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by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-05-11
© 2011 Peter Belmont
The material below appeared as a comment, posted by sumud on the mondoweiss essay regarding Israeli usurpation of land in the West Bank, captured in 1967. People (like myself) who have had, heretofore, (merely) an intellectual grasp of the horror for Palestinians of the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 can see it replayed, here, in 1967.
For me, the slideshow and video below are very visceral, very moving. sumud says he felt “sick in the guts” when viewing these materials. So did I. If your outrage was slowing down and you need to rev it up, see these materials.
Also, one number stands out. Most people know that about 750,000 Palestinians became refugees in the 1948 war, forced into exile, many at gun-point, and all refused re-admission to their homeland and return to their homes, by Israel. They now live in Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere. Most are still stateless, for Israel has refused them citizenship and so have the countries to which they fled in 1948 (except, I believe, Jordan).
What I learned from the text below is that another 250,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1967.
sumud writes:
The Palestinian villages in the Latrun salient were one of the areas ethnically cleansed and then bulldozed by Israel during the 1967 war, the second “hot” round of the ongoing Nakba, when a further quarter million Palestinians fled the West Bank and Gaza, becoming refugees.
A short Canadian TV clip from 1991 on the JNF’s building of Canada Park on the ruins of the Palestinian villages in the Latrun salient, Occupied West Bank:
Rare film describes in detail the destruction and the usurpation of the lands of ‘Imwas, Yahu and Bayt Nuba.
A sequence of photos from 1958, 1968, 1978 and 1988 showing the village of Imwas (one of those in the Latrun salient), it’s erasure by the IDF and then the JNF forest planted on the ruins of the villages [the first photo is Imwas in 1958, click on ‘next’ for the 1968 photo etc.]:
Imwas – عِمواس : General view of our beautiful village in 1958 – before destruction.
I recall when I first saw those photos – although I knew about the ~500 Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel, I still felt sick in the guts. Don’t stop after the 1988 photo, the photos by the Israeli that document the expulsion of the villagers and destruction of their homes (mention in the Canada Park clip) follow.
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