Introduction

Palestine was known in ancient history as the Land of Canaan. When Abraham migrated to the Land of Canaan it was a well-developed country. The Philistines entered the Land of Canaan from Crete about 1250 B.C. and settled in the coastal areas. They established five kingdoms, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath and Ekron. They were the people who gave Palestine its name, and the Land of Canaan since Roman times has been known as Palestine.

About 1100 B.C. Israelite tribes entered the Land of Canaan at Jericho. They conquered a part of the Land of Canaan and established a kingdom in Judea about 1000 B.C. About 935 B.C. the kingdom was divided into the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. About 725 B.C. the Kingdom of Israel was conquered and many Israelites were taken to Babylonia. About 600 B.C. the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians. The Israelite tribes were either exiled to Babylonia or were absorbed by the Canaanites. This means that Israelite rule over a part of Palestine lasted only about 400 years, during which time the majority of the population were Canaanite and mixed Canaanite-Israelite. Many of the Israelite kings of the two kingdoms followed Canaanite religions.

The Greeks conquered and ruled the Land of Canaan from 330 B.C. until 70 B.C. The Romans conquered and ruled the country from 63 B.C. until 614 A.D. Jesus Christ was born and Christianity spread in the country. Many Jews in Palestine became Christians. Many of the apostles were Jews.

As a result of strife between Jews and Christians many Jews left Palestine for neighboring countries. The Arabs conquered Palestine in 638 A.D. and exercised a profound influence on the country. The indigenous population of Palestine at that time adopted the Arabic language and many became Muslims. Arab rule over Palestine lasted from 638 to 1517 A.D., except for a brief period of Crusader rule. The Ottoman Turks ruled Palestine from 1517 until 1918, during which time the indigenous population of Palestine remained Arabic in language and culture.

The Palestinians of today, who call themselves Palestinian Arabs, are Muslims and Christians. They are the descendants of all the races and nations which have lived in and conquered Palestine from the times of the Canaanites to the British occupation of Palestine in 1918. They are the cohesion of all of those races. The Christians among them are descendants of the first Christians, who adopted Christianity at the time of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The Muslims are those who were either Christians or pagans and who adopted Islam after the Arab conquest of Palestine in the 7th century A.D.

Modem scholars have proved that it was in Babylonia that Judaism became that which it was and still is, maintaining that not only the Jewish religion, but all the traditions of Judaism, were developed in Babylonia during the exile. Professor H. Graetz states that "the Babylonian rather than the Jerusalem Talmud became the fundamental possession of the Jewish race, its life's breath, its very soul.''

In recent centuries, the center of Talmudic studies, and thus of Judaism, was in Eastern Europe among the descendants of the Khazars. The Khazars are a people of Turkish origin who lived in the kingdom of Khazaristan in the south of Russia. They were converted to Judaism in the 9th century A.D. Approximately 90% of the Jews of today are of Khazar origin and have no ethnic or historical relationship with Palestine.

Therefore the Zionist historical claim to Palestine is unfounded and cannot be justified on historical, ethnic, legal or religious grounds. Chapter 39 contains thorough documentation of these facts based on historical, archaeological, ethnographic and scriptural sources which prove the falsity of the Zionist claims to Palestine and that Palestine has never been "the land of Israel."

THE CONSPIRACY TO USURP PALESTINE FROM ITS PEOPLE

The Zionist conspiracy to expel the Palestinians from Palestine begins with Theodore Herzl. In his diary entry for June 12, 1895, Herzl wrote:

When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us.

We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.(1)

All the Zionist Congresses which were held in different parts of Europe decided to pursue the idea of Zionism and deprive the Palestinians of their homeland.

The Zionist common plan or conspiracy to usurp the land of Palestine from its rightful inhabitants entailed many steps in its "grand design." In his diary entry for October 15, 1898, Herzl wrote:

Discussed with Bodenheimer the demands we will make. Area: from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates ... As soon as the Jewish inhabitants of a district amount to 2/3 of the population, Jewish administration goes in force politically ... These are Bodenheimer's ideas, in part excellent..." (2)

Max Isidor Bodenheimer was a German Jewish lawyer and a Zionist leader. He was a member of the committee which approved the Basel Program of 1897. The following year he accompanied Herzl on his visit to Palestine. From 1897-1921 he was a member of the General Council of the World Zionist Organization. Bodenheimer was the author of the constitution of the Jewish National Fund, and its Director from 1907-1914. In 1935 he settled in Jerusalem and died in 1940.(3)

The first practical expression of the Zionist conspiracy occurred in 1916. A secret agreement was made between the 2 Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem British War Cabinet and Zionist leaders promising the latter a "national home" in Palestine in consideration of their efforts to bring the United States into World War I on the side of Great Britain. Samuel Landman of London, personal secretary to Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and Secretary of the World Zionist Organization from 19 17 to 1922, confirmed how in 1916 the World Zionist Organization entered into a secret agreement with the British War Cabinet, in which Great Britain promised Palestine to the Zionists as payment for using Zionist pressure in the United States to bring the United States into World War I as Great Britain's ally. Mr. Landman states:

the only way ... to induce the American President to come into the War was to secure the co-operation of Zionist Jews by promising them Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilize the hitherto unsuspectedly powerful forces of Zionist Jews in America and elsewhere in favor of the Allies on a quid pro quo contract basis.(4)

As a result of this secret agreement, the Balfour Declaration was issued on November 2, 1917. It stated:

His Majesty's Govenment view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people ... It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

The Zionists pursued their interests at the Paris Peace Conference where they submitted a proposal to allow them to create a Zionist State in Palestine. One of the major provisions concerned the delineation of frontiers. They proposed that

The boundaries of Palestine shall follow the general lines set out below.

Starting on the north at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr El Karaon, thence to El Bire, following the dividing line between the two basins of the Wadi El Korn and the Wadi Et Teim, thence in a southerly directtion following the dividing line between the eastern and western slopes of the Hermon, to the vicinity of Beit Jenn, thence eastward following the northern watersheds of the Nahr Mughaniye close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

In the east a line close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the gulf of Aqaba.

In the south a frontier to be agreed upon with the Egyptian Government. (It has been indicated that the southern border would extend from El-Arish in northern Sinai to Aqaba in the south.) In the west the Mediterranean Sea.(5)

At the same time three hundred prominent Jewish Americans, representing all parts of the United States, signed a statement for the Peace Conference. It was handed to President Woodrow Wilson on behalf of the signers by Congressman Julius Kahn on March 4, 1919. These prominent Jewish Americans stated, inter alia, the following:

As a future form of government for palestine will undoubtedly be considered by the approaching Peace Conference, we, the undersigned citizens of the United States, unite in this statement, setting forth our objections to the organization of a Jewish State in Palestine as proposed by the Zionist Societies in this country and Europe and to the segregation of the Jews as a nationalistic unit in any country ...

