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The Palestinians glorify three murderers of the events of 1905, hanged by the British | Israel Today

2020-07-14T17:23:58.813Z


In recent years, memorial ceremonies for three of the murderers hanged by the British have been revived • There are also moderate voices against the phenomenon | Israel This Week - Political Supplement


In recent years, memorial ceremonies have been revived in Palestinian society for the three murderers of Jews in the events of 1918, hanged by the British • Among the initiators: Hamas, Fatah and the Balad party and elements in Hadash • Moderate Arab voices against the phenomenon • But some also think it There was a popular uprising

  • 133 Jews were killed in the incidents and hundreds more were injured. Funeral of the murdered in Safed

    Photo: 

    Courtesy of Yad Beit Zvi Archive

Ata a-Zir, Muhammad Jamjum and Fouad Hajazi were three brutal murderers sentenced to death for their part in the massacre of Hebron and Safed Jews in 1909, 90 years ago. They were executed in Acre Prison by the British Mandate authorities on Tuesday. , June 17, 1930. 22 of their comrades, murderers of dozens of Jews, who were also sentenced to death, were pardoned, 133 Jews were killed in the riots and hundreds more were injured.

After Jamjum, a-Zir and Hajazi were hanged, Arab national institutions declared a general strike, and the response of Arab residents across the country was almost complete. Nearly 1,000 people arrived in Acre itself that day, standing in silence in front of the prison fortress. Thousands attended the funeral of the three murderers, which also took place in Acre. After the hanging, the Arab leadership declared June 17 as "Shuhada" - Holy Day, and implored the Arab public to celebrate it every year. 

This is how Shuhada Day became part of the Palestinian story. In the early years it was observed continuously. In his book "1909 - The Year of Zero in the Jewish-Arab Conflict", the historian Prof. Hillel Cohen brings two of the popular poems composed by Palestinian poets in memory of the three terrorists. Remembrance Day as "Red Tuesday", the name of the song.The second song, "From Sagen Aka Telat Genaza" ("The funeral came from Acre prison"), written by a Haifa poet named Noah Ibrahim, became a Palestinian national folk song; Even those who are unfamiliar with the details behind the song - know his lyrics well and he is often sung in a standing ovation and a tense salute.

From right to left: Jamjum, Hajazi and A-Zir, the murderers hanged by the British 

In recent years, after decades in which it has not been regularly mentioned, "Red Tuesday" has been revived. Fatah and Hamas are members of the renewed circle of remembrance, but so are some of the parties in the joint Arab list. Yishai Friedman, Makor Rishon, 19.6) Sources in the Hadash party, led by former MK Issam Mahul and former MK Muhammad Bracha, currently chairman of the High Monitoring Committee of the Arab Public in Israel, have also taken part in recent years. In the commemoration and memorial activity for the three terrorists from 1905. 

The wounded woman who identified the killer

The description of the massacres in Hebron and Safed in general, and of the three murderers who were executed by the British in particular, is difficult to digest even today. Historian Hillel Cohen also briefly dwelled in his book on the role of the three in the riots and massacre of the Jews. 

It turns out that the Hebronite Ata a-Zir, a member of a family of butchers and skiers and a father of five, broke into the house of Rabbi Meir Shmuel Castel at the head of the crowd, holding an ax. A-Zir also attacked the Capiloto House, where he murdered yeshiva students Avraham Shapira and Eliyahu Capiloto. The latter died of his wounds only a year later. During the trial, his wife, Rebecca Capiloto, described how she grabbed a-Zir with both hands and begged him not to kill her and her family, since they were natives. "Kill me, but keep my husband and children alive," Capilotto pleaded with a-Zir. The pleas were to no avail. A-Zir threw her to the ground, chased her husband, Elijah, with his knife, and stabbed him severely. 

Muhammad Jamjum, also from Hebron, was sentenced to death for the premeditated murder of four people at the Abushdid family home in Hebron: Eliyahu Abushdid and his son Yitzhak, and Yaakov Gozlan and his son Moshe. 

The Safed side in the gang, Fouad Hajazi, was the most educated of the death row inmates. By virtue of his position, he was responsible and participated in the transfer of the wounded of the attack from Safed to Haifa. Hajazi was arrested only some time later, in the face of the cries of one of the wounded, Shoshana Afriat, who was being evacuated. Her parents, Moshe and Frida, were murdered before her eyes. She identified Hajazi as a killer. Like his two friends from Hebron, Hajazi also denied it. But the evidence prompted their version. In the case of Hajazi, the testimony of policeman Al-Sakari, who described how Hajazi entered the house of Ephraat together with other murderers, decided the matter.

