On Israel's little-known concentration and labor camps in 1948-1955
در مورد "اردوگاه های کار" اجباری کمتر شناخته شده اسرائیل
در سالهای 1955-1948
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/21763
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Civilians
captured during the fall of Lydda and Ramle around the time of July 12,
1948 and taken to labour camps. In the July heat they were thirsty and
were given a drop of water carried by a child under soldiers’ guard.
غیرنظامیان دستگیر شده در طول پاییز در شهرهای لیدا و رامله حدود دوازدهم ژولای 1948 که به اردوگاه های کار برده شده اند. در گرمای ژوئیه آنها تشنه بودند و یک قطره آب توسط یک کودک تحت حفاظت سربازان به آنها داده شد .
(Photo: Salman Abu Sitta, Palestine Land Society)
******************************************
Much of the grim and murky circumstances of the Zionist ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians in the late 1940s have gradually been exposed
over time. One aspect – rarely researched or deeply discussed – is the
internment of thousands of Palestinian civilians within at least 22
Zionist-run concentration and labor camps that existed from 1948 to
1955. Now more is known about the contours of this historical crime, due
to the comprehensive research by renowned Palestinian historian Salman
Abu Sitta and founding member of the Palestinian resource center BADIL
Terry Rempel.
بسیاری از شرایط تیره و تار پاکسازی قومی فلسطینی ها توسط صهیونیستها دراواخر 1940 به تدریج و در طول زمان افشا گردیده اند. یک جنبه - به ندرت تحقیق شده و عمیقا مورد بحث -همانا توقیف هزاران نفر از غیرنظامیان فلسطینی در حداقل 22 اردو گاه کار اجباری صهیونیستی که بین سالهای 1948 تا 1955 وجود داشته اند میباشد. در حال حاضر، با توجه به تحقیق جامع مورخ مشهور فلسطینی ' سلمان ابوسیتا' و عضو موسس مرکز منابع فلسطینی بدیل تری رمپل
در مورد این جنایت تاریخی بیشتر میدانیم.
The facts are these.
واقعیات چنین اند
The study – to be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies
– relies on almost 500 pages of International Committee of the Red
Cross's (ICRC) reports written during the 1948 war, that were
declassified and made available to the public in 1996, and accidentally
discovered by one of the authors in 1999.
این تحقیق/ مطالعه - که در شماره آینده مجله مطالعات فلسطین منتشر خواهد شد - متکی بر تقریبا 500 صفحه گزارش از کمیته بین المللی صلیب سرخ میباشد که در طول جنگ سال 1948 نوشته شده , که از حالت محرمانه خارج شد و در سال 1996 در دسترس عموم قرار گرفته و به طور تصادفی توسط یکی از نویسندگان در سال 1999 کشف شده است.
Furthermore, testimonies of 22 former Palestinian civilian detainees
of these camps were collected by the authors, through interviews they
conducted themselves in 2002, or documented by others during different
moments of time.
علاوه بر این، شهادت 22 تن از بازداشت شدگان غیر نظامیان فلسطینی سابق این اردوگاه ها توسط نویسندگان جمع آوری گردیده، از طریق مصاحبه آنها در سال 2002 انجام شده است، و یا توسط دیگران در زمانهای مختلف ثبت شده است.
With these sources of information, the authors, as they put it,
pieced together a clearer story of how Israel captured and imprisoned
“thousands of Palestinian civilians as forced laborers,” and exploited
them “to support its war-time economy.”
با این منابع اطلاعات، نویسندگان، همانطور که میگویند، با کنار هم قرار دادن آنها ایده روشن تری از اینکه چگونه اسرائیل با دستگیری و زندانی کردن "هزاران نفر از غیرنظامیان فلسطینی به عنوان نیروی کار اجباری،" آنها را "برای حمایت ازاقتصاد جنگی شان" مورد استثمار قرار داده اند .
Digging up the crimes
“I came across this piece of history in the 1990s when I was
collecting material and documents about Palestinian,” Abu Sitta told Al-Akhbar English. “The more and more you dig, the more you find there are crimes that have taken place that are not reported and not known.”
