XPost: uk.current-events.terrorism, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.slack   
   XPost: sci.math   
   From: nochsfentor@yahoo.com   
      
   NefeshBarYochai wrote:   
   > By Donald Neff   
   >   
   > IT WAS 46 YEARS ago when Israel turned its forces against the   
   > all-Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramleh. On July 13, 1948, Israeli   
   > troops forcefully compelled the entire population of as many as 70,000   
   > men, women and children to flee their homes. Systematic looting   
   > followed. Swarms of new Jewish immigrants flocked to Lydda and   
   > Rainleh, and within days these ancient towns were transformed from   
   > Palestinian to Jewish municipalities.   
   >   
   > Lydda and Ramleh lay east of Jaffa, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,   
   > and were to be part of the Palestinian state—as was Jaffa—according to   
   > the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947. However, since serious   
   > fighting had begun in April 1948, Israel had not only secured its own   
   > territory designated by the U.N. as part of the Jewish state but was   
   > now expanding its control into areas designated Palestinian. Jaffa had   
   > already been "cleansed" of its Palestinian population and come under   
   > Israeli control.   
   >   
   > The initial attack against Lydda-Ramleh was led on April 11 by Lt.   
   > Col. Moshe Dayan, who was later Israel's defense minister and foreign   
   > minister. Israeli historians describe him as driving at the head of   
   > his armored battalion "full speed into Lydda, shooting up the town and   
   > creating confusion and a degree of terror among the population."1   
   >   
   > Two American news correspondents witnessed what happened in the   
   > ensuing assault. Keith Wheeler of the Chicago Sun Times wrote in an   
   > article titled "Blitz Tactics Won Lydda" that "practically everything   
   > in their way died. Riddled corpses lay by the roadside." Kenneth Bilby   
   > of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that he saw "the corpses of Arab   
   > men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the   
   > ruthlessly brilliant charge."2   
   >   
   > All men of military age were sent to camps and all transport   
   > commandeered. The residents of Lydda were promised that if they   
   > congregated in mosques and churches they would be safe. On July 12, a   
   > brief firefight broke out in Lydda between Israeli soldiers and a   
   > Jordanian reconnaissance team in which two Israelis were killed. In   
   > retaliation, the Israeli commander issued orders to shoot anyone on   
   > the streets. Israeli soldiers turned their wrath at those cowering in   
   > mosques and churches, killing scores of them in Dahmash mosque alone.   
   > Palestinians venturing from their homes were also shot and killed. At   
   > least 250 Lyddans were killed and many others wounded.3   
   >   
   > That same day, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered all the   
   > Palestinians expelled. The order said: "The residents of Lydda must be   
   > expelled quickly without attention to age." It was signed by   
   > Lieutenant Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, operations chief of the Lydda-Ramleh   
   > attack and later Israel's military chief of staff and its prime   
   > minister in 1974-77 and again today since 1992.4 A similar order was   
   > issued about Ramleh.   
   >   
   > The next day the massive forced exodus of the Palestinians began. The   
   > Ramlehans were luckier than their neighbors from Lydda. Most of the   
   > Ramleh expellees were driven into exile in buses and trucks. The   
   > Lyddans were forced to walk.   
   >   
   > The exodus was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees.   
   >   
   > The commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, John Bagot Glubb Pasha,   
   > reported: "Perhaps 30,000 people or more, almost entirely women and   
   > children, snatched up what they could and fled from their homes across   
   > the open fields .... It was a blazing day in July in the coastal   
   > plains—the temperature about 100 degrees in the shade. It was 10 miles   
   > across open hilly country, much of it ploughed, part of it stony   
   > fallow covered with thorn bushes, to the nearest Arab village of Beit   
   > Sira. Nobody will ever know how many children died."5   
   >   
   > Israeli historian Benny Morris reported: "All the Israelis who   
   > witnessed the events agreed that the exodus, under a hot July sun, was   
   > an extended episode of suffering for the refugees, especially from   
   > Lydda. Some were stripped by soldiers of their valuables as they left   
   > town or at checkpoints along the way .... One Israeli soldier ...   
   > recorded vivid impressions of the thirst and hunger of the refugees on   
   > the roads, and of how 'children got lost' and of how a child fell into   
   > a well and drowned, ignored, as his fellow refugees fought each other   
   > to draw water. Another soldier described the spoor left by the   
   > slow-shuffling columns, 'to begin with [jettisoning] utensils and   
   > furniture and in the end, bodies of men, women and children, scattered   
   > along the way!   
   >   
   > "Quite a few refugees died—from exhaustion, dehydration and   
   > disease—along the roads eastwards, from Lydda and Ramleh, before   
   > reaching temporary rest near and in Ramallah. Nimr Khatib put the   
   > death toll among the Lydda refugees during the trek eastward at 335;   
   > Arab Legion commander John Glubb Pasha more carefully wrote that   
   > 'nobody will ever know how many children died."6   
   >   
   > More than just the murderous sun and rough terrain contributed to the   
   > miseries of the displaced Palestinians. Israeli soldiers searched them   
   > for valuables and indiscriminately killed those they took a dislike to   
   > or thought were hiding possessions. The London Economist reported:   
   > "The Arab refugees were systematically stripped of all their   
   > belongings before they were sent on their trek to the frontier.   
   > Household belongings, stores, clothing, all had to be left behind."7   
   > One youthful Palestinian survivor recalled: "Two of my friends were   
   > killed in cold blood. One was carrying a box presumed to have money   
   > and the other a pillow which was believed to contain valuables. A   
   > friend of mine resisted and was killed in front of me. He had 400   
   > Palestinian pounds in his pocket." 8   
   >   
   > THE OUTBREAK OF LOOTING   
   >   
   > After the forced exit of the Palestinians, looting began in Lydda and   
   > Ramleh. Israeli historian Simha Flapan reported: "With the population   
   > gone, the Israeli soldiers proceeded to loot the two towns in an   
   > outbreak of mass pillaging that the officers could neither prevent nor   
   > control .... Even the soldiers from the Palmach—most of whom came from   
   > or were preparing to join kibbutzim—took part, stealing mechanical and   
   > agricultural equipment."9 Israeli, troops carted away 1,800 truck   
   > loads of Palestinian property, including a button factory, a sausage   
   > factory, a soft drinks plant, a macaroni factory, a textile mill,   
   > 7,000 retail shops, 1,000 warehouses and 500 workshops." 10   
   >   
   > In place of the Palestinians came new Jewish immigrants and Lydda and   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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