The American Zionists represent, according to the most recent statistics available, only a small proportion of the Jews living in this country, about 150,000 out of 3,500,000...

But we raise our voices in warning and protest against the demand of the Zionists for the reorganization of the Jews as a national unit, to whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in Palestine shall be committed. This demand not only misinterprets the trend of the history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2,000 years ago, but involves the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of Jews for full citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those rights are not yet secure. For the very reason that the new era upon which the world is entering aims to establish government everywhere on principles of true democracy, we reject the Zionistic project of a6'national home for the Jewish people in Palestine."

... A Jewish State involves fundamental limitations as to race and religion, else the term "Jewish" means nothing. To unite Church and State, in any form, as under the old Jewish hierarchy, would be a leap backward of two thousand years ...

We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free and democratic form of government recognizing no distinctions of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any kind. We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State.(6)

The Paris Peace Conference adopted the Covenant of the League of Nations. Article XXII of that Covenant recognized the people of Palestine as a "provisionally independent nation subject to the rendering of administrative assistance and advice by a Mandatory until the people of Palestine are able to stand alone." While the Mandate for Palestine was being drafted, the Zionists pressured the British Govenment and the Allied Powers to inject the Balfour Declaration in the Palestine Mandate. Article 2 of the Palestine Mandate states:

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of a Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.

In accordance with the terms of Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations and principles adopted by the League of Nations regarding Mandates, Palestine was placed under a Class A Mandate and Great Britain was appointed as the Mandatory.

Under the Ottoman Turks in 1914, Palestine's population was composed of 634,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs and 55,000 Jews who had immigrated from Europe, mainly from Russia. "In the early 16th century, the Jewish population of Palestine was estimated at no more than 5,000. By the middle of the 19th century the Jewish population had grown to about 12,000 and by 1882 to about 24,000."(7)

Immediately after the publication of the Balfour Declaration in 1918, disturbances tookplace between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The tension continued until 1922. In 1922 Winston Churchill was the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He issued a White Paper on June 20, 1922, in which he stated, inter alia, the following:

Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become "as Jewish as England is English. "His Majesty's Government regard any such expectations as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated, as appears to be feared by the Arabdelegation, thedisappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine.

... When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community ...

This, then, is the interpretation which His Majesty's Government place upon the Declaration of 1917, and, so understood, the Secretary of State is of the opinion that it does not contain or imply anything which need cause either alarm to the Arab population of Palestine or disappointment to the Jews.(8)

From 1919 to 1935, many Arab uprisings took place to protest the deprival of the people of Palestine of their independence as a state in the same way all mandated territories, whether of Class A, B or C were granted independence. The British Government sent a Royal Commission in 1937 to investigate the causes of disturbance in Palestine, and thereafter, in 1938, it sent the Woodhead Commission, which proposed to partition Palestine between the indigenous population and the Jewish immigrants. The British Govemment, on November 9, 1938, issued a statement in which it rejected the recommendation of the Woodhead Commission and in which it stated inter alia, the following:

This announced the conclusion of His Majesty's Government that the examination by the Commission has "shown that the political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish states inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable."(9)

The British Government held a London Conference in 1939 in which representatives of the British Govemment met with the representatives of the Palestinian people and representatives of the Arab states. They also met representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. At the end of the conference, the British Government issued the White Paper of May 17, 1939, which stated, in part, the following:

1. The proposal of partition recommended by the Royal Commission, namely the establishment of self-supporting independent Araband Jewish states within Palestine, has been found to be impracticable.

2. His Majesty's Government now declares unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish state. They would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations to the Arabs under the Mandate, as well as to the assurances which have been given to the Arab people in the past, that the Arab population of Palestine should be made the subjects of a Jewish state against their will.

3. The object of His Majesty's Government is the establishment within ten years of an independent Palestine state. The independent state should be one in which Arabs and Jews share in government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded. The establishment of the independent State will be preceded by a transitional period throughout which His Majesty's Government will retain retain responsibility for the government of the country.(10)

The Zionists rejected the British White Paper, and revolted against the British administration of Palestine. From 1939 to 1948 the three Zionist terrorist gangs (the Hagana, the Irgun and the Stern) carried out the most dastardly crimes and massacres against the civilian Arab population, as well as against the British authorities in Palestine. Practically every political and military leader in so-called Israel today was a member of one of these three Zionist terror gangs. Menahem Begin and Itzhak Ysernitzky (now known as Yitzhak Shamir), were leaders of the worst of the gangs, namely the Irgun Z'vai Leumi and the Stern Gang, both of which committed thousands of terrorist crimes and massacres, including the blowing up of the King David Hotel on July 23, 1947, when 91 persons were killed and 45 were seriously injured.

In Chapters 4, 5,6 and 7 of this Encyclopedia, we document Zionist terrorism between 1939 and 1948. These Chapters contain unimpeachable evidence of Zionist crimes in the form of official reports from the British High Commissioner for Palestine to the Colonial Office in London and by the Commanding Officer of British Forces in Palestine to the War Office in London. These documents were photocopied from the files of the Foreign Office, Colonial Office and War Office in the Public Record Office, Kew Gardens, Surrey, the United Kingdom.

In 1945-1947, faced with Jewish terrorism, the British Govemment attempted to find a peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem but was unable to do so. Consequently, it submitted the Palestine problem to the United Nations General Assembly. The United Nations General Assembly recommended on the 29th of November, 1947, to partition Palestine into an Arab State, a Jewish State and an intema; 4 Encyclopedia oftlie Palestine Problem tional status for the Jerusalem area. When it became apparent that partition could not be implemented except by force, in April, 1948, the Security Council called for a Special Session of the General Assembly to further consider the future government of Palestine. The United States Delegation submitted a resolution for placing Palestine under trusteeship for five years during which a peaceful settlement might be found for the Palestine problem. The British Mandatory Power declared that it would terminate its mandate over Palestine on the 15th of May, 1948.

In 1948 there were in Palestine 1,440,000 Christian and Muslim Arabs who were the indigenous citizens of Palestine, 253,700 Jews who were indigenous citizens of Palestine, 247,000 Jews who were naturalized Palestinian citizens, and 216,000 Jews who were aliens and illegal immigrants." The Palestinian Arab citizens were 74% of the population, and the Jewish citizens 26%.

