Survivor of 1929 Hebron Massacre recounts her ordeal

[Behind the Aegis]

When the Six-Day War ended and Israelis began streaming to the West Bank, members of the Molchadsky-Wolfson family from Jerusalem decided to visit Hebron. Thirty eight years earlier, the family had fled from that city following the massacre of Hebron's Jewish residents.

Yonah Molchadsky had given up hope of finding the little apartment in which her family had lived in Hebron. But her daughter, Geula Wolfson, and the other family members and friends who went along on the 1967 visit, were not prepared to give up. Finally the apartment was located; it had been turned into a workshop for girls.

Yonah Molchadsky, however, did not say a word about the horrors of the massacre that had led them to leave. The family put no pressure on her. When they returned to Jerusalem that evening, Yonah went to the kitchen and prepared food, and when they sat down to eat, her friend, Sarah Novoplansky said: "Now you must talk. Tell us exactly what happened that day."

So after 38 years, the silence was broken and Yonah spoke, "from beginning to end, without a tear or a tremble in her voice," recounts Novoplansky, who wrote everything down.

It was the story of a family who had survived the terrible day on which 67 members of Hebron's Jewish community were massacred. The story of their survival is connected with the birth of Geula, Yonah's second daughter. Last weekend, Geula Wolfson celebrated her 80th birthday, and at the birthday party she told the story "so that the grandchildren will know."

more...

[Ken Burch]

1. What happened in Hebron in 1929 was horrible. Nobody alive in Palestine today is responsible for it

n/t.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. "Nobody alive in Palestine today is responsible for it"

Someone has claimed that?

Typical KB response.

[Ken Burch]

3. You're dredging it up to make some sort of point about the situation today

We ALL agree that what happened in Hebron was horrible. But it was eighty years ago and it has nothing to do with what's happening now.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Yes, because history has absolutely nothing to do with the present.

I am dredging it up?! I didn't write it, Ken.

Do try to remember...those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

[provis99]

5. the past is relevant? OK

here's a list of massacres of Palestinians committed by Israelis. I'm sure you'll agree they're relevant, too.

http://www.soundofegypt.com/palestinian/adult/massacres.htm#YASIN

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Of course they are relevant!

They are just as much as "bricks in the wall" as the HEbron massacre, but I guess it is only relevant when it is Arabs dying, right?

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

7. Which would be a valid point if the Palestinians were the Nazis

but they aren't. And there's not going to be anything like a repeat of Hebron, no matter what happens. The Palestinians would have to be insane to let something like that happen if they got a state, and even Hamas isn't THAT crazy