Mass graves of Palestinians from 1948 uncovered in Israel

I don't know too much about the whole Israel-Palestine conflict, but someone on my facebook shared this news page and I thought it was shocking and inhumane

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/01/306647/mass-grave-of-palestinians-killed-by-israel-in-1948-found/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334205/Mass-grave-uncovered-containing-dozens-Palestinians-killed-1948-war-founded-Israel.html

Six mass graves have been found in a Muslim cemetery in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. The graves date back to the 1948 Israeli war on the original residents of Palestinian lands.

They contain remains of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. The bodies --- belonging to men, women and children --- were found during construction work on the cemetery.

Palestinian media expert, Nasser al-Laham says that the bodies were buried with no ethics on part of the Israelis and that they uncover the war crimes committed by Israeli forces in 1948.

The majority of those buried were killed during heavy shelling in the area and the bodies were buried contrary to Muslim tradition.

A Jaffa fisherman --- now 80 years old --- has reportedly said that during the final months of the 1948 war he had helped collect the Arab dead in an area south of Jaffa. The fisherman said he had been a teenager at that time and he had brought the bodies for hasty burial in the cemetery.

The unmarked graves recovered from the site expose Israel's war crimes. Tel Aviv now is denying the families of the victims the courtesy to give them a Muslim burial.

This is simply disgusting and revolting. I can't fathom how a group of people can go from being exterminated in gas chambers in a Holocaust to becoming mass murderers themselves, in 3 years time.

I now really dislike the state of Israel, it sounds like it was built on the blood and corpses of the rural natives.

It's a known historical fact that the jewish Israelis, with the help of the ruling British back then, brutalized and mass murdered the innocent weak residents of Palestine and moved into their homes. A lot of people I know who are interested in this subject call the Israelis "neo-Nazis," which is the most ironic thing ever.

But I don't think criticizing the Israelis is considered cool on American websites, I think your topic will be locked. It's the norm in the west today to have sympathy for the Jewish people because of the holocaust and not criticize the evil actions of their state. They're a US ally after all, which means they're above criticism.

oy vey

Watch violence escalate now because of this announcement.

That entire region just fucking stinks. Just kill one another or declare peace. Stop with wasting our fucking time.

I'll just quote this for the truth.

The UN will launch an investigation into this terrible war crime.

Quite so, I actually remember not too long ago when the shelling of Gaza was going on, a thread bringing awareness to it was not only locked, but deleted all together the same day.

ya they been like that since they occupy palestine.. they always use the WW2 ticket to get out of questioning..

Hurray for Humans.

I imagine we killed many more innocent civilians over the course of the Iraq war. Someone on your Facebook needs to condemn that as well.

Yikes, this thread...

...is going to go great places, I'm sure.

I now really dislike the state of Israel, it sounds like it was built on the blood and corpses of the rural natives.

Oh, you mean like the USA? (or any number of countries for that matter)

I thought it already had, then I saw he wrote Yikes, phew.

I think the fact that it happened 60 years ago, after WW2, after their holocaust, after the world for the first time in history laid down human rights and international rules, by people who probably died not too long ago and are still decomposing under ground, and with the help of the British kingdom of 60 years ago, is much more severe and unbelievable than when it happened centuries ago when slavery was still in style, don't you think?

Jeez, the fact that it happened in fucking 1948 of all times pushes it to another insane level.

Totally, I can't imagine why threads like this get locked or deleted. If only the mods would let this one slide, I bet we solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict right here, once and for all.

While I totally agree with you about the Israeli's doing horrible horrible things and it being ironic considering what many jews went through during the Holocaust I do wish people wouldn't always tie Israelis and Jews together. Yeah Israel was founded as country for the Jews however it yes it is run by Jews but it shouldn't be used a measure for jewish people, it's the same as how Muslims shouldn't be judged by the actions of Iran and other radical Islamic states. Frankly pretty much every country has fucking horrendous stuff in their past, even now globally accepted countries like Canada and Norway both have terrible shit in their history(Canada pretty much wiping out the native population, practically using chinese slave labour for the railroads, and japanese interment camps during World War 2, while Norway kind of pillaged and raped most of western europe during their viking days). There should be some sympathy for the Jewish people because of the Holocaust( as well as the other thousand years of persecution), however Israel should certainly be criticized for what they have done, I am just saying that the Jewish people and Israel should be considered two separate entities.

