Kafr Qasim massacre
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The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim (also known as Kafr Qassem, Kufur Kassem and Kafar Kassem) on October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israel Border Police (MAGAV) and resulted in 48 Arab civilians dead, including 6 women and 23 children aged 8-17. Arab sources usually give the death toll as 49, as they include the unborn child of one of the women.
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Background
On that day, the Suez War broke out, and although Jordan was not involved, Israel's intelligence service expected Jordan to enter the war on Egypt's side (Morris, Righeous Victims, p.289). Acting, on this intelligence, soldiers were stationed along the Israeli-Jordanian Frontier (http://www.morainevalley.edu/ctl/MiddleEast/images/Map_Israel1949_1967.jpg). Several battalions of the Israeli Border Police, under the command of IDF brigade commander Colonel Issachar Shadmi, were ordered to prepare the defense of a section close to the border known as the "Little Triangle". The Little Triangle, officially known as the Central District, contained seven villages close to the border, not far from Tel Aviv, where about 40,000 Israeli Arab citizens lived. It was regarded as a strategically weak point by Israel, and regularly patrolled by soldiers to halt infiltration of Arabs and fedayeen across the border. During the period from 1949 to 1966, Arab citizens were treated by Israel as a hostile population, and major Arab population centers were governed by military administrations divided into several districts. At that time, Shadmi was in charge of the Central District ("Little Triangle").
Timeline
That morning, Shadmi received orders to take all precautionary measures to keep quiet on the Jordanian border. On Shadmi's initiative, the official nighly curfews in the seven villages under his jurisdiction were changed from the regular 10:00PM to 5:00PM. Shadmi then gathered all the border patrol battallion-commanders placed under his command, and reportedly ordered them to "shoot on sight" any villagers violating the curfew. Once the order was given, the commander of one of Shadmi's battallions, Major Shmuel Malinki, who was in charge of the Border Guard unit at the village of Kafr Qasim, asked Shadmi on how to react to those villagers who were unaware of the curfew.
Malinki later testified as follows: "[Shadmi said] anyone who left his house would be shot. It would be best if on the first night there were 'a few like that' and on the following nights they would be more careful. I asked: in the light of that, I can understand that a guerilla is to be killed but what about the fate of the Arab civilians? And they may come back to the village in the evening from the valley, from settlements or from the fields, and won't know about the curfew in the village - I suppose I am to have sentries at the approaches to the village? To this Col. Issachar replied in crystal clear words, 'I don't want sentimentality and I don't want arrests, there will be no arrests'. I said: 'Even though?'. To that he answered me in Arabic, Allah Yarhamu, which I understood as equivalent to the Hebrew phrase, 'Blessed be the true judge' [said on receiving news of a person's death]". Shadmi, however, denied that the matter of the returnees ever came up in his conversation with Malinki.
Malinki issued a similar order to the reserve forces attached to his battalion, shortly before the curfew was enforced: "No inhabitants shall be allowed to leave his home during the curfew. Anyone leaving his home shall be shot; there shall be no arrests." (ibid., p.141)
At 4.30 p.m., the mukhtar (mayor) of Kafr Qasim was informed of the new time. He asked what would happen to the about 400 villagers working outside the village in the fields that wasn't aware of the new time. An officer assured him that they would be taken care of. Most returned immediatly, but others did not. Between 5 p.m and 6:30 p.m., in nine separate shooting incidents, the platoon led by Lt. Gabriel Dahan that was stationed in Kafr Qasim all together killed nineteen men, six women, ten teenage boys (age 14-17), six girls (age 12-15), and seven young boys (age 8-13), who did not make it home before curfew. Arabs from Jajuliya, a nearby village, were brought in to dig a mass grave [1] (http://journals.cambridge.org/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=0&500001REQSUB=&REQSTR1=S0020743803000163).
No villagers in other villages under Shadmi's control were shot, because local commanders gave direct orders to disobey Shadmi's and Malinki's orders by holding fire. Also, among the platoons stationed in Kafr Qasim itself, only the one led by Dahan actually opened fire.