At that time, Abu Sitta went to Geneva for a week to check out the
newly-opened archives of the ICRC. According to him, the archives were
opened to the public after accusations that the ICRC had sided with the
Nazis during World War II. It was an opportunity that he could not miss
in terms of seeing what the ICRC had recorded of the events that
occurred in Palestine in 1948. It was there he stumbled onto records
discussing the existence of five concentration camps run by the
Israelis.
He then decided to look for witnesses or former detainees, interviewing Palestinians in occupied Palestine, Syria, and Jordan.
“They all described the same story, and their real experience in these camps,” he said.
One question that immediately struck him was why there was barely any
references in history about these camps, especially when it became
clearer the more he researched that they existed, and were more than
just five camps.
More references were eventually and slowly discovered by Abu Sitta
that included information from a Jewish woman called Janoud, a single
masters thesis in Hebrew University about the topic, and the personal
accounts of economist Yusif Sayigh, helped to further flesh out the
scale and nature of these camps.
After more than a decade, Abu Sitta, with his co-author Rempel, are finally presenting their findings to the public.
From burden to opportunity: concentration and labor camps
The establishment of concentration and labor camps occurred after the unilateral declaration of Israel's statehood on May 1948.
Prior to that event, the number of Palestinian captives in Zionist
hands were quite low, because, as the study states, “the Zionist
leadership concluded early on that forcible expulsion of the civilian
population was the only way to establish a Jewish state in Palestine
with a large enough Jewish majority to be 'viable'.” In other words, for
the Zionist strategists, prisoners were a burden in the beginning
phases of the ethnic cleansing.
Those calculations changed with the declaration of the Israeli state
and the involvement of the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and
Transjordan, after much of the ethnic cleansing had occurred. From that
moment, “the Israeli forces began taking prisoners, both regular Arab
soldiers (for eventual exchange), and – selectively – able-bodied
Palestinian non-combatant civilians.”
The first camp was Ijlil, which was about 13 km northeast of Jaffa,
on the site of the destroyed Palestinian village Ijlil al-Qibiliyya,
emptied of its inhabitants in early April. Ijlil was predominately made
up of tents, housing hundreds and hundreds of prisoners, categorized as
POWs by the Israelis, surrounded by barbed wire fences, watchtowers,
and a gate with guards.
As the Israeli conquests grew, in turn exceedingly increasing the
number of prisoners, three more camps were established. These are the
four “official” camps that the Israelis acknowledged and were actively
visited by the ICRC.
The study notes:
All four camps were either on or adjacent to military installations set up by the British during the Mandate. These had been used during World War II for the interment of German, Italian, and other POWs. Two of the camps – Atlit, established in July about 20 kms south of Haifa, and Sarafand, established in September near the depopulated village of Sarafand al-Amar in central Palestine—had earlier been used in the 1930s and 1940s to detain illegal Jewish immigrants.
Atlit was the second largest camp after Ijlil, it had the capacity of
holding up to 2,900 prisoners, while Sarafand had the maximum capacity
of 1,800, and Tel Letwinksy, near Tel Aviv, held more than 1,000.
All four camps were administered by “former British officers who had
defected their ranks when British forces withdrew from Palestine in
mid-May 1948,” and the camp's guards and administrative staff were
former members of the Irgun and the Stern Gang – both groups designated
as terrorist organizations by the British before their departure. In
total, the four “official” camps were staffed by 973 soldiers.
A fifth camp, called Umm Khalid, was established at a site of another
depopulated village near the Zionist settlement of Netanya, and was
even assigned an official number in the records, but never attained
“official” status. It had the capacity to hold 1,500 prisoners. Unlike
the other four camps, Umm Khalid would be “the fist camp established
exclusively as a labor camp” and was “the first of the “recognized”
camps to be shut down...by the end of 1948.”
Complementing these five “recognized” camps, were at least 17 other
“unrecognized camps” that were not mentioned in official sources, but
the authors discovered through multiple prisoner testimonies.
