The fight for Lifta: the last Palestinian village standing in Israel thenationalnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thenationalnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In an investigation into the history of Israel’s founders,
The General’s Son, the author, Miko Peled, born in Jerusalem and a human rights activist, reveals the ugly truth of Zionism’s beginning and purpose. He tells us that Theodor Hertzl, the founder of Zionism, claimed that the only real Jews are secular and Zionist. According to Hertzl, Jews are a nation because, as he put it,
“our enemies made us one without our consent; distress binds us together.” On the other side of the argument, as far back as the Ninth Century, Rabbi Sa’adiya Ga’on observed in his book,
“Last Friday together with Etzel” – the acronym for the National Military Organization, also known as the Irgun, another pre-state underground militia, led by Menachem Begin – “our movement carried out a tremendous operation to occupy the Arab village on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road – Deir Yassin. I participated in this operation in the most active way,” wrote Yehuda Feder, whose nom de guerre in Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang) was “Giora.”
Further along in the letter, he describes in detail his part in the massacre that took place there. “This was the first time in my life that at my hands and before my eyes Arabs fell. In the village I killed an armed Arab man and two Arab girls of 16 or 17 who were helping the Arab who was shooting. I stood them against a wall and blasted them with two rounds from the Tommy gun,” he wrote, describing how he carried out the execution of the girls with a submachine gun.