Zionism

When political Zionism began in earnest in the late 19th century, there were only about 15,000 Jews in Palestine.29 In 1893, for example, the Arabs comprised roughly 95 percent of the population, and though under Ottoman control, they had been in continuous possession of this territory for 1300 years.30 Even when Israel was founded, Jews were only about 35 percent of Palestine’s population and owned 7 percent of the land.

Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2,700 and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed.

The IDF also murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners‐of‐war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars.46 In 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly‐conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.47 It was also complicit in the massacre of 700 innocent Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps following its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and an Israeli investigatory commission found then‐Defence Minister Sharon “personally responsible” for these atrocities

During the First Intifida (1987‐1991), for example, the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protestors. The Swedish “Save the Children” organization estimated that “23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifida,” with nearly one‐third sustaining broken bones. Nearly one‐third of the beaten children were aged ten and under.”

Israel’s response to the Second Intifida (2000‐2005) has been even more violent, leading Ha’aretz to declare that “the IDF … is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe‐inspiring, yet shocking.”50 The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising, which is far from a measured response.51 Since then, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians for every Israeli lost, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7 to 1).52 Israeli forces have also killed several foreign peace activists, including a 23 year‐old American woman crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003.

Israeli terrorists also murdered U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948, because they opposed his proposal to internationalize Jerusalem.57 Nor were the perpetrators of these acts isolated extremists: the leaders of the murder plot were eventually granted amnesty by the Israeli government and one of them was elected to the Knesset. Another terrorist leader, who approved the murder but was not tried, was future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Indeed, Shamir openly argued that “neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.”