A Chilling Interview With Zionist Benny Morris

From Henry Makow, PhD
1-15-4


Editor's Note (from original source):

Rarely does one get a chance to peer through rhetoric like the following interview. We have the naked truth revealed by a self-professed Zionist who is not afraid to hide the brutal "morality" of Zionism.

While he justifies this brutality, this presents one of the most revealing appraisals of Zionism one is likely to read. If there is a morality that justifies the acts presented, then the human race is headed for even rougher times.


An Interview With Benny Morris

By Ari Shavit

Benny Morris says he was always a Zionist. [His critics] did not conceive that the great documenter of the sins of Zionism in fact identifies with those sins.

Citizen Morris and historian Morris worked as though there is no connection between them, as though one was trying to save what the other insists on eradicating.

Sometimes he really is frightened. Sometimes he asks himself what he has wrought. He describes horrific war crimes off- handedly, paints apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips.

What follows is an in depth interview.

Rape, Massacre, Transfer

Q: Benny Morris, in the month ahead the new version of your book on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem is due to be published. Who will be less pleased with the book - the Israelis or the Palestinians?

A: The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the IDF archives. What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought.

To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape.

In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense force that was the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot [Palestinian] villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.

At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one hand, the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on the other hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself.

Q: According to your new findings, how many cases of Israeli rape were there in 1948?

A: About a dozen. In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases.

Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were re- ported, which I found, are not the whole story.

They are just the tip of the iceberg.

Q: According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?

A: Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot.

A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima, in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there.

At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder.

Ben-Gurion (Israel's first Prime Minister) silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres.

Q: What you are telling me here, is that in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?

A: Yes

Q: Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion?

A: From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben- Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.

Q: Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?

A: Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there COULD BE NO JEWISH STATE WITH A LARGE HOSTILE ARAB in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.

Q: I don't hear you condemning him.

A: Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.

Q: In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

A: There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime.

[Expulsions are ALWAYS war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions. Ed. note.]

I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.

Q: We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society. There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

A: If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that.

Q: So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?

A: I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don't think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn't have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being.

Q: You do not condemn them morally?

A: No.

Q: They perpetrated ethnic cleansing...

A: There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing.

I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing.

Q: And that was the situation in 1948?

A: That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population.

It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

Q: The term 'to cleanse' is terrible...

A: I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed.

Q: What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard- hearted.

A: I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice.

The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them.

Q: And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?

A: That is correct.

Even the great American democracy could not have been reated without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.

Q: And in [Israel's] case it effectively justifies a population transfer?

A: That's what emerges.

Q: And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and the devastated villages of the Nakba?

A: You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes.

Q: Do you think that Ben-Gurion erred in expelling too few Arabs?

A: If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. If he had carried out a full expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized Israel for generations.

Q: I find it hard to believe what I am hearing. In his place, would you have expelled them all? All the Arabs in the country?

A: But I am not a statesman. I do not put myself in his place. But as an historian, I assert that a mistake was made here. Yes. The non-completion of the transfer was a mistake.

Q: And today? Do you advocate a transfer today?

A: I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves with atomic weapons around us, or if there is a general Arab attack on us and a situation of warfare on the front with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys on their way to the front, acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential.

Q: Including the expulsion of Israeli Arabs?

A: The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column.

Q: What does that mean? What should we do tomorrow morning? To fence them in? To place them under closure?

A: Something like a cage has to be built for them.

I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another.

Q: The situation as you describe it is extremely harsh. You are not entirely convinced that we can survive here, are you?

A: The possibility of annihilation exists.

Q: If Zionism is so dangerous for the Jews and if Zionism makes the Arabs so wretched, maybe it's a mistake? Which leaves us, nevertheless, with two possibilities: either a cruel, tragic Zionism, or the forgoing of Zionism?

A: Yes. That's so. You have pared it down, but that's correct.

Q: The title of the book you are now publishing in Hebrew is "Victims." In the end, then, your argument is that of the two victims of this conflict, we are the bigger one.

A: Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim.



Copyright 2004 by GopherCentral. All rights reserved.

Henry Makow, Ph.D. Exposing Feminism and the New World Order www.savethemales.ca...


www.rense.com...

Looks like we have a new "Cold Anger" on our hands. Sorry if some are too recent to know what I'm talking about. I guess it'll be time to lay low again as every day the entire first page of this forum is going to be posted articles copied from other sites that half the people here read anyways. Are we returning to that?