In 1948, there were in Palestine four cities and towns with mixed Arab and Jewish population, namely Safad, Tiberias, Haifa and Jerusalem. There were also 91 cities, large and small towns inhabited only by Arabs. There were a total of 833 Arab small towns and villages.

There were six Jewish towns, 21 Jewish urban settlements and 266 Jewish rural settlements.(12)

The Palestinian Arabs owned 24,670,455 dunums of land and Jews owned 1,514,247 dunums.(13)

The Palestinian Arabs and Jews were well developed politically. There were 309 Arabs and 174 Jews serving as high officials in the Central Government of Palestine. There were also 30, 178 Arabs and 9,276 Jews serving as officials in the Government of Palestine.(14)

Palestine had a local government. There were 24 Municipal Councils of which four were mixed, 18 were Arab and two were Jewish. There were 38 local councils, one was mixed, 26 were Jewish and 11 were Arab. There were forty Village Councils, all Arab.(15) The Arabs had five political parties and the Jews had eleven.(16)

Chapters 1, 2 and 3, namely, The Modern History of Palestine, The Palestine Arabs were a Well-Developed Nation Politically, Economically, Socially and Culturally and The Ownership of Capital in Palestine, contain the facts establishing that Palestine, according to international law, was a provisionally independent nation receiving administrative assistance and advice from the British Mandatory. Palestine had its own fixed and recognized international boundaries, its own nationality, its own currency, and entered into hundreds of international agreements.

The indigenous population of Palestine has the right to self-determination and independence. The Palestinians were a well-developed nation, vested with sovereignty. The full exercise of their sovereignty was dormant, pending the termination of the Mandate. According to Article 28 of the Mandate, at the termination of the Mandate the territory of Palestine was to pass to the control of the Government of Palestine. Therefore, at the termination of the Mandate on the 15th day of May, 1948, the sovereignty was fully vested in the population of Palestine, who were 74% Palestinian Arabs and 26% Palestinian Jews. Palestine became a sovereign, independent state in fulfillment of Paragraph 4 of Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the terms of the Mandate, the British White Paper of 1922, the British White Paper of 1939, and in accordance with the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine to self-determination and independence.

On May 14, 1948, while the United Nations General Assembly was discussing the Trusteeship Resolution over Palestine, 37 Zionist leaders met in Tel Aviv and issued a so-called Declaration of Independence. Only one of these Zionist leaders was born in Palestine. One was born in Yemen, and the other thirty five were born in Russia, Poland, Germany and other European countries. This declaration by Zionist Jews of foreign origin has no validity under international law. The Jewish minority had no right to declare an independent State on a territory belonging to the Palestinian Arab nation. We have outlined the principles of international law in Chapter 37 which prove that so-called Israel is not a State either in fact or in law. Therefore, in accordance with the doctrine of non-recognition, the Jewish minority could not be legitimately recognized as a State or admitted to membership in the United Nations.

ZIONIST WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND GENOCIDE

The Zionist minority in Palestine revolted against the Palestinian Arab majority, violated the territorial integrity of Palestine and committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and genocide. These crimes are documented in Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.

In Chapter 9, The Conspiracy to Expel and the Expulsion oflalestinian Arabs, 1948-1950, we show how the Zionist leaders conspired to expel the Palestinian Arabs from the areas they occupied in 1948 by massacre and violence. Every town and village suffered from these crimes. In many villages the Hagana and/or the Irgun Z'vai Leumi ordered the villagers to assemble in one place, and then shot twenty or thirty people in front of the whole village, informing the surviving villagers that if they did not leave in the trucks waiting for them, they would all be killed. The Zionists drove these trucks to the borders of Lebanon or Syria, and at gunpoint forced the Palestinians to cross the frontiers. The total Palestinian population expelled from 1948 to 1950 was 800,000 men, women and children.

In Chapter 10, Examples of Massacres Committed by the Zionists,we show how the Zionist leaders committed hundreds of premeditated massacres for political reasons. The following are only examples: the King David Hotel massacre of July 22, 1946; the Semiramis Hotel massacre of January 5, 1948; the Deir Yassin massacre of April 9, 1948; the Dawaymamassacre of October 29, 1948; the Kibya massacre of October 14, 1953; the Kafr Kassim massacre of October 29, 1956; the massacre of the USS Liberty of June 8, 1967; the Libyan Boeing 727 airliner massacre of February 21, 1973 and the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps massacre of September 16- 18, 1982.

Israeli journalist Benny Morris quotes Mapam member S. Kaplan who described the massacre of Dawayma, which exemplifies the pattern of these Zionist massacres, as follows:

The village, wrote Kaplan, had been held by Arab "irregulars" and was captured by the 89th Battalion (8th Brigade) without a fight. "The first (wave) of conquerors killed about 80 to 100 Arab men, women and children. The children they killed by breaking their heads with sticks. There was not a house without dead," wrote Kaplan. Kaplan's informant, who arrived immediately afterwards in the second wave, reported that the Arab men and women who remained were then closed off in the houses "without food and water." Sappers arrived to blow up the houses. "One commander ordereda sapper to put two old women in a certain house ... and to blow up the house with them. The sapper refused ... The commander then ordered his men to put in the old women and the evil deed was done. One soldier boasted that he had raped a woman and then shot her. One woman with anewborn baby in her arms was employed to clean the courtyard where the soldiers ate. She worked a day or two. In the end they shot her and her baby." The soldier-witness, according to Kaplan, said that "cultured officers ... had turned into base murderers and this not in the heat of battle ... but out of a system of expulsion and destruction. The less Arabs remained - the better. This principle is the motor for the expulsions and the atrocities."(17)

Benny Morris states "that the atrocity was committed by the 8th Brigade but many there are (former members of) the LHI, Frenchman, Moroccans, who tend to bad behavior."I8 LHI was the Hebrew acronym of the Stern gang, the terrorist organization led by Yitzhak Shamir.

