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The
aftermath of Kibya was a continued, and still continuing, Zionist
policy of perpetrating massacres to serve the political purpose of
the Zionist clique. In 1956, they joined in conspiracy with the
British and French to invade Egypt. The conspiracy to commit
aggressive war was accompanied by atrocities against innocent
civilians.
Although the defenseless Arab population in Zionist-occupied
Palestine posed no military threat to the Zionist Defence Forces,
the Zionists feared the emotional arousal that would inevitably
accompany their waging of a new, aggressive war. They decided to
instill total fear in the hearts of the helpless Palestinian Arab
communities, and selected the peaceful village of Kafr Kassim to
perpetrate a cold-blooded massacre. Fifty one men, women and
children were murdered on October 29, 1956, by the Frontier Guard
Force.
According to the precedents established by the International War
Crimes Tribunals, not only the Zionists Frontier Force personnel
involved were guilty of this heinous war crime, but also the
officials who gave them orders to impose the rigid curfews without
simultaneously insuring that noncombatants were unharmed.
Because
the Kafr Kassim Massacre took place during a time of war, the then
Chief of Staff, General Moshe Dayan, and the then Chief of
Operations of the IDF, General Meir Amit, had direct command
responsibility for the actions of the Zionist Frontier Force.
Beneath
them, Israeli court records disclose, command responsibility was
also held by the Commander of the IDF Central Area, Major General
Zvi Tsur; Frontier Guard commander Brigadier Yehishkar Shadmi; and
the Commander of the unit perpetrating the massacre, Major Shmuel
Melinki; Lieutenant Dahan, Sergeant Shalom Ofer, Private Makhlouf
Hreish, Private Eliahu Abraham, Corporal Gabriel Olial, Private
Albert Fahimi and Private Edmond Nahmani.
They
should all have been hanged for their roles in the massacre in the
same way German Generals such as Keitel and Jodl were hanged for
their failures to prevent massacres in commands under their
responsibility.
The
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was culpable under international law
because it was his responsibility to establish rules for maintaining
order in territory under his control. This responsibility was also
directly borne by his personal delegate in the Defense Ministry, the
then Director General of the Ministry of Defence, Shimon Peres.
Peres cannot plead ignorance to what was taking place at Kafr Kassim;
it was his duty to be informed of possible war crimes and to prevent
their occurrence.
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