Block, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, edit, Moderators, protect
28,120
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 219:
Line 219: − + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
no edit summary
<font size=1>If one Communist or two wrote something against Zionism and Fascism at the same time, or the that there were Arab soldiers who were paid by Jews (who were the ones mobilized en masse) to join the Brits - do not change the overwhelming facts.
<font size=1>If one Communist or two wrote something against Zionism and Fascism at the same time, or the that there were Arab soldiers who were paid<ref>Col (Res.) Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-chen, "[https://besacenter.org/palestinian-arabs-british-army/ Palestinian Arab Volunteers in the British Army in WWII: A Reality Check]", Besa, December 9, 2019.<blockquote><font size=1>
Notwithstanding Abbasi’s claim to have based his research on a variety of primary and secondary sources, he seems to have chosen his sources selectively, presumably to service the theory of a significant degree of Palestinian Arab resistance to the Nazis. Neither the quantitative nor the qualitative aspect of this theory is supported by the evidence.
Gen. Archibald Wavell, commander of the British forces in the Middle East, opposed the formation of a Jewish regiment in the British army. According to historian Marcel Roubicek, the British High Commissioner for Palestine also feared that Jewish enlistment would inflame Arab anger. To solve that problem, he made it a condition that Jews wishing to join up find an equivalent number of Palestinian Arab volunteers to join up as well.
To accomplish this, the Jews of the Yishuv offered financial compensation to Palestinian Arabs to enlist. They ultimately succeeded in raising enough manpower from both communities to permit the formation of a Jewish regiment.
The opportunity for Palestinian Arabs to join the ranks of the British Army was thus a direct outcome of the Jewish desire to render its utmost assistance to Britain in every sphere of war activity, a point Abbasi ignores.
He is similarly fuzzy on Palestinian Arab motivation. He states, “Most of the [Palestinian Arab] volunteers were villagers and of the urban lower class, and…the economic motive played a central role in volunteering,” noting that these “motives…differed from [that of] their Jewish friends, who enlisted in the army mainly because of opposition to Nazi Germany and its racial policy toward their people, besides other motives such as the revival of a Jewish army, and the serious employment situation in the country at the beginning of the war.”
Compensation as the prevailing motivation for Palestinian Arab enlistment is supported by the evidence, but Abbasi claims their motives were in fact manifold and varied. Some Palestinian Arabs, he states, enlisted for ideological reasons, to express their opposition to Nazi ideology and loyalty to the British and their values. This motive was especially true of the urban elite and the intellectuals, he alleges, who were highly influenced by British education and culture. He does not substantiate this point sufficiently and ignores available evidence documenting contemporary Palestinian contempt for the British Army (see, for example, Prof. Kimberly Katz’s A Young Palestinian’s Diary 1941-1945, The Life of Sami Amr).
Abbasi laments that “there is hardly any reference to the thousands of Palestinian volunteers, some of whom fell in battle, while others are still listed as missing in action, and no commemoration of the fallen can be found anywhere.” He suggests this “evil” is explained by “what the Palestinian people experienced during the Nakba and its aftermath, the destruction of archives and records in addition to the loss of personal documents, and the fact that no organization was established to commemorate the volunteers and their deeds.” He thus accuses Israel of covering up the Palestinian Arab role in defeating the Nazis.
It should be noted that Abbasi persistently uses the term “Palestinians” rather than “Palestinian Arabs” in his article, starting with the title. This manipulation services the popular narrative denying any linkage between the Jewish People and Palestine. In her book World War II – The Story of a Jewish Soldier, Jewish Women of Mandatory Palestine Serving in the British Army, Esther Herlitz (later an Israeli diplomat and politician who served as a member of the Knesset) wrote, “As far as the British were concerned, we from the Jewish Yishuv, and some Arabs, were Palestinians.”</font></blockquote></ref> by Jews (who were the ones mobilized en masse) to join the Brits - do not change the overwhelming facts.
Though ''Falastin'' & ''Ad-Difa'' changed tunes according to power etc.,<ref name=shimoni>Yaakov Shimoni, Arviyei Eretz Yisrael (The Arabs of Palestine), (Tel-Aviv, Palestine: Am Oved), 1947, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3-9WAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%D7%93%D7%A4%D7%90%D7%A2 p. 407]. <br><i>"Al Difa" changed its flavor several times: at the time of its founding it was considered the mouthpiece of the Istiqlal circles, who were then extremists and fans of fascism; Stories of direct ties formed then between its editors and Germans.</i></ref> yet, enough disastrous was the glorification of Hitler in 1932 and in 1933 to plant the seeds of venom, nor have they become less anti-Jewish while changing ("strategic") tunes.</font>
Though ''Falastin'' & ''Ad-Difa'' changed tunes according to power etc.,<ref name=shimoni>Yaakov Shimoni, Arviyei Eretz Yisrael (The Arabs of Palestine), (Tel-Aviv, Palestine: Am Oved), 1947, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3-9WAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%D7%93%D7%A4%D7%90%D7%A2 p. 407]. <br><i>"Al Difa" changed its flavor several times: at the time of its founding it was considered the mouthpiece of the Istiqlal circles, who were then extremists and fans of fascism; Stories of direct ties formed then between its editors and Germans.</i></ref> yet, enough disastrous was the glorification of Hitler in 1932 and in 1933 to plant the seeds of venom, nor have they become less anti-Jewish while changing ("strategic") tunes.</font>