In Chapter II1, 1. Erasing Arab Towns and Villages from the Map ofpalestine andConverting them into Jewish Settlements; 2. Usurping Arab Houses and Apartments in Twelve Cities for Settling Jews, we show how the Zionists erased from the map of Palestine 492 Palestinian Arab small towns and villages and Bedouin localities and usurped or destroyed all the Palestinians' houses and usurped all their lands in order to build Jewish settlements on their sites. In 1969, General Moshe Dayan stated:

We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish State here. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because those geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalat arose in the place of Mahalul; Gevat in the place of Jibta; Sarid in the place of Haneifa; and Kefar Yehoshua in the place of Tell Shaman. There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."(19)

In 1988. General Rehav'am Zeevi said:

That more than 400 Arab localities which were still in existence in the late '40s had been replaced by Jewish settlements." (20)

An official publication of the Jewish National Fund stated:

The Jewish National Fund and private Jewish owners possess under two million dunums. Almost all the rest belongs by law to Arab owners, many of whom have left the country. Whatever the ultimate fate of the Arabs concerned, it is manifest that their legal right to their land and property in Israel will not be waived. Conquest by forceofarmscannot, in law or ethics, abrogate the rights of the legal owner to his present property.(21)

The Zionists usurped 90% of all Arab houses, apartments, commercial buildings and industrial plants in 12 Arab towns and cities. This is testified to by Martin Buber, who was a professor at the Hebrew University:

... Only then will the old and young in our land realize how great was our responsibility to those miserable Arab refugees in whose towns we have settled Jews who were brought from afar; whose homes we have inherited, whose fields we now sow and harvest; the fruits of whose gardens, orchards and vineyards we gather; and in whose cities that we robbed, we put up houses of education, charity and prayer while we babble and rave about being the "people of the Book" and the "light of the nations!"(22)

In Chapter 12, Looting, Pillage, Plunder and Spoliation of the Personal and Real Properties of Palestinians in Twelve Cities and 492 Towns and Villages 1948-1967, we show how the Zionists committed the crimes of looting, pillage, plunder and spoliation of all personal and real properties of Palestinians in twelve cities and large towns and 492 small towns and villages. They looted and pillaged furniture, carpets, personal effects, jewelry, appliances, all movable possessions belonging to Palestinians including all goods and merchandise in stores and commercial buildings.

Tom Segev reports in his book, 1949 The First Israelis, that

Years later the Custodian removed the veil of secrecy: "The inspectors found most of the houses broken into, and rarely was there any furniture left." He wrote in his memoirs that, "Clothes, household effects, jewelry, bedding - other than mattresses - never reached the warehouses of the Custodial authority. More than 50,000 Arab homes had been abandoned, but only 509 carpets reached the Custodian warehouses."(23)

In Chapter 13, The Destruction, Desecration and Usurpation of Muslim Holy Places and the Violation of Muslim Religious Rights, we show how from 1948 to 1950 the Zionist forces completely destroyed and erased 480 Muslim mosques and converted 14 Muslim mosques into factories, clubs or 6 Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem buildings used for other non-religious purposes. They completely destroyed 410 Muslim cemeteries, bulldozing all of the stones and remains. The Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv was built on the Abed Al Nabi Muslim cemetery.

The Zionists occupied all Muslim religious properties (Waqf property) in the twelve large towns and cities they occupied and in many villages as well, usurping buildings, lands, shops and other assets of these religious charitable institutions.

When they occupied Old Jerusalem in 1967, the Zionists desecrated Al Aqsa mosque and dynamited 135 buildings and mosques owned by the Muslim Waqf in Old Jerusalem in order to clear the way for a square in front of Al Buraq, the Western Wall of the Aqsa mosque, which is called by the Jews the "Wailing Wall." The Zionists mislead the Jews of the world by claiming that it was part of the Temple built by Solomon or the Temple built by King Herod. In fact, it was a wall built by Muslim Arabs. This was the conclusion of the investigation carried out by the League of Nations in 1929, confirmed by the Mandatory Power in an Order-in-Council in 1931, which stated, inter alia:

To the Muslims belong the sole ownership of, and the sole proprietary rights to, the Western Wall, seeing that it forms an integral part of the Haram-esh-Sherif area, which is Waqf property. To the Muslims there also belongs the ownership of the pavement in front of the Wall and of the adjacent so-called Moghrabi (Moroccan) Quarter opposite the Wall, inasmuch as the last-mentioned property was made Waqf under Muslim Sharia law, it being dedicated to charitable purposes.(24)

In spite of the fact that the Western Wall of Al Aqsa mosque, wrongly called the "Wailing Wall," does not belong to Jews, and is not a Jewish holy place, the Israeli authorities in occupied Palestine and Jewish organizations throughout the world conduct a fraudulent world-wide propaganda campaign to deceive world public opinion into believing that it is a Jewish holy place.

Zionist zealots continually attempt to desecrate Al Aqsa mosque. Some have tried to burn the holy place or to dynamite it. Zionist zealots constantly trespass on the area of Al Harem El Sharif and Al Aqsa in order to establish their right to pray in the area as a prelude to razing it and building a Jewish temple on its site.

Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have violated Muslim rights in the Ibrahimi mosque (Mosque of the Patriarchs) in Hebron, by restricting Muslim prayers to Fridays only. Jewish tourists have desecrated this holy mosque and have often embarassed and ridiculed Muslims while praying. Contrary to Muslim rights, Jews encroached on the mosque and started using part of it for Jewish prayers. Jews built a roof on a part of the mosque, with the object of converting it into a Jewish synagogue.

In Chapter 14: The Destruction and Desecration of Christian Holy Places and the Violation of Christian Religious Rights, we show how when the Zionists occupied 80% of Palestine in 1948 they desecrated hundreds of Christian churches and cemeteries. As an example of testimony of the Zionist desecration and looting of Christian holy places we quote Monsignor Thomas MacMahon, Secretary of the Catholic Near East Association of New York, in his appeal to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on August 20, 1948:

There have been constantly some violations and desecrations of Catholic holy places. The Associated Press report of August 19, 1948 confirmed that Jewish forces perpetrated criminal acts against 12 Roman Catholic institutions in Northem Palestine ... Seven churches, convents and hospitals have been looted by Jews and others seized by force.

The Zionists also dynamited and smashed open most of the graves, marble crosses, angels' wings and inscriptions on the tombs in the Greek Orthodox cemetery on Mt. Zion. The Catholic cemetery on Mt. Zion received similar treatment. The Very Reverend Father Andres, Procurator-General in the Holy Land, stated: "The Jews actually dragged the corpses out of the tombs and scattered the coffins and remains of the dead all around the cemetery."

In 1952 the Zionists blew up the Christian village of Ikret and its churches and schools. In 1953 the Zionists destroyed the Christian village of Kafr Bur'om in Galilee together with its churches and schools. The Zionists continue to persecute Christians and violate their religious rights today.

The Zionists intend even a worse fate for the Christians, as well as Muslims, of the Holy Land. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, winner of the Israel Prize for 1976, has said:

It is forbidden for gentiles to live in Jerusalem. I, for example, favor upholding the halakhic prohibition on a gentile's living in Jerusalem. If we would uphold this halakha as we should, we would have to expel all non-Jews from Jerusalem and purify it absolutely.(25)

In Chapter 15, Zionist War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (Taken from United Nations Records) we dealt with the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist war criminals against the Palestinians and against the populations of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt from 1948 to 1967.

