Intimidation tactics included beatings, looting, attempted rapes and a "whispering propaganda campaign" Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that the decision to cause the exodus of the 'Faluja pocket' population was probably approved by prime minister David Ben Gurion but Israeli officials feigned outrage about what had happened."
A visiting Quaker team reported
"a man with two bloody eyes, a torn ear, and a face pounded until it was blue ... A young Arab told me: 'We could not sleep last night because of much shooting and because the Israeli soldiers came into the homes and tried to 'make into' the Arab women.'"
"Israeli Historian Benny Morris presents ample evidence that the people of the Al-Faluja area left in response to a campaign of intimidation conducted by the Israeli military. He quotes, among other sources, reports filed by Ralph Bunche, the distinguished black American educator and diplomat who was serving as chief UN mediator in the region."Bunche's reports include complaints from UN observers on the scene that "Arab civilians...at Al-Faluja have been beaten and robbed by Israeli soldiers," that there were attempted rapes and that the Israelis were "firing promiscuously" on the Arab population.
"Moshe Sharett, Israel's foreign minister at the time, wrote that, 'There is no doubt that there is a calculated action aimed at increasing the number of those (Arab civilians) going to the Hebron Hills (in the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan) as if of their own free will, and, if possible, to bring about the evacuation of the whole civilian population [of the pocket]'.
"Sharett's main concern, it appears, was that the campaign in Al-Faluja called into question "our sincerity as a party to an international agreement."
"A few months later, when Arab civilians in other parts of Israel's newly conquered territory resisted similar pressures, he wrote, with what sounds like regret, "It is not possible in every place to arrange what some of our boys engineered in Faluja (where) they chased away the Arabs after we signed an...international commitment."
2-minute video: the Israeli government and army commanders are 'war criminals', says former Israeli army pilot