Popular even without the Palestinian education system. Memorial Day for murderers in Acre

Prof. Hillel Cohen estimates that many of those who currently participate in the memorial services for the three are not even aware of their exploits and that these are murderers who entered the homes of people who knew and killed them in cold blood. "I myself," he says, "left forums where songs were sung in honor of these 'martyrs,' and I told those I told my opinion. It became clear to me that a large part of the people did not know the details at all." 

"From a Palestinian point of view and according to their feeling," says Cohen, "these are the 'first martyrs' in the Palestinian memory of the last 100 years, they initiated the national struggle. On the Palestinian side, the story of 1905 is part of the story of defending the homeland from Zionist invasion. ; In their view, the residents of Hebron and Safed revolted and acted to remove the Zionist threat. "Cohen also points out:" There are many Palestinians who do not know that there was a massacre in Hebron. They only heard that they were killed. "

"Human societies, including the Palestinian and Jewish ones, do not check the tassels of their heroes. This is a universal phenomenon. I say bluntly: I have had to pray in synagogues where those who killed Palestinians in such and such circumstances prayed by my side, and no one thought they should be raised to the Torah." . He emphasizes: "I do not compare the deeds, but compare the social treatment of those who kill innocent people. This treatment, unfortunately, is the same in all societies. Not the deeds are equal, but the social treatment of those identified as being killed for homeland defense." 

Cohen estimates that, as a rule, "All the Arab public in Israel and the Palestinian public know is that these three were hanged for the sake of the homeland. Only a few know or want to know why they were hanged. 

One of the exceptions, Cohen reveals, was Hyder 'Abd a-Shafi, the well-known Palestinian statesman, one of the founders of the PLO, who died 13 years ago. "A-Shafi did not appeal against the opposition to Zionism, but he was humane enough to mourn the death of Rabbi Castel "The noble man," whom he remembered from his childhood in Hebron, and by the way, put question marks on the measures that should be taken in the context of the opposition to Zionism. "Rabbi Castel, as mentioned, was killed in the riots by a-Zir.

"Equivalent to Trumpeldor"

Danny Rubinstein, a writer, veteran journalist and researcher of Palestinian society for more than 50 years (his book "It's Us or They", won the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for Military Literature a few months ago), notes that the three murderers from 1905 and the day of their death have long become Palestinian icons. : "His equivalent with us, in terms of popularity, is the day of remembrance for Yosef Trumpeldor and the victims of Tel Hai on the 11th of Adar."

But according to Rubinstein, "The three from the 1930s are not studied in the Palestinian or Jordanian education system, but are very popular in the electronic media and on social networks. I recently told these three to a researcher, an American professor who had visited me in the country, and proved to him how common their story was. I randomly selected an Arab truck driver, who was lying under his car on the street and repairing it. I turned to him with the question: "Do you know 'The funeral came from Acre Prison'?" The guy stretched to silence and began to sing the song with all his lyrics. Ask me - does he know exactly what it is? Not sure, but the fact that he was exposed to this ethos. "

"Not one-sided." Mahul // Photo: Michelle dot com

The Mizrahi, Dr. Mordechai Keidar, a member of Bar-Ilan University, says that it is not surprising that the memorial services for the three. "The High Court gave permission for the political confrontation of Balad and Hadash and all members of the joint Arab list. That their line is legitimate and included it in the 'political game', so these murderers from the United States also fall into the legitimate framework of that game.

In the eyes of many in Arab society, "Keidar believes," the three slaughterers from 1905 did legitimate actions. From their point of view, all grades are the same. The soldier is a warrior. His mother brought him into the world. The grandmother sends him cookies to the base. The father raised him and his children will grow up. To be warriors, so everyone is allowed to be killed in certain situations, because sooner or later everyone has conquered or will become potential conquerors. This is the vision that prepares public memorial ceremonies for the murderers of the Jews from 1905. 

On the other hand, Keidar emphasizes, "there is a large countercurrent in Arab society in Israel, which is angry and furious with its Knesset members, who are building a career on these things. They are perceived as harmful to living together."