Some of these crimes included the assassination of the United Nations Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, the expulsion of Palestinians, attacks on Palestinian villages, destroying houses and murdering civilians, attacks on civilian aircraft, the massacre of Kibya, the massacre of Nahalin, the massacre of Hussan, expelling Bedouins, and shelling and air attacks against villages in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. These crimes are verified by United Nations Documents consisting of letters of Ambassadors to the United Nations Secretary General or the Security Council, and from records from meetings and resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly and from Reports made by United Nations Observers from the various United Nations Commissions in the area.

From 1967 to 1988, the Zionist leaders continued their policy of aggression, destruction, terrorism and crimes against the Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians with the object of conducting both physical and psycholo&al warfare against the Arabs in order to prevent them from attempting to liberate the occupied Arab territories. Chapter 17, consisting of documents taken from United Nations Records, contains reports of the most horrendous crimes committed by Zionist forces. These crimes included the expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, massacres, the destruction of Palestinian homes, and the bombing and dynamiting of Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian homes in cities and villages. The Israelis desecrated and destroyed houses of worship; committed arson against Palestinian crops; stole livestock; strafed farm animals; kidnapped Arabs; placed time bombs in Arab cars; shot down an unarmed Libyan civilian plane; used fragmentation bombs on Palestinian refugee camps and other civilian population centers; bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Bagdad; bombed the headquarters of the PLO and other buildings in Tunisia, killing both Palestinian and Tunisian men, women and children during the attack, as well as hundreds of civilians with delayed-action 1,000 pound bombs.

In Chapter 16, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity Committed by Zionists against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, we show how Israeli soldiers committed crimes against the population of the Gaza Strip on the orders of the top Israeli political and military leaders between 1967 and 1987. Massacres were committed by Israeli soldiers and victims were buried in mass graves. More than 2,000 Palestinians of the Gaza Strip were murdered and more than 5,000 were injured and maimed. Over 10,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were either imprisoned or put in detention camps and tortured. More than 1,000 houses were demolished. Collective fines were imposed and the economy was destroyed.

THE ZIONIST WAR OF AGGRESSION IN 1967

In the early hours of June 5, 1967, Israel launched a war of aggression against Egypt, Jordan and Syria and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. On the admission of many Israeli leaders, this war was the result of a long-planned, calculated aggression. It was undertaken in order to expand Israel's occupation of Arab territories and not (as falsely claimed by Israeli apologists) as a pre-emptive strike to avoid annihilation. The following admissions from Israeli leaders prove their conspiracy and their crime against peace:

1. Menahem Begin, Minister without Portfolio: "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."(26)

2. General Yitshak Rabin, Chief of Staff, Israeli Defence Forces: "I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it, and we knew it."(27)

3. General Mattitiahu Peled, Chief, Quartermaster- General's Branch, Israeli Defence Forces, General Staff: "All those stories about the huge danger we were facing because of our small territorial size, an argument expounded once the war was over, had never been considered in our calculations prior to the unleashing of hostilities. While we proceeded towards the full mobilization of our forces, no person in his right mind could believe that all this force was necessary to our 'defencey against the Egyptian threat. To pretend that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel's existence does not only insult the intelligence of any person capable of analyzing this kind of situation, but is primarily an insult to the Israeli army."(28)

4. General Ezer Weizman, Chief of Operations, Israeli Defence Forces, General Staff: "There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting."(29)

5. General Yeshayahu Gavish, Commanding General, Southern Command: "The danger of Israel's extermination was hardly present before the Six-day war."(30)

6. General Mordechai Hod, Commanding General, Israeli Air Force: "Sixteen years' planning hadgone into those initial eighty minutes. We lived with the plan, we slept on the plan, we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it."(31)

7. General Haim Barlev, Chief of General Staff Branch, Israeli Defence Forces: "We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such a p0ssibility."(32)

8. General Chaim Herzog, Commanding General and first Military Governor, Israeli Occupied West Bank: "There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger."(33)

9. Mordechai Bentov, Minister of Housing: "The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail, and exaggerated aposteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory."(34)

10. Yigal Allon, Minister of Labor and Member of Prime Minister Eshkol's Military Advisory Committee: "Begin and I want Jerusalem."(35)

11. General Meir Amit, the former head of Military Intelligence who was head of Mossad in 1967: "There is going to be a war. Our army is now fully mobilized. But we cannot remain in that condition for long. Because we have a civilian army our economy is shuddering to a stop. We don't have the manpower right now even to bring in the crops. Sugar beets are rotting in the earth. We have to make quick decisions ... If we can get the first blow in our casualties will be comparatively light...."(36)

During the 1967 war the Zionists committed massacres against the Palestinians, Syrians and Egyptians and murdered hundreds of prisoners of war. They looted, plundered and 8 Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem pillaged Arab properties and possessions in the areas they occupied. They expelled more than 300,000 Palestinian Muslims and Christians from the West Bank and Gaza, and refused to allow them to return thereafter.

Since 1967, more than 350,000 Palestinian men, women and children were incarcerated in Israeli prisons or concentration camps, of whom countless were tortured. Many died or had their physical or mental health seriously impaired. The Israeli government has usurped 65% of the land belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and has usurped 95% of their water resources. They have illegally established 173 Jewish settlements and transferred 86,000 Jews from Israel to the West Bank and Gaza to live in these settlements. In the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip, the economy has been consciously destroyed.

Farmers, deprived of their lands and livelihood, have become laborers in order to support their families. Palestinians have been impoverished by illegal levies of confiscatory taxes. Palestinian mayors, civic and religious leaders, professors, teachers, journalists and labor leaders have been expelled to neighboring Arab countries, punishing them and disrupting the lives of their families. Their human, civil and religious rights have been violated. They are being ruled by military administration in the same brutal way that the Nazis ruled Occupied Europe during World War 11. More than 10,000 men, women, young boys and young girls are held in prisons and concentration camps and tortured by the most inhuman methods.

We have dealt with these crimes in Chapter 18 to 28 inclusive. The titles of these Chapters describe the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinians from 1967 until 1989.

CHAPTER 18: PLUNDER AND USURPATION OF PALESTINIAN LANDS AND ESTABLISHMENT OF JEWISH SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP 1967-1988.

CHAPTER 19:WILLFUL DESTRUCTION OF THE PALESTINIAN ECONOMY IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP.