The purpose of posting the articles is so that they can be discussed by all, and view by the other half.

It seems this one was not discussion worthy.

I didnt get to read it all, however wasnt all this in their war for independence before they had a military with disipline or regulations (Pre '48)?

Btw, Im not justifying this or attempting this action, I just want to say that its not the IDF persay that did this.

[Edited on 16-1-2004 by Taxman]

The stories of what pre-state zionists are endless. Sadly personal agendas and vendettas have clouded these events beyond repair and it's very difficult to find out what's real and what's crap.

No, there was no IDF when this happened. Only the people who later created, and formed the IDF. All were jews.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
All were jews.

What did you expect them to be? Bush Baptists?

Cleaver and pithy leveller.

The Palestinians are aggressive animals.

No sane people will ever side with such race that loves to paraise sucide murders and the celebration of sept11.




arabterrorism.tripod.com...

What did you expect them to be? Bush Baptists?

In 1948, no.

Today, yes.

Christian Zionists have grown in number far faster than Jewish Zionists in the time since.

The Christians in Palestine also fought against the creation of Israel, and many were expelled(or fled) along with the Muslims.

The Israelies may be kind to the American tourists while they visit, but they do not want you moving in. Israel is based on Talmudic law. Only Jews can own land, or become citizens.

Not all of the Palestinians are Muslim. There is a large Christian population too. Israel does not see them any different under the law.

Jews never sold their land to the arabs, the arabs just stole it off the other theifs.

Now they claim it's there's?

[Edited on 16-1-2004 by Thinker]

Originally posted by Thinker
The Palestinians are aggressive animals.

No sane people will ever side with such race that loves to paraise sucide murders and the celebration of sept11.




arabterrorism.tripod.com...

you think raping and shooting hundreds of men, women and children is any better? killing is killing whether it's from a missile thats launched from a hundred miles away or from an angry mob with their bare hands. i'm sure a few vietnam vets can tell you stories about solders walking around with human ear necklaces, how is that any different? stop looking at details, you're missing the big picture.

ArchAngel

Israel should become what it was.

The devil is just really pissed off that the jews have their state. Now wants to try to split the nation into two.

Originally posted by Thinker
The Palestinians are aggressive animals.

No sane people will ever side with such race that loves to paraise sucide murders and the celebration of sept11.




arabterrorism.tripod.com...

Israelis were arrested after being witnessed in NY celebrating the collapse of the WTC. They were quickly released and never further investigated.

You don't seem to bitch much about them though, of course it's only an agenda when it's against the Israelis, the other way around is just fine isn't it?

"Jews never sold their land to the arabs"

There was no Israel from 70AD to 1948. Every inch of land that Israel is on today belonged to Different Islamic empires, but never to a Jewish nation.

The people who live there never gave any land to Israel, and did not agree to allow the formation.

In 1967 when Israel attacked their neighbors and occupied their land no one ever gave them permission. Since then they have taken more than a third of the land that originally belonged to arabs.

You can't say they have not stolen land. All of their land is stolen.

www.time.com...

FRANCE IS DECAYING because the muslims that live there.

They should be kicked out of the euronations before the terroist start flooding throw out other nations.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
"Jews never sold their land to the arabs"

There was no Israel from 70AD to 1948. Every inch of land that Israel is on today belonged to Different Islamic empires, but never to a Jewish nation.

No it didn't. That's totally and utterly wrong.
Go take a look at the Christian Kingdom of Acre and the settlement of the Holy Land. Islam is a relative newcomer to the area.

Get your facts straight before spouting off bull#.

"Go take a look at the Christian Kingdom of Acre and the settlement of the Holy Land. Islam is a relative newcomer to the area. "

There has never been a christian nation in the holy land other than durring the Cursades, and that was an occupation, not a legitimate representative government.

The Muslims have controled the area from shortly after the foundation of Islam until the end of WWI.

Please provide a link to where the christian nation you describe is detailed.

The Islamic empires that controled the land would have been surprised to find another nation inside their borders.

It may be true that there were Christians in the area, and there were Jews too, but none of the governemts were Christian, or Jewish. All were Islamic for more than 1300 years.

1300 years my ass.

en.wikipedia.org...

Islam invaded the area. The crusades were undertaken to regain control.
Judaism and Christianity were created in the Holy Land. They existed there long before the "new" religion of Islam forcefully took over the land.

The kingdom you describe was a european occupation.

From 636 AD until the end of WWI the land was controled by Muslim Arabs other than European invasions.

They represented their own interests, not the people of the land.