Not particularly. I'm not getting into some dumb argument with you when you have already said you don't know what you're talking about; my point was, disliking a nation based on something that happened a fair amount of years ago is pathetic.

@aiurflux said:

YOUR time? Grow up, us adults are talking about real life issues and straight up oppression of Palestinians in a country, that YOUR country spends billions on in maintaining that choas and death. Just stick to 1st world problems of having too little money for videogames, while people are struggling daily just to survive.

Dulce bellum inexpertis. Look up the meaning of it, it totally fits with those screaming to have one side eradicate the other.

@alexw00d: I respect your opinion and to each their own.

The threads are likely deleted due to the fact that people can't hold a reasonable opinion and discourse to save their lives, and this subject is among the most potent in contemporary geo-politics. The mods aren't stupid, threads like these are more likely to cause trouble and incidental fighting among the community than do anyone any good. At least, that's the assumption and reasonable precaution to keep the peace around here.

As for the story, I wouldn't be surprised if this was part and parcel with the JDL and other guerrilla groups operating out of Israel during and immediately following WWII.

Never underestimate the power of death and war and what it can bring people to do. The raw mass that the holocaust wrought upon Europe was not going to disappear after 1945 and Israel for itself and history has had the habit of not giving an inch in this respect. As you can see in the story, the movement for an independent Israel hit at the right place and time, for a people ready and willing to do anything to get it. What do the others matter? Your people and your nation and your history is on the line. And so both sides view themselves and on goes the struggle to this day.

I'm no apologist of Israel, far from it, but as someone who can't view this as any more than historical and social forces and actors, I'm not really prone to opinions on this one.

Every country currently in existence and many that aren't. Rome and every nation that came from it's fall may as well be built on a foundation of human remains. Same with most of Asia, thanks to Genghis Khan and his friends.

Why is that? Why does America want Israel to exist so damn much? Is it oil? To have an ally over there watching things for them? Some moral, ideological thing? America's the only player in this whose presence in it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

@video_game_king said:

They're one of the only staunch allies they have in the region at this point, for one.

A lot of zionist lobbies tend to give you that impression, even within the government they are present. They control a lot of the media outlets too. Fact is, a lot of the foreign policy regarding Palestina-Israel...is influenced by zionist lobbies. After the flotilla incident in which 9 turkish civilians were murdered in international waters by the Iraeli Defence Force...europe, at least, saw the zionist extremist for their true colors, and tried to give the suffering of palestinians more coverage and emphasis.

@zella: I totally agree that there's a big separation between Israel and Jews, they're not one and the same. My point was that people usually associate one with the other, which is why they either ignore Israeli brutality or make excuses for it - because they associate it with the Jewish people who were traumatized in the holocaust.

I'd like to add that I absolutely sympathize with holocaust victims and I'm happy that the Jewish people lived to fight another day. However the ones that survived by invading an innocent and weak nation and exterminating them with massacre and stealing their homes, well, I hope those rot in hell.

I have a Palestinian internet friend whose relative's grandfather was 15 when they were attacked in their homes at night and kicked out into a diaspora that has lasted til today (diaspora.. irony much? A nation recovering from a thousand year diaspora soon thereafter causes the diaspora of another nation? Anyone?). That old man is still saving the key to the front fucking door of his house around his wrinkled neck, while living in a gutter camp in Lebanon. The blood is still fresh on this one, it's not another atrocity from the times of kingdoms and monarchs.

So have some respect because that comparison is ludicrous and insensitive. Palestinians are still imprisoned, tortured and oppressed today, their homes get demolished across the land and discriminatory laws are passed every month to corner and suffocate them, not to mention the occasional bombing that kills hundreds. I doubt that that is still happening in the US and other countries against the natives. I think it's been over for hundreds of years for those guys.

The state of aboriginal people in North America is still pretty appalling, all things considered. It's certainly not a 1:1 comparison with what the Palestinian people face, but I find the whole "it happened a bajillion years ago" argument in regard to the slaughter and subsequent oppression of native people to be particularly egregious.

Here's how it goes. When your nation is locked in a never ending war with another nation based on nationality, ethnicity and religion, very bad things will happen. Add the Holocaust and you might understand why the Isrealis would be willing to carry out such acts. Also, are those images inhumane? Yes, shocking? Nope. Every single country on earth has skeletons in the closet, some bigger some smaller.