CHAPTER 20:DEMOLITION AND SEALING OF PALESTINIAN HOMES.

CHAPTER 21: COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT, CURFEWS, CHECKPOINTS, MASS ROUND-UPS AND CLOSURES.

CHAPTER 22: ISRAELI CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND PRISONS.

CHAPTER 23: TORTURE AND INHUMAN TREATMENT OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS.

CHAPTER 24: TORTURE AND INHUMAN TREATMENT OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN.

CHAPTER 25: ILLEGAL ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION OF PALESTINIANS.

CHAPTER 26: ILLEGAL TOWN ARREST ORDERS OF PALESTINIANS.

CHAPTER 27: THE INHUMAN SEPARATION OF PALESTINIAN FAMILIES.

CHAPTER 28: JEWISH SETTLER TERRORISM AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP.

THE INTIFADA: PALESTINE'S CHALLENGE TO ZIONISM

In December, 1987 the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, with the moral support of the Palestinians surviving in the 80% of Palestine usurped by the Zionists in 1948, spontaneously rose up against the Zionist occupiers' oppression. They have sustained, despite the murder of hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children, and the injuring and incarceration of tens of thousands more, a national uprising which has riveted the world's attention and dramatically affected the public's perceptions of the Zionist regime. Witnessing the brutality of the Israelis' "broken bones" policies, use of poison gas causing involuntary abortions in pregnant Palestinian women, demolishing and sealing homes of Palestinians before even trying them, uprooting thousands of olive trees which take fifteen years to reach maturity, interfering with religious worship and education, among other war crimes and crimes against humanity, the world's television screens have destroyed the myths of a "benign" occupation fostered by the Zionist propaganda apparatus over decades. In fact, the Zionists have only intensified the war crimes and crimes against humanity they have been committing in the West Bank and Gaza over the past twenty years in their futile attempts to suppress the Intifada. These facts are documented in Chapter 29.

WANTON BOMBING OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMPS

The Zionists expelled 800,000 Palestinians from 80% of Palestine between 1948 and 1950, and expelled a further 300,000 from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. These Palestinian refugees have been forced to take up residence in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Not satisfied with the crimes they had already committed against these helpless Palestinians, since 1951 the Zionists have been regularly bombing and strafing the Palestinian refugee camps in these countries. Using the most sophisticated French Mirage and U.S. Phantom and F-15 aircraft, they have rained down on these camps large bombs, rockets, phosphorous, napalm and cluster bombs. They have killed, maimed or injured more than 100,000 Palestinians and destroyed over 80,000 homes built by Palestinian refugees. The majority of their victims have been women and children. In Chapter 31 we have dealt extensively with Israel's wanton bombing of refugee camps, itemizing these crimes according to date, location, and the number of casualties.

ISRAELI WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN LEBANON AGAINST THE LEBANESE AND PALESTINIANS

Chapter 30 deals with the Zionist wars of aggression of 1978 and 1982 against Lebanon.

The 1978 War

As early as 19 19, the Zionists planned to include in their proposed Jewish State the southern part of Lebanon extending from the port of Tyre to the northern border of Palestine. Their objective was not only expansion but also to usurp the waters of the Litani River. After occupying 80% of Palestine anddeclaring a so-called Jewish State. in 195 1 Zionist leaders started to plan their future intervention in Lebanese affairs in order to bring Lebanon under their control. Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan conspired to entice Lebanese Maronite officers to work with them. Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, was given prime responsibility for interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs in order to fracture the country into puppet mini- States, This was admitted by Uri Dan, press attache to Defence Minister Ariel Sharon: "The Mossad was in charge of Israel's relationship with the leaders of the Christians of Lebanon."(37)

From 1948 to 1978, the Zionists committed war crimes in incursions against Lebanese villages in the south of Lebanon and killed hundreds of Lebanese men, women and children. They destroyed many homes and blew up houses in over fifty villages. They used phosphorous bombs and napalm to burn crops, gardens and severely damage Lebanese villages.

The blitzkrieg launched by Israel on March 14, 1978 represented a culmination of the Zionist conspiracy against Lebanon, constituting a crime against peace by the the top Israeli leadership. Israeli forces advanced in Lebanon to the north, west and east. By March 19, they had almost completed their occupation of the region south of the Litani river. Equipped with American aircraft, in the Tyre area the Israeli airforce used illegal cluster bombs for the first time.

The area occupied by Israel totalled 1, 100 square kilometers. The Lebanese authorities estimated the total numher of Lebanese and Palestinians killed by Israel to be 1, 168, almost half of them civilians. Some 285,000 people were made homeless in South Lebanon.

On March 19, 1978, the United Nations Security Council adopted aResolution in which it called "upon Israel to immediately cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith from all Lebanese territory." In spite of this Resolution, Israeli forces continued to shell and bomb Lebanese cities and villages from the air and from the sea, killing hundreds of men, women and children.

The 1982 War

On June 6, 1982 Israeli leaders escalated their conspiracy against Lebanon and waged a war of aggression to which they committed 90,000 troops. The objectives of the Israelis were toexpel all Palestinians from Lebanon, to support the Phalangists to control all of Lebanon, to force the Maronite President to make peace with Israel, and to reduce Lebanon to a puppet state.

On August 30, 1982, Menahem Begin and Ariel Sharon summoned the President-elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, to Nahariy a. In their book Israel'sLebanon War, Ze'ev Schiff and Yehud Ya'ari state that Begin "was hardly seated before he launched into his attack. 'Where do we stand with the peace treaty?' he began abruptly in his starchiest manner ..." Gemayel said, '"I cannot decide on such matters alone. There is a government and political institutions in Lebanon, and they must be involved...'" Begin interrupted: "'We believe that the first thing you must do as president is to visit Jerusalem, or at least Tel Aviv ..."'

"'We'll be in touch with you, sir, before September 22,' Begin said as he took leave of Gemayel. Since the date was the eve of his inauguration as president, there was an edge of menace to Begin's au revoir."(38)

Shortly afterward, the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, ordered its agents in Lebanon to explode a large amount of gelignite under the building where Bashir Gemayel and his top assistants were meeting. The bomb blast on September 14, 1982 killed "president-elect Bashir Gemayel with 60" of his assistants in the Phalangists headquarters in East Beirut. On the same day, "Begin and Sharon, without cabinet consultation, except for Foreign Minister Shamir. set in action 'Operation Iron Brain' for the occupation of West Beirut."(39)

Israeli forces occupied a great part of Lebanon, including the capital city of Beirut. They destroyed many Lebanese villages and the cities of Tyre and Sidon. They also completely destroyed the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. making the Palestinian refugees homeless for the second time. When they bombed and strafed Beirut thousands of people, mostly civilian men, women and children, aged and infants alike, were killed, maimed, injured and made homeless.

