An argument that I heard from many peace activists in Israel and Palestine during my recent visit is that the Nakba– that is, the dispersal of the Palestinians from their homes, primarily in 1948, and the expropriation and frequent destruction of the properties they had left behind– was not a one-ff affair, but is a continuing process.
Current news photos of Palestinians in Gaza or Jerusalem who have been expelled from their homes through Israeli acts of violence, and are forced to live in tents while Israelis either take over or demolish their homes, are continuing evidence of this.
Recently I read Meron Rapoport’s painfully evocative article “History Erased: The IDF and the post-1948 Destruction of Palestinian Monuments”. It originally appeared– I believe only in Hebrew– in Ha’aretz in July 2007, and was published in English in the Jouranl of Palestine Studies in Winter 2008. Sadly, it’s behind a pay-wall.
Rapoport gives some information about a controversy that arose inside the Israeli bureaucracy about the IDF’s July 1950 demolition of the Mashhad Nabi Husain (Prophet Husain Mosque) in what had been the Palestinian town of Majdal– now, in Israel, Ashqelon.
According to local Islamic tradition, the mosque was the spot where the head of Husain ibn ‘Ali, one of the Shiite tradition’s most revered founders/martyrs had been buried.
After the mosque was levelled by the IDF, Shmuel Yeivin, the director of Israel’s department of Antuities, became quite angry.
Noting that the mosque in the nearby, abandoned Palestinian “village” of Ashdod had also been blown up, Yeivin wrote to the head of the “department for special missions” in the defense Ministry, “I believe the commander responsible for this explosion should be brought to trial and punished, because there was no justification for a swift, war-contingent operation.”
Guess what. It never happened.
Rapoport also noted that Israeli historian Meron Benvenisti has written of the 160 mosques in Palestinian “villages” incorporated into Israel under the 1949 Armistice Agreements, “fewer than 40 are still standing.”
This makes me want to go and read Benvenisti’s 2000 book on the subject, Sacred Landscape; The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948.
Anyway, I just wanted to mention the work of the two Merons here, because I recall that a few years ago some of the Israeli apologists who comment here at JWN were claiming there was no evidence at all regarding widespread Israeli destruction of Palestinian places of worship and cemeteries inside Israel.
Au contraire. There is lots of evidence– even for Engish-speaking readers. We just need to know where to look.
12 thoughts on “Destruction of mosques in Israel after 1948”
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Double thanks Helena. Benvenisti’s works have long been compelling readings for me, forcing me to confront and re-think many of my younger-held assumptions. Regrets too about JPS — how often it is that the materials needing widest consideration… are underfunded.
Big deal. The sunnis and chiites blow each others mosques on a regular basis in Pakistan and Irak and they are brothers. What is so sacred about a Palestinian mosque?
Very compelling logic, Ruth. Similarly, tens of thousands of Americans murder other Americans every year, so what’s so sacred about an American life?
Hey, stupid arguments are fun. There are endless variations one could construct based on this sort of “reasoning” and none of them make any sense, but then, that’s the point.
I wonder if Helena notices any irony in her bringing this subject up when the Palestinians have, AGAIN, vandalized and desecrated Joseph’s Tomb.
I guess Palestinian hatred toward Jewish holy sites is not a “one off affair” but rather an “continuing process.”
Joshua, of course it’s horrible that an unknown number of persons, most likely Palestinians, descrated the site many Jews identify as “Joseph’s Tomb”, located in the heart of a heavily Palestinian-populated district near Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Very likely, the hostility thereby expressed had something to do with the fact that large groups of armed Israeli settlers, protected by large detachments of Israeli security personnel, make a habit of undertaking night-time marches to the Tomb, completely disrupting and posing a threat to the security of the Palestinians who live in the area. Not least, because as that Ma’an News report says, the arrival of the large armed Israeli group meant that Palestinian security forces had to leave the area, as per Oslo-derived agreements.
Individual Palestinians undertaking acts of (reparable) desecration is a very different order of action than the armed forces of a state, in a situation where there are no continuing armed hostilities, coldbloodedly ordering the permanent demolition of scores of places of worship.
You’re attempting to compare apples and oranges, and to divert attention from the matter discussed in the main post– about which you express no opinion. Maybe because you think, basically, it’s okay that that happened.
The comparison is not exact. You are talking about something which happened decades ago. I am talking about the very recent desecration of one of the holiest Jewish sites.
Can it be repaired? Yes. Because right now, Israel exercises control over the region.
Tell me Helena. How did the Arabs treat the Jewish gravestones in the areas that they occupied after the war of independence?
Oh, I forgot, Arab conquest of land in 1948 is not “occupation.”
The bottom line is your shrillness about any Israeli misdeeds and your rush to apologize for immediate Palestinian misdeeds once again demonstrates your hypocrisy.
Um, still not expressing any opinion about the Israeli government’s historical (and indeed still ongoing) desecration of non-Jewish holy sites, Joshua?
If this is the same Joseph (Yousaf) who tricked Pharoah, his benefactor, in giving choice land (Goshen) to the chosen by telling them to lie to the Pharoah about what they did for a living then I suggest he be exhumed forthwith and reburied in NYC in a tomb reserved for Madoff.
Individual Palestinians undertaking acts of (reparable) desecration is a very different order of action than the armed forces of a state, in a situation where there are no continuing armed hostilities, coldbloodedly ordering the permanent demolition of scores of places of worship.
You are very correct Helena: Joshua is off-topic here (although he is making a point, that the Palestinians are currently desecrating Jewish holy sites).
But let’s go back to 1948, shall we. In parallel to what you and I agree were horrible acts of desecration and destruction of Muslim holy places within Israel, the Jordanians were desecrating and destroying Jewish holy sites in East Jerusalem as well. (The Jordanian Arab Legion was the only army or militia that was successful in capturing territory.)
This is well documented. There is lots of evidence– even for Engish-speaking readers. You just need to know where to look.
So, come on Helena, why don’t you express an opinion about the Arab destruction and desecration of non-Muslim holy sites that went on some 60 years ago.
What is so sacred about a Palestinian mosque?
If the story had been about 100+ synagogues destroyed, the MSM would be screaming at the top of their well-oiled tongues, demanding something be done.
And something would be done, the USA would send out signals in the press, saying that the White House was “gravely concerned” about this travesty and at the same time, shipping several thousand tons or more of advanced weaponry to Israel, which would be used to incinerate the perps, done by the world’s “most moral army.”
This from the country that is always bragging about its interest in “peace.”
The only peace Israel wants is: a “piece” of Jordan; a “piece” of Syria; a “piece” of Lebanon; a “piece” of Egypt; a “piece” of Iraq; a “piece” of Saudi Arabia; a “piece” of Turkey and whatever “pieces” are left after Israel finishes it’s genocidal extermination of the Palestinians.
JES, in previous posts I have expressed my horror at what the Jordanian Army did to some Jewish sites that came under its control. All such acts of desecration should be strongly criticised and opposed.
In the present post, I was merely pointing to a source of information, new to me, about the desecration of Muslim sites inside Israel, since in the earlier JWN discussions several posters claimed this had never happened.
JES, in previous posts I have expressed my horror at what the Jordanian Army did to some Jewish sites that came under its control.
Oh, I must have missed those. Could you please reference them?
In the present post, I was merely pointing to a source of information, new to me, about the desecration of Muslim sites inside Israel, since in the earlier JWN discussions several posters claimed this had never happened.
And here I was under the impression that you were just on a rant against Israel. Silly me. BTW, could you please reference those “earlier JWN discussions”, because I don’t recall having seen them.
Oh, and Helena, perhaps you could set Greg Bacon straight on what we’re discussing here (i.e. the destuction of Jewish and Muslim holy sites immediately after the 1948 war)?