One such is Nail Zoabi, an educator and principal of an elementary school in the Galilee village of Tamra, who advocates Arab integration into the civic fabric of the country. Zoabi says that before the establishment of the state, in the 1930s, Jews in the Galilee and Gilboa, in the valley, in the Balfouria area or in Ein Harod knew how to produce cooperation and understanding. "If we do not know even today to understand and live with each other, we will find ourselves dependent on each other," he clarifies, "we should commemorate people who have done for peace and for the love of man, and engage with people who respect each other and each other's customs and desires, and not go "As blind to the extremism of some of the political leadership of the Arab public in the country. They take us to dark corners, which contribute nothing, apart from the root of the quarrel and controversy and the fixation of the bloody conflict."

Similar things are said by Patina Shalhav Hazan, a teacher and educator from Acre, where in recent years memorial ceremonies have been held for the three murderers. Hazan, an Arab-Christian, has been working for years for coexistence between Jews and Arabs, and has great difficulty with these ceremonies. "It is difficult for me to accept anything related to murder. It is not acceptable for me to look at murder as heroism, or as a legacy of any kind. It is a loss of a human photographer, of our personality, of inner emotion. It hurts me to see such phenomena, whether Arabs or Jews." Says Hazan. 

She clarifies that "the right way is cultural discourse. One must not agree, but one must speak, and also agree that murder and terrorism are a disgrace and not a heroism; that they are outside the rules of the game."

"Lighthouse in History" 

A memorial service has been held in the Muslim cemetery in Acre, where the three murderers from 1905 are buried, almost every year since the beginning of the millennium. Former Knesset members Issam Makhul and Muhammad Bracha took part in this ceremony as early as 2005. Four years ago, Had members participated. Q. Also in renovating the tombstones and building a monument in memory of the three. The Association for Culture and Creativity named after Tawfiq Ziad, a poet, writer and former MK, based in Nazareth, also took part in these ceremonies, as did former council members from the Acre municipality, such as Ahmad Uda, who mentioned "our holy spaces." 

Bracha, currently the chairman of the Monitoring Committee of Israeli Arabs, who previously explained that "the right of every people to revive the memory of its victims who fought for their people and their land," refused to be interviewed for this article, as did MK Matance Shehadeh and other Balad MKs. The spokeswoman for the chairman of the joint Arab list, MK Ayman Odeh, also clarified that he has no interest in discussing the issue in the context of the article. The only one who refuses to be interviewed is former MK Mahul, a member of the Hadash leadership, a key figure in the Renaissance memory of the three murderers.

"The question is not what did this or that detail do in the complicated struggle that arose in Palestine in those years," Mahul argues, "the event should be put in its overall context - it was an outburst of rage against British colonialism, and part of a popular uprising after families of peasants were overthrown. The zionist movement".

These are three convicted murderers, who entered their neighbors' houses and murdered them in cold blood. Your ceremonies give legitimacy to terrorism.

Mahul: "Quite the opposite. We take the event out of the bloodstream and put it in the right historical context. Murder of Jews or Arabs is despicable in any case, but if I do not see what its historical context - I will not learn from it. This event is part of history "After 90 years, I do not enter into the individual debate. I look at the historical process."

And this is what you will tell the descendants of the families whose loved ones were slaughtered in Hebron and Safed?

Mahul: "We are 90 years later. The trauma is not one-sided. I am careful not to weigh blood all the time. For the Palestinians, this was a popular uprising, in the face of imperialism and the Zionist movement. Tens of thousands of Arabs were expelled from their lands in the years before these events Without a piece of bread. "

And suppose so, does that make murder kosher?

Mahul: "It is time, to be helpful to see the overall picture of a popular struggle against imperialism and reactionary forces that have tried to turn this uprising into a religious or nationalist clash, and not to interpret these events in the narrow context of people on both sides who murdered." 

However, despite the words of Mahul, the PA and Hamas, they are certainly inspired by the three killers, whose memory is now revived by Arab politicians. As part of the program "Link in the Chain" broadcast on Palestinian television, the lyrics of the song "Acre Prison came out" were previously read. The news of the execution of the three killers as a "beacon in the history of our people" (Documentation: "A Look at the Palestinian Media"). Fahar Shari'at, a columnist for the daily "Palestine" published in Gaza and close to Hamas, published an article entitled "We all want "Rescue the Palestinian people," he wrote, "will be through the bloodshed that quenches the earth and through the dust of fire and resistance ... It is a matter of a plundered homeland and the honor of a disaster-stricken people that will not be restored except through blood. That is what Ata a-Zir, Muhammad Jamjum and Fouad Hajazi taught us. "

Source: israelhayom

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