Israeli soldiers looted, pillaged and plundered many valuables from Lebanese villages and from the cities of Tyre, Sidon and Beirut, as well as from the Palestinian refugee camps. They stole radios, television sets, appliances, and household goods. In Tyre, Sidon and Beirut they stole many valuable carpets, objets d'art and jewelry.

Excluding the victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Lebanese Red Cross reported on November 30, 1982 that 19,085 persons had been killed and 31,915 wounded in the Israeli invasion, and that in West Beirut, for example, 80% of the casualties were civilians and one third of the casualties were less than 15 years old."(40)

By June 17, 1982, 800,000 people had been displaced because of the Israeli invasion. 100,000 refugees were made homeless because of the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camps in the south.(41)

The Council for Development and Reconstruction of Lebanon estimated the damages caused by the Israeli invasion, as of December, 1982, to be 6,351,824,000 Lebanese Pounds, of which 5% was to schools, 7.2% to Health facilities, 0.9% to drinking water facilities, 0.3% to irrigation works, 2.4% to municipal buildings, 12.8% to agriculture, 36.2% to housing, and 32.9% to trade. Only 2.1% of the damage caused by the Zionist invasion was to military buildings.(42)

Israel's wanton destruction of the national life and economy of Lebanon, together with its crime of genocide against the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, cannot be white-washed by Zionist propagandists, no matter how hard they try.

As in 1978, the Israelis used illegal cluster bombs against the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples in Lebanon. In 1982 phosphorous shells were used as well. In the last two weeks of July, 1982 the Israelis "fired hundreds of phosphorous shells into Beirut alone."(43)

The Christian Science Monitor reported:

The use of phosphorous bombs by the Israeli army has been condemned by relief workers in Lebanon who have seen its effects. The only way to stop the burning caused by phosphorous shells is either to cut the burning tissue away or amputate. Relief workers are reporting an unusually high incidence of amputations in West Beirut, particularly among civilians. Phosphorous reportedly continues to burn for up to 24 hours. Dr. Troy Rusli of Norway said he treated about 50 cases of phosphorous bums in five weeks. One of the last groups he cared for was a family of seven. The hair on their heads had been singed off and the features on each of their faces was no longer discernible.(44)

The massacre of Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps shocked the conscience of mankind. Approximately four hours after Bashir Gemayel's death, Defence Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan decided to send the Phalangists into the two camps. The reason the Israelis sent in the Phalangists, as General Eitan later admitted, was "because we could give them orders whereas it was impossible to give the Lebanese army orders."

General Eitan and General Amir Drori met with leaders of the "Christian militia," including Fadi Frem and Elias Hobeika, Phalangist chief of intelligence, who was the leader of the massacre. Sharon and Eitan gave the Phalangists the green light to wipe out the Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila. While the Phalangists were committing the massacres, the Israeli forces sealed off the camps to prevent Palestinians from escaping and fired flares enabling the Phalangists to see their victims. The Phalangists killed more than 2,750 Palestinian men, women and children.(45)

Between June 4, 1982 and September 19, 1982 the Security Council of the United Nations adopted resolutions concerning Lebanon. Between June 26 and December 17, 1982 the General Assembly discussed the Lebanese situation on three occasions, condemning Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

On June 5, 1982 the Security Council passed Resolution 508 calling for the ceasing of "all military activity in Lebanon."

On June 6, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 509 reaffirming the "necessity of respecting the territorial integrity, the sovereignty and the political independence of Lebanon" and for "Israel to withdraw immediately and unconditionally all its military forces outside the internationally recognized frontiers of Lebanon."

On June 19, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 512 calling for "respect of the rights of the civilian populations, and to refrain from all acts of violence against these populations."

On June 26, 1982 the General Assembly adopted aResolution which "condemns Israel for not having complied with the Resolutions 508 and 509 of the Security Council."

On July 4, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 513 stating that the Council was "alarmed by the continuous suffering endured by the civilian Lebanese and Palestinian populations in South Lebanon and West Beirut."

On July 29, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 515 which demanded "that the Government of Israel lift immediately the blockade of the city of Beirut."

On September 19, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 521 stating, "Horrified by the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Beiurt," the Council "condemns the criminal massacre" perpetrated in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila.

On September 24, 1982 the General Assembly adopted a Resolution "condemning the criminal massacre of civilian Palestinians and others in Sabra and Shatila." On December 16, 1982 the General Assembly denounced the Sabra and Shatila masacres "in the most vigorous terms," qualifying it "as genocide."

In an irony of history, "genocide," a word formulated as a result of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in World War 11, was among the crimes committed by the Zionists against the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

A commission of distinguished international Jurists, under the chairmanship of 1974 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Sean MacBride of Ireland, held sessions in London from August 28, 1982 to investigate the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. They heard many witnesses and organizations in Lebanon, Jerusalem, the West Bank, Amman, London, Oslo, Damascus and Cyprus.

The Commission, after considering the evidence and the relevant rules of law. concluded that:

1. The Government of Israel has committed acts of aggression contrary to international law.

2. The Israeli armed forces have made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden by international law, including the laws of war.

3. Palestinian, Lebanese and prisoners of other nationalities have been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition, there has been a violation of international law arising out of a denial of prisoner-of-war status to Palestinian prisoners or detainees.

4. There has been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of a civilian character, of hospitals, schools and other non-military targets.

5. There has been systematic bombardment and other destruction of towns, cities, villages and refugee camps.

6. The acts of the Israeli armed forces have caused the dispersal, deportation and ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law.

7. The Government of Israel has no valid reasons under international law for its invasion of the Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities or for its action as an occupying force.

8. Israeli authorities or forces were involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September.(46)

ISRAELI PIRACY AND TERRORISM AT SEA

When a United States citizen was murdered on board the highjacked Italian ship, Achille Lauro, the whole world condemned the highjacking of ships and the murder of a single passenger. Israel has been practicing piracy and terrorism at sea since 1984. Fifteen ships have been highjacked in international waters and taken to Israeli ports. Passengers and crew members have been killed or imprisoned. The Israeli sailors have robbed money, jewelry and other valuables from passengers. Palestinians and passengers of other nationalities have been imprisoned and tortured by the Israeli authorities, and some of them are still serving prison terms. These Israeli crimes are a violation of international law. We have submitted the evidence of the crime of piracy by the Israeli authorities in Chapter 33, "Israeli Piracy and Terrorism at Sea."