Following events
News of the incident leaked out almost immediatly, however it took two months of lobbying by Communist Knesset Member Tawfiq Tubi and members of the press before the government lifted the media blackout imposed by David Ben Gurion. Meanwhile, the government had started to conduct an internal inquiry. To limit publicity, a military cordon was maintained around the village for months, preventing journalists from approaching (Robinson p.400).
Following public protests, eleven Border Police officers and soldiers involved in the massacre were charged with murder. On October 16, 1958, eight of them were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms. Malinki received 17 and Dahan 15 years imprisonment. The court placed great emphasis on the fundamental responsibility of Shadmi, though the latter was not a defendant. Shadmi was subsequently charged as well, but his separate court hearing (February 29, 1959) found him innocent of murder and only guilty of extending the curfew without authority. His symbolic punishment, a fine of one grush (a small coin), became a standard metaphor in Israeli polemic debate. (Robinson, Lipmann, Bilsky). The fact that other local commanders realised they had to disobey Shadmi's order was cited by the court as one of the reasons for denying Dahan's claim that he had no choice.
The court of appeal (April 3, 1959) reduced Malinki's sentence to 14 years and Dahan's to 10. The Chief of Staff further reduced them to 10 and 8 years, then the Israeli President reduced them to 5 years each. Finally, the Committee for the Release of Prisoner's ordered the remission of one third of the prison sentences, resulting in all the convicted persons being out of prison by November 1959. (Lipmann) Soon after his release, Malinki was promoted and put in charge of security for the top secret Dimona nuclear reactor. In 1960, Dahan was placed in charge of "Arab Affairs" by the city of Ramla (Bilsky, p322).
Legal impact
The Kafr Qasim trial considered for the first time the issue of when Israeli security personnel are required to disobey illegal orders. The judges decided that soldiers do not have the obligation to examine each and every order in detail as to its legality, nor were they entitled to disobey orders merely on a subjective feeling that they might be illegal. On the other hand, some orders were manifestly illegal, and these must be disobeyed. Judge Halevy's words, still much-quoted today, were that "The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: 'Prohibited!'." (Lippman, Bilsky)
The incident was partly responsible for gradual changes in Israel's policy toward Arab citizens of Israel. By 1966, the military administration was abolished.
Reconciliation
On November 20 1957, 400 distinguished guests and representatives from different sectors of Israeli society, including Knesset members, cabinet ministers, members from the then ruling Mapai party, national trade union officials, and notable members from neighboring Arab villages, held a reconcialiation ceremony in memory of the victims at Kafr Qasim. The government subsequently distributed reparations to the family of the victims.
Operation Hafarferet
Approximately 1/3 of the court hearings were held in secret, and the transcript has never been published. According to historian Ruvik Rosenthal, the court discussed a secret plan called Operation Hafarferet (mole) to expel the Arabs of the Little Triangle in case of a war with Jordan. However, Rosenthal found no evidence that the massacre was part of the plan or in any way pre-planned.
References
- Shira Robinson, Local struggle, national struggle: Palestinian responses to the Kafr Qasim massacre and its aftermath, 1956-66, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol 35 (2003), 393–416.
- Tom Segev, The Seventh Million, Owl Books, 2000, ISBN 0805066608, pp298-302.
- Leora Y. Bilsky, Transformative Justice : Israeli Identity on Trial (Law, Meaning, and Violence), University of Michigan Press, 2004, ISBN 047203037X, pp169-197, 310-324.
- Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel, Monthly Review Press, 1977, ISBN 085345406X.
- M. R. Lippman, Humanitarian Law: The Development and Scope of the Superior Orders Defense, Penn State International Law Review, Fall 2001.
- Israel Military Court of Appeal, judgment (translated), Palestine Yearbook of International Law, Vol II, 1985, 69-118.
External links
- Kufur-Kassem home page (http://www.kufur-kassem.com/)
- Report of Israeli Cabinet deliberations (http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/manager/features/display_message.asp?mid=363)
- Nur Masalha, Toward the Palestinian Refugees (http://www.nad-plo.org/permanent/refug7full.pdf)