Civilians in a labour camp in Ramleh, July 1948. (Photo: Salman Abu Sitta, Palestine Land Society)
“Many of [these camps],” the authors noted, “[were] apparently
improvised or ad hoc, often consisting of no more than a police station,
a school, or the house of a village notable,” with holding capacities
that ranged from almost 200 prisoners to tens.
Most of the camps, official and unofficial, were situated within the
borders of the UN-proposed Jewish state, “although at least four
[unofficial camps] – Beersheba, Julis, Bayt Daras, and Bayt Nabala –
were in the UN-assigned Arab state and one was inside the Jerusalem
“corpus separatum.”
بسیاری از اردوگاه ها، رسمی و غیر رسمی، در داخل مرزهای کشور پیشنهادی سازمان ملل متحد برای یهودیان واقع شده بودند، "هر چند حداقل چهار [اردوگاه غیر رسمی] - برشبا، ژولیس، بیت داراس ، و بیت نابالا - در منطقه اختصای داده شده سازمان ملل متحد برای کشور عرب (بخوان فلسطین-م) واقع گردیده و یکی در داخل اورشلیم " کورپوس سپاراتوم" بوده است ."
The number of
Palestinian non-combatant detainees “far exceeded” those of Arab
soldiers in regular armies or bona fide POWs. Citing a July 1948
monthly report made by ICRC mission head Jacques de Reynier, the study
states that de Reynier noted, “that the situation of civilian internees
was ‘absolutely confused’ with that of POWs, and that the Jewish
authorities ‘treated all Arabs between the ages of 16 and 55 as
combatants and locked them up as prisoners of war.’” In addition, the
ICRC found among the detainees in official camps, that 90 of the
prisoners were elderly men, and 77 were boys, aged 15 years or younger.
The study highlights the statements by an ICRC delegate Emile Moeri in January 1949 of the camp inmates:
It is painful to see these poor people, especially old, who were snatched from their villages and put without reason in a camp, obliged to pass the winter under wet tents, away from their families; those who could not survive these conditions died. Little children (10-12 years) are equally found under these conditions. Similarly sick people, some with tuberculosis, languish in these camps under conditions which, while fine for healthy individuals, will certainly lead to their death if we do not find a solution to this problem. For a long time we have demanded that the Jewish authorities release those civilians who are sick and need treatment to the care of their families or to an Arab hospital, but we have not received a response.
As the report noted, “there are no precise figures on the total
number of Palestinian civilians held by Israel during the 1948-49 war”
and estimates tend to not account for “unofficial” camps, in addition to
the frequent movement of prisoners between the camps in use. In the
four “official” camps, the number of Palestinian prisoners never
exceeded 5,000 according to figures in Israeli records.
Taking accounting the capacity of Umm Khalid, and estimates of the
“unofficial camps,” the final number of Palestinian prisoners could be
around the 7,000 range, and perhaps much more, as the study states, when
taking into account a November 17, 1948 diary entry by David
Ben-Gurion, one of the main Zionist leaders and Israel's first prime
minister, who mentioned “the existence of 9,000 POWs in Israeli-run
camps.”
In general, the living conditions in the “official” camps were far
below what would be considered appropriate by international law at that
time. Moeri, who visited the camps constantly, reported that in Ijlil in
November 1948: “"[m]any [of the] tents are torn, that the camp was “not
ready for winter,” the latrines not covered, and the canteen not
working for two weeks. Referring to an apparently ongoing situation, he
stated that "the fruits are still defective, the meat is of poor
quality, [and] the vegetables are in short supply."
Furthermore, Moeri reported that he saw for himself, “'the wounds
left by the abuse' of the previous week, when the guards had fired on
the prisoners, wounding one, and had beaten another.”
As the study shows, the civilian status of the majority of the
detainees were clear for the ICRC delegates in the country, who reported
that the men captured “had undoubtedly never been in a regular army.”
Detainees who were combatants, the study explains, were “routinely shot
on the pretense that they had been attempting to escape.”
