On 29 April 1956 a former Israeli soldier turned farmer, Ro’i Rothberg, was caught in a prepared ambush near the border with Gaza, then under Egyptian mandate. Rothberg’s reward for service in the Israeli Occupation Forces was a farm on stolen Palestinian land.
A couple of weeks before Rothberg was killed, Israeli Chief of General Staff Dayan ordered the shelling of the centre of Gaza City, murdering 58 Egyptian and Palestinian civilians, as well as 4 Egyptian soldiers. Dayan had carried out what is now known as ‘mowing the grass‘.
Ro’i Rothberg’s death was almost certainly a reprisal for that shelling.
Israelis have never wanted peace, they have always sought to steal Palestinian land as Dayan said in his memorial speech to Rothberg in 1956.
“Let us not cast blame on the murderers,’’ Dayan said. “For eight years, they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages where they and their fathers dwelt into our estate.”
According to Israel’s Self-Destruction Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the Price of Neglect by Aluf Benn: “Dayan was alluding to the nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” when the majority of Palestinian Arabs were driven into exile by Israel’s victory in the 1948 war of independence. Many were forcibly relocated to Gaza, including residents of communities that eventually became Jewish towns and villages along the border.
Dayan was hardly a supporter of the Palestinian cause. In 1950, after the hostilities had ended, he organized the displacement of the remaining Palestinian community in the border town of Al-Majdal, now the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Still, Dayan realized what many Jewish Israelis refuse to accept: Palestinians would never forget the nakba or stop dreaming of returning to their homes. “Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs living around us,’’ Dayan declared in his eulogy. “This is our life’s choice—to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down.’’ [published in mainstream US magazine Foreign Affairs, February 7, 2024]
What followed was the Suez Crisis. Under Dayan’s military leadership, Israel took all the land in Sinai up to the Suez canal and refused to give it up. Most of the weapons Israel used were provided by France (tanks, planes and ships).
Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt as a response to Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. This spelt the end of British influence in the region and the beginning of United States dominance.
I asked a Palestinian friend from Dayan’s era who was better, Netanyahu or Moshe Dayan? He said Dayan because he was from the region, born in Deganya, Palestine, prior to the formation of Israel. Contrary to my friend’s belief, Netanyahu was the first Israeli Prime Minister to have been born in Palestine, albeit after United Nations had acknowledged Israel as a state. I find this ironic because Netanyahu’s existence was made possible by the very organisation he wishes to destroy, the United Nations.
I think the article Israel’s Self-Destruction Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the Price of Neglect in Foreign Affairs misses the point. The also contains the usual egregious lies of extreme Palestinian violence on 7 October reprinted again and again despite conscientious rebuttal. The numbers of Israeli civilians killed is inflated and little attention given to friendly fire. All this under the pretext that Israel is defending itself. Not even Dayan, the monster killer of Palestinians and Egyptians would say that.
No, Israeli legitimacy relies on the United States. American influence in the region must end because of its support of the genocide in Gaza and the possibility that it will resort to nuclear weapons because conventional weapons can’t tame the genie let out of the bottle by the naked injustice of murdering people like like shooting fish in a barrel. move into RafaThe blood lust of the IDF knows no bounds as they move into the overpopulated Rafah in Gaza. Not even American liberals can’t assuage their complicity in these horrendous crimes by jettisoning the Israeli leader they helped create.
Ian Curr
11 Feb 2024