The war itself is rather complex, as wars in which both sides have a claim to the land always are. Israel and Palestine are actually fighting to defend their homes and families. As atrocious as many of acts committed over there are, I think the reason is far more justified than "bringing order" or "stopping some dictator out of the goodness of some president's heart" *wink, wink*.

Anyway, in a conflict like this one there are no good guys or bad guys. No winners and only one looser, the innocent people who die in the fighting. But that's the world we live in and it sure as fuck won't change, not any time soon anyway.

Oh and I'm not trying to say that the killing of any civilian is alright or acceptable. All I'm saying is I understand the fucked up reasons behind it, even though I don't support it. And to finish this post, I could call into question a lot of things from American history...but I know better than to do that. It's ancient history anyway, right?

Their conclusion: lots of Palestinians died in 1948.

Lol, Israel has broken the most UN resolutions out of any other country since the beginning of the UN while the USA will veto any serious resolution against them. Which is complete hypocrisy as we've used that excuse to invade countries in the past and are looking to use it again in the future.

No, this will be locked because of comments like this:

(also you've never been on reddit apparently)

Well, this is depressing.

So yeah, video games you guys......

I hear they're pretty cool...

@jouseldelka: The history of the entire Fertile Crescent is much more bloody, convoluted, and contested than most people know. Modern-day Israel and Palestine have belonged to tribesman, Greeks, Romans, Persians, British, Israelis, and Palestinians each at different points in history, just to name a few of dozens. "Brutalization and mass murder" applies to nearly every invasion or incursion into that area. In the land of choking sand, "fertile" is something you fight for with tooth and nail, both now and throughout history. This doesn't excuse any of the crimes committed on it and for it, but its history can't be looked at selectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine

(The webpage is acting up and forcing me to post the reply at the top.)

That's dreadful. I will say that blaming Israelis today for this horrible war crime is untenable, since most Israelis alive have no connection to it. It's a horrible travesty, but let's not misappropriate blame. I'm a white man in the US: slavery is still not my fault.

@officegamer: I think you really need to go over the history before you jump to any conclusions. Firstly, the 1948 War was started by the Palestinians and their allies when they refused to recognise the UN's partition plan, secondly there were atrocities committed on both sides (a classic example is how everyone complains about the Palestinians being pushed off their land, when more Jews were displaced than Arabs). Thirdly, it was arguably because of the Holocaust the Jews were so desperate to protect themselves, at the outset of the War, senior Arab commanders such as the Mufti of Jerusalem called for a second Holocaust in Palestine. As far as the Jewish leadership was concerned, they were now fighting for the very existence of their race against a massively superior force, that doesn't excuse ethnic cleansing, but it does explain it. And the comparison to other conflicts is perfectly valid, look at the ethnic cleansing carried out during the Balkans conflicts, or even the kind of shit the Soviets did. As far as human rights go, Israel's actually pretty good compared to other countries.

Israel's history isn't squeaky clean? Shocker.

We absolutely did, but unfortunately you have to actively seek that information out, and get it from "fringe" sources, which is disgusting in and of itself.

@troll93: Everyone's country has done bad things in the past, but if that disqualified people from those countries from learning from their own mistakes and persuading other countries to stop going down the same nasty path, the world would be even more screwed up than it already is. The difference between countries like America, Australia and Canada is that there's widespread contrition for their past sins while Israel is still actively committing grave human rights abuses in the present day and there's not really any official recognition from the government that anything they're doing is even wrong.

The shitty reality ^^

I think that as users on a video game website discussing such matters as this with intense opinions is disgusting in of itself.

We are so far removed from the reality of whats happening globally on a day to day basis that discussing these matters is extremely naive.

Man, a lot of innocent people died in the 40s.

Or Iran is somehow to blame and they gotta stop them

Actually, Syria is on the chopping block right now.

God damn I wish more Americans were this competent.

I second this. So guys, I just got Borderlands on Amazon. Everyone likes Borderlands right? >.>

While this is of course terrible, you act like that's not the case for a whole lot of nations/states.

e: Guess I was too late to point that out.

You only just realized this?

Just to throw some facts out to ponder:

The population of Israel is around 7.77 million people. (less than the population of New York City)

At 10,762 square miles, Israel (including contested territories) is only slightly larger than New Jersey at 7,787 square miles.

The US is set to give around $3.1 billion dollars in aid to Israel in 2013. After Afghanistan, they're the recipient of the largest amount of aid from the US.