MOSSAD TERRORISM AND CRIMES AGAINST PALESTINIANS AND OTHERS IN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The Government of Israel perpetrates murders around the world, mostly of innocent people, using the Mossad as its agent in committing these crimes. Immediately after World War II, the Jewish Agency organized a group of Zionist fanatics in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army calling them "Hanokmin" (the Avengers) to murder suspected German war criminals. The Hanokmin death squads murdered approximately 1,000 Germans without trial. The Hanokmin contributed many intelligence personnel to Mossad. One of the Mossad kidnappers of Eichman and General Aharon Yariv, Chief of Military Intelligence in 1967, were members of the Hanokmin (the Avengers).

During the years 1961 -1963, the Mossad tried to murder many of the German engineers and scientists who were working with Egyptian government factories. Some of them were murdered and others were threatened and harassed by Mossad.

Golda Meir authorized General Zwi Zamir, head of the Mossad, to order gang-land style murder of Palestinians. The first murder was committed on June 1, 1972, when the car of Gassan Kanafani, the Palestinian intellectual, poet and novelist, was boobytrapped in Beirut, Lebanon, in an act of premeditated murder. Kanafani was murdered along with his 17-year-old niece, and many other Lebanese and Palestinians were injured.

The second attempted murder was made against the twenty nine year-old Palestinian Bassam Abu Sharif, now spokesman for President Yassir Arafat, in Beirut on July 25, 1972. The Mossad bomb concealed in a parcel sent to Abu Sharif's home blinded him in one eye and seriously damaged the other.

Wael Zuaiter, a palestinian intellectual living in Rome was the next victim. He was murdered on October 16, 1972 at 10.30 p.m. while he was returning to his apartment.

On December 8, 1972 the Mossad assassinated Mahmud Hamshari, representative of the PLO in Paris. Hamshari's telephone began to give him trouble and continued to do so for several days. He called the telephone exchange to have it fixed. What Hamshari did not know was that he had his own personal exchange, a truck parked nearby into which his telephone line was fed. There a Mossad engineer had been cutting in and out of Hamshari's calls until he picked up the request to have the telephone repaired. Hamshari was told that an engineer would be around the following day. On December 7, 1972 a man reported to Hamshari's apartment, driving up in an official-looking van. He placed in the telephone's base sufficient explosives to blow up the apartment. At 9.25 a.m., the following day, December 8, the phone rang in Hamshari's apartment. He picked up the phone and was asked, "Are you Dr. Hamshari?" He replied, "Yes." The telephone exploded and he died a few hours later. But he told the police about the journalist who had called him and about the request he had made the day before to have his telephone repaired.

After detonating a bomb in the hotel room of Palestinian Abad Al Chir in Nicosia, Cyprus, on January 24, 1973, blowing him to pieces and fatally shooting Dr. Basil Al Kubaissi, an Iraqi professor, in front of the Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris on April 6, 1973, Mossad performed its most ambitious murders, a raid in central Beirut, Lebanon, in cooperation with Israeli Military Intelligence and the Israeli paratroops. On the morning of April 9, 1973, 30 Israeli paratroopers and officers of Military Intelligence, all dressed in civilian clothes, landed in Dove Beach outside Beirut. They were signalled in by a man and woman behaving like a courting couple, but who were actually Mossad agents working in Beirut.

After landing, the Israeli raiders broke up into five-man teams piling into six cars previously hired by Mossad at the airport. Some of the cars converged on the three-story house at Rue El Khartoum where some Palestinian leaders had their apartments. The Israelis machine-gunned the guards at the door of the building and rushed to the second floor apartment of Mohammed Yussuf El Najjar, the No. 3 man in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). They shot off the locks to his apartment, bursting into his home and machine-gunning El Najjar and his wife to death while their children watched in horror. Hearing the noise, a Lebanese woman living in the next apartment, looked out of her door and was instantly killed by Israeli bullets. Kemal Nasser, chief spokesman for the PLO, was then murdered in his apartment while he was sitting at his desk writing a speech, and Kemal Adwan, El Najjar's deputy, was shot dead in his apartment's doorway.

One of the men who killed Kemal Adwan was Yonathan Nethanyahu, known as Yoni, whose younger brother Benjamin, known as Bibi, is Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel. The now deceased Yonathan Nethanyahu was a terrorist who committed many crimes against Palestinians, and Benjamin Nethanyahu has continued in his older brother's footsteps in the Israeli Paratroops.

In the other building attacked by the Israelis, the raiders went from floor to floor, killing all the occupants they could find. After the slaughter, the Israelis detonated the building, killing a great many people trapped inside.

Mossad next murdered Mohamed Boudia in Paris on June 28, 1973, blowing up his car with a bomb.

On July 2 1, 1973 an Israeli assassination team murdered a man whom they believed to be Ali Hassan Salameh, a Palestinian leader. In fact, the man they killed, Ahmed Bouchiki, was a Morroccan waiter working in Norway. Not only did the Mossad team kill him in error, they were caught by the Norwegian police and tried and convicted by a Norwegian court.

Despite the Norwegian fiasco, Mossad revived its murder campaign against representatives of the PLO and other Palestinians. Mahmoud Saleh, a representative of the PLO in France, was murdered on January 3, 1977. Said Hammami, representative of the PLO in Great Britain, was murdered on January 4, 1978. Ezzedine Kalak, representative of the PLO in Paris, and his deputy, Hamad Adnan, were murdered on August 3, 1978. On January 22, 1979 a Mossad car bomb killed Ali Hassan Salameh; many Lebanese were also killed in the explosion together with a British woman, Susan Wareham. On July 25, 1979, the Mossad murdered Zuhair Mohsen, a senior member of the PLO, who was killed in the street in Cannes, France, where he was vacationing. From 1979 until 1988, Mossad agents murdered five Palestinians in Cyprus, one in Belgium, three in Italy, one in Spain, one in Paris, two in Greece and one in London.

On April 16, 1988 the Israeli terrorists, representing the Mossad and Israeli Military Intelligence, violated the territory of Tunisia and murdered Khalil Al Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, the Deputy of President Yassir Arafat. They also murdered his two guards and a Tunisian gardener. This record of murder of political opponents and innocent bystanders on the territory of many foreign countries proves that the Mossad organization, and the so-called Israeli government which gives the orders, are criminal organizations whose members should be tried as murderers and war criminals. We have documented this record in Chapter 32, "Mossad Terrorism and Crimes against Palestinians and others in Europe and the Middle East."

Introduction part 2 of 2