How the British Responded to Palestinian Terrorists In the midst of Israel’s recent action against Hamas, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that the Jewish State would “lose a lot of international support and sympathy” if it sent in ground troops. Hague’s assertion was widely understood as an attempt to pressure Jerusalem to refrain from going all-out against the terrorists. Israelis have heard this before – as a matter of fact, they heard it from another senior British foreign affairs official, William Waldegrave, the minister of state in the Foreign Office, when he visited Gaza in March 1989. At a press conference, Waldegrave dramatically brandished four rubber bullets, which he accused Israel of firing “indiscriminately” at Arab rioters. Afterwards, Waldegrave met with the mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek. Since Kollek was a longtime Labor Party figure and well known political dove, Waldegrave probably thought they were kindred spirits. The British official was in for quite a surprise. Kollek told Waldegrave – and told reporters afterwards – that “the British have no right to preach morals to Israel” on fighting terrorists, considering how the British themselves treated Palestinian Arab terrorists in the 1930s. The mayor pointed out that recently-released British government documents described “British army atrocities against the Arabs in Palestine” during those years. The documents recounted the British authorities’ response to the assassination of a British district commissioner in Jenin in 1938. The killer was captured, jailed, and then shot to death “while trying to escape.” But the Mandate government decided that was not enough, and that “a large portion of the town should be blown up.” Other anti-terror tactics employed by the British against the Palestinian Arabs in the 1930s included shooting handcuffed prisoners, blowing up civilians’ homes and forcing Arabs to drive “mine-sweeping taxis” in front of British soldiers searching areas where they suspected mines were planted. Naomi Shepherd, in her book Ploughing Sand (about British rule in Palestine) describes how eight Palestinian Arabs in Halhul died of heat exposure when, “on a scorching day,” British soldiers “rounded up a group of men during a search for arms and kept them standing without water for hours.” After an attack on a British patrol in the village of Kawkab Abu Haija, the British army “destroyed the entire village.” When a British army vehicle ran over a mine near Kafr Yasif, soldiers burned down 70 houses and machine-gunned nine villagers. HUGH FOOT, a district commissioner in 1930s Palestine who narrowly escaped assassination by Arab terrorists, later recalled the arbitrary nature of house demolitions: “When we thought that a village was harboring rebels, we’d go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was traced to that village, we’d blow up the house we’d marked.” The tactic was “drastic,” High Commissioner Harold MacMichael conceded, “but the situation has demanded drastic powers.” An Associated Press correspondent permitted to travel with a British anti-terror unit in October 1938 reported how he watched them “blow up with dynamite about a dozen houses in an Arab village from which shots twice were fired at the troops... [W]hen the troops left there was little else remaining of the once busy village except a pile of mangled masonry.” In another Arab town, Miar, the British troops “dynamited about forty stone houses” and arrested hundreds of villagers. Sometimes Arab detainees were “put to to work building roads.” Reports in The New York Times that month offered similar descriptions of British “clean-up” operations, as the Times called them. In Lydda (today known as Lod), “twenty-one Arabs’ homes were destroyed by British troops because of recent attacks on military police.” In Nablus, “severe measures by British troops resulted in about six casualties.” While some British officials privately expressed unease at the harsh counter-terror methods, most voices in the Colonial Office apparently supported the crackdown. “I do not feel we have the right to interfere,” Lord Dufferin asserted. “British lives are being lost and I don’t think that we, from the security of Whitehall, can protest squeamishly about measures taken by the men in the frontline.” His colleague Sir John Shuckburgh emphasized that the British authorities in Palestine were faced “not with a chivalrous opponent playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers.” All of which may leave some Israelis today wondering which makes more sense – England’s current advice, or the positions taken by British leaders when they themselves had to deal with the forerunners of Hamas. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=293684
THFC, I am on Israel's side, but you can't compare the 1930s by today's standards/morals, it is fairly pointless in my opinion.
I think all Governments suffer from hypocrisy, that is just the way it is I'm afraid. I certainly don't blame Israel for what they are doing, in fact I think they are being fairly restrained.
THFC your a racist fascist, just like the majority of the population of Israel were shown to be recently. Propaganda comparable to Goebbels. Imitation is the best form of flattery don't you know, there must some perverse deep rooted respect for the Nazis such is the extent to which the nation copies them, but as I have already pointed out the Israeli guerilla terrorists the were murdering the British in the 40s offered to become an armed wing for Hitler in the region so not surprising really. I could pick apart your propaganda point by point and show you up for the racist loon you are but that would require me to be beside a laptop and posting links, but I'm on my way to work so not feasible at the moment. All I will say to people is look at the sources, they will tell you all you need to know about the credibility of his "information"
Well you're the one who constantly tries to compare Israel with Nazi Germany, so I suggest you take a good, hard look in the mirror before accusing anyone of being a racist fascist.
Really dev? Prominent Israeli civil rights activist Sami Michael seems to think so - http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/author-israel-can-claim-the-title-of-the-most-racist-state-in-the-developed-world.premium-1.443908 A recent poll seems to think so also - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-israeli-apartheid-poll-reveals-widespread-jewish-support-for-policy-of-discrimination-against-arab-minority-8223548.html
Why not just go the whole hog and generalise every nation on earth with ridiculous racial stereotypes? Stupid Irish, drunken Scots et al
I take it you missed the little word in my post "majority". Not everyone, but the majority. You even emboldened it.
So a majority of people of a nation regard another people as below them, they forcibly seize land, property and livelihoods from said people, they force said people into a ghetto, military take pot shots at people in the ghetto, they brutally crack down if said people dare demonstrate dissent at their current situation, politicians start musing about a final solution for said people ..... can you guess what I am referring to?
Yes, the majority. That's a huge generalisation unless you actually know and have taken a poll of the majority? I doubt it so you batter away and make yourself look like a complete and utter loon. I'm sorry Jacky i'm not Jewish and I don't have any connection whatsoever to Israel but you are sounding awfully anti Semitic with your comments so far on the Israelis. I'm half expecting to read you deny the Holocaust.
Did you read any of the links? There was a poll taken "The poll, conducted by Israel's Dialog polling group, found that 59 per cent out of the 503 people questioned would like to see Jews given preference for public-sector jobs, while half would like to see Jews better treated than Arabs. Just over 40 per cent would like to see separate housing and classrooms for Jews and Arabs. The findings "reflect the widespread notion that Israel, as a Jewish State, should be a state that favours Jews," wrote Noam Sheizaf, an Israeli journalist and blogger. "They are also the result of the occupation … After almost half a century of dominating another people, it's no surprise that most Israelis don't think Arabs deserve the same rights." Nearly 70 per cent of those questioned would object to the 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank obtaining the vote if Israel was to annex the Palestinian territory, suggesting that they effectively endorse an apartheid regime. Nearly 75 per cent favour separate roads there for Israelis and Palestinians – although most view such a step as "necessary," rather than "good." The survey "lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one", wrote Gideon Levy in Haaretz in a piece to accompany the poll. "Now it is not just critics at home and abroad, but Israelis themselves who are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists. "If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don't apply." -----o0o----- On the subject of anti-semitism well since I am in support of the actual direct descendants of the semitic tribes I cant see how I am being anti-semitic. -----o0o----- On the subject of the holocaust, unsurprising as it is to see that old last bastion chestnut brought up again, I really cannot se how you could have failed to see me reference it on numerous occasions to draw comparisons between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and Germany's treatment of the Jews in precluding the event. At no point have I denied it so please dont resort to such desperate attempts at character assassination
