When Israel Saves Palestinians

Over the weekend, 188 Palestinian Fatah gunmen fled from Gaza to Israel to escape Hamas execution squads. Some had to be extracted by IDF soldiers under Hamas fire.

Later, PA President Mahmoud Abbas (safely ensconced in his West Bank redoubt) ordered the non-wounded men returned to Gaza where many were arrested by Hamas.

During the Hamas coup in Gaza in June 2007, Hamas assassins prowled Gaza hospitals to kill opponents lying wounded in their beds. With Hamas death squads throwing Fatah sympathizers off of hi-rise buildings, dozens of Fatah officials and gunmen, some “knee-capped” and severely wounded, fled to Israel where they were treated. (Pictured: Gazans fleeing through the Erez crossing point in 2007.) Shadi, a 23-year-old policeman, was attacked by Hamas gunmen: "There were five of them. They stood over me and shot my legs from the knee down. One of them put his Kalashnikov to my head. Instinctively I moved the barrel aside and the bullet hit my hand," Shadi told Ha'aretz. He arrived at Ichilov Hospital with one leg amputated and the other leg crushed.

History repeats itself in the most ironic manner. In 1970 Yasser Arafat attempted an armed takeover of Jordan, and King Hussein’s troops responded viciously in September 1970 (“Black September”). No quarter was given to the Palestinian fighters and civilians. Thousands died. Seventy-two Palestinians who were afraid of the Jordanian soldiers “chose to undertake the most humiliating action possible for them,” wrote one Israeli historian. They fled to the West Bank and surrendered to IDF soldiers.

Israel is often portrayed in the Arab press or on campuses as a genocidal monster starving, torturing or massacring Palestinians. But look where Palestinians fled in these three incidents -- to Israel.

And look at the news headlines this month and ask who is killing Palestinians:

• Five Palestinians Suffocate to Death after Egypt Blows up Tunnel (Ha’aretz)


• Roadside Bomb Wounds Fatah Commander in Lebanon (Washington Post)


• Three Palestinians Killed in Lebanon Refugee Camp Brawl (AFP)

Israel’s detractors are quick to blame Israel for the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp in Beirut perpetrated by a Lebanese Christian militia (estimates of the number of dead range between 800 and 1,500).

Last year, hundreds of Palestinians were believed to have been killed during a three-month battle when the Lebanese army leveled the Nahr-el Bared camp (pictured, right), home to an estimated 30,000 Palestinian refugees.

Nahr-el Bared was no different from the Tel al Zaatar refugee camp north of Beirut that was attacked during the 1976 Lebanese civil war by Christian militias supported by the Syrian army. (2,000 – 3,000 Palestinians were killed.)

After watching Palestinian fighters seeking Israeli shelter this week it is tempting to quote Menachem Begin’s comment after the Sabra and Shatilla massacre: “Goyim (gentiles) kill goyim, and they blame the Jews.” But one can also add, “Jews save goyim, and they still blame the Jews.”

Post Script: Wikipedia’s entry on Nahr al-Bared includes this line.

The different sectors of the camp are named after areas of what is now the northern Israeli Galilee region : Safourieh, Sasa, Safad, etc. Other sectors are more commonly known by the origins of the families living there: e.g. the "Maghrebi" area where families originally from Algeria, Tunisia or Morocco who had moved to Palestine in the 1930s now live.

Re-read this item carefully; its “hasbara” significance is so great that it will probably be excised from Wikipedia as a result of this blog posting. The Wiki item, presumably written by an Arab or UNRWA source, admits that Arabs from northern Africa emigrated to Palestine only a few years before the establishment of Israel. Some analysts have long argued that not all the refugees from 1948 were “native” Palestinians and that many came to Palestine because of the increase of employment opportunities that were generated by the Jewish immigration.

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