The Israeli forces seemed to always target able-bodied men, leaving
behind women, children, and the elderly – when not massacring them – the
policy continued even after there were low levels of military
confrontation. All in all, as the Israeli records show and the study
cites, “Palestinian civilians comprised the vast majority (82 percent)
of the 5,950 listed as internees in the POW camps, while the
Palestinians alone (civilian plus military) comprised 85 percent.”
The wide-scale kidnapping and imprisonment of Palestinian civilians
tend to correspond with the Israeli military campaigns. For example, one
of the first major roundup occurred during Operation Danj, when
60-70,000 Palestinians were expelled from the central towns of Lydda and
Ramleh. At the same time, between a fifth and a quarter of the male
population from these two towns who were over the age of 15 were sent to
the camps.
The largest round-up of civilians came from villages of central
Galilee who were captured during Operation Hiram in the fall of 1948.
One Palestinian survivor, Moussa, described to the authors what he witnessed at the time.
“They took us from all villages around us: al-Bi'na, Deir al-Asad,
Nahaf, al-Rama, and Eilabun. They took 4 young men and shot them
dead...They drove us on foot. It was hot. We were not allowed to drink.
They took us to [the Palestinian Druze village] al-Maghar, then [to the
Jewish settlement] Nahalal, then to Atlit.”
A November 16, 1948 UN report collaborated Moussa's account, stating
that some 500 Palestinian men “were taken by force march and vehicle to a
Jewish concentration camp at Nahlal.”
Maintaining Israel’s economy with “slave labor”
The policy of targeting civilians, particular “able-bodied” men, was
not accidental according to the study. It states, “with tens of
thousands of Jewish men and women called up for military service,
Palestinian civilian internees constituted an important supplement to
the Jewish civilian labor employed under emergency legislation in
maintaining the Israeli economy,” which even the ICRC delegation had
noted in their reports.
The prisoners were forced to do
public and military work, such as drying wetlands, working as servants,
collecting and transporting looted refugee property, moving stones from
demolished Palestinian homes, paving roads, digging military trenches,
burying the dead, and much more.
As one former Palestinian detainee named Habib Mohammed Ali Jarada
described in the study, "At gunpoint, I was made to work all day. At
night, we slept in tents. In winter, water was seeping below our
bedding, which was dry leaves, cartons and wooden pieces.”
Another prisoner in Umm Khalid, Marwan Iqab al-Yehiya said in an
interview with the authors, “We had to cut and carry stones all day [in a
quarry]. Our daily food was only one potato in the morning and half
dried fish at night. They beat anyone who disobeyed orders.” This labor
was interspersed with acts of humiliation by the Israeli guards, as
Yehiya speaks of prisoners being “lined up and ordered to strip naked as
a punishment for the escape of two prisoners at night.”
“[Jewish] Adults and children came from nearby kibbutz to watch us
line up naked and laugh. To us this was most degrading,” he added.
Abuses by the Israeli guards were systematic and rife in the camps,
the brunt of which was directed towards villagers, farmers, and lower
class Palestinians. This was so, the study said, because educated
prisoners “knew their rights and had the confidence to argue with and
stand up to their captors.”
What is also interestingly noted by the study is how ideological
affiliations between prisoners and their guards had another effects in
terms of the relationship between them.
Citing the testimony of Kamal Ghattas, who was captured during the Israeli attack in the Galilee, who said:
We had a fight with our jailers. Four hundred of us confronted 100 soldiers. They brought reinforcements. Three of my friends and I were taken to a cell. They threatened to shoot us. All night we sang the Communist Anthem. They took the four of us to Umm Khaled camp. The Israelis were afraid of their image in Europe. Our contact with our Central Committee and Mapam [Socialist Israeli party] saved us .… I met a Russian officer and told him they took us from our homes although we were non-combatants which was against the Geneva Conventions. When he knew I was a Communist he embraced me and said, "Comrade, I have two brothers in the Red Army. Long live Stalin. Long Live Mother Russia".
Yet, the less fortunate Palestinians faced acts of violence which
included arbitrary executions and torture, with no recourse. The
executions were always defended as stopping “escape attempts” – real or
claimed by the guards.
It became so common that one former Palestinian detainee of Tel
Litwinsky, Tewfic Ahmed Jum'a Ghanim recounted, “Anyone who refused to
work was shot. They said [the person] tried to escape. Those of us who
thought [we] were going to be killed walked backward facing the guards.”
Ultimately, by the end of 1949, Palestinian prisoners were gradually
released after heavy lobbying by the ICRC, and other organizations, but
the releases were limited in scale and very focused to specific cases.
Prisoners of Arab armies were released in prisoner exchanges, but
Palestinian prisoners were unilaterally expelled across the armistice
line without any food, supplies, or shelter, and told to walk into the
distance, never to return.
It would not be until 1955 when most of the Palestinian civilian prisoners would finally be released.
Forced Labour Camps Atlas. (Source: Salman Abu Sitta, Palestine Land Society)
An enduring crime
The importance of this study is multifaceted. Not only does it reveal
the numerous violations of international law and conventions of the
age, such as 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1929 Geneva Conventions, but
also shows how the event shaped the ICRC in the long run.
Because the ICRC was faced with a belligerent Israeli actor who was
unwilling to listen and conform to international law and conventions,
the ICRC itself had to adapt in what it considered were practical ways
to help ensure the Palestinian civilian prisoners were protected under
the barest of rights.
Citing his final report, the study quotes de Reynier:
[The ICRC] protested on numerous occasions affirming the right of these civilians to enjoy their freedom unless found guilty and judged by a court. But we have tacitly accepted their POW status because in this way they would enjoy the rights conferred upon them by the Convention. Otherwise, if they were not in the camps they would be expelled [to an Arab country] and in one way or another, they would lead, without resources, the miserable life of refugees.
In the end, the ICRC and other organizations were simply ineffective
as Israel ignored its condemnations with impunity, in addition to the
diplomatic cover of major Western powers.
More importantly, the study sheds more light on the extent of the
Israeli crimes during its brutal and bloody birth. And “much more
remains to be told,” as the final line of the study states.
“It is amazing to me, and many Europeans, who have seen my evidence,”
Abu Sitta said, “that a forced labor camp was opened in Palestine three
years after they were closed in Germany, and were run by former
prisoners – there were German Jewish guards.”
" این برای من شگفت انگیز است، و بسیاری از اروپایی ها، که اسناد/ شواهد منرا دیده اند" ابو سیتا میگه, "که یک اردوگاه اجباری سه سال بعد از آنی که در آلمان بسته شده در فلسطین باز گردیده , و توسط زندانیان سابق اداره میشده- نگهبانان یهودی آلمانی. "
“This is a bad reflection of the human spirit, where the oppressed copies an oppressor against innocent lives,” he added.
The study essentially shows the foundations and beginnings of Israeli
policy towards Palestinian civilians that comes in the form of
kidnapping, arrest, and detainment. This criminality continues till this
day. One merely has to read the reports on the hundreds of Palestinians arrested prior, during, and after Israel's latest war on Gaza mid-summer of this year.
“Gaza today is a concentration camp, no different than the past,” Abu Sitta concluded to Al-Akhbar English.
او افزود: "این امر بازتابی بدی از روحیه انسانیست، جائیکه فرد تحت ستم کپی برداری میکند ستمگر را در برابر جان افراد بی گناه ." این مطالعه اساسا نشان دهنده پایه ها و بنیان سیاست اسرائیلی ها در قبال شهروندان فلسطینی است که در اشکال آدم ربایی، بازداشت، و زندانی کردن خود را بروز میدهد. این جنایت تا به امروز ادامه دارد. صرفا میبایست گزارشهائی را در مورد صدها فلسطینی دستگیر شده در قبل, در طول , و پس از آخرین جنگ اسرائیل درغزه اواسط تابستان امسال خواند. "امروز غزه یک اردوگاه میباشد , بدون هیچگونه تفاوتی از گذشته ،" ابو سیتا نتیجه گیری میکند برای الاخبار انگلیسی .
Yazan al-Saadi is a staff writer for Al-Akhbar English. Follow him on Twitter: @WhySadeye
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