ISRAEL: Massacre of the Innocents

Israel’s guilty secret could no longer be kept.

On the eve of Israel’s invasion of Egypt last October, alerts were out all along the frontier. In the narrow northern waist of Israel, a zealous police officer on the Jordan border imposed a 5 p.m. curfew on Kafr Kassim (pop. 2,000), an Arab village inside Israel. All the villagers who got the word complied. But those who worked in nearby Tel Aviv, or had walked across the fields for afternoon visits, knew nothing of the sudden order. As dusk fell, they strolled homeward—quarrymen with knapsacks slung over their shoulders, women in their long, embroidered Arab dresses carrying or leading their children. From behind a pile of rocks outside the village, border police fired, killing 48 men, women and children.

For fear of its impact abroad and among Israel’s 190,000 other Arabs at the moment his troops were launching their attack on Egypt, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion suppressed the news of this modern Massacre of the Innocents. But he set up a private inquiry committee, and after its report, arrested the killers and compensated the victims’ families ($500 to $2,500). Despite efforts to keep the secret, in tiny Israel the word spread, and shocked citizens pressed Ben-Gurion to make public the disgrace. Every political party sent petitions. Last week the old man finally gave in and told the Knesset (parliament) some details of how Arab villagers “coming home in all innocence” were shot down by border police.

Ashen pale, Ben-Gurion said: “I feel it my duty on behalf of the government, the police force and myself to express our profound concern that such an act has been possible here—an act which strikes a blow at the most sacred foundations of human morality drawn from Israel’s Torah.

“It is written, ‘And if the stranger sojourn with you in your land, you shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born among you and thou shalt love him as thyself.’ And the Arabs of Israel are not strangers but citizens with fundamental equal rights. It is clear that no amount of money can possibly compensate for the loss of these lives.”

After the Prime Minister had finished speaking, the Knesset stood in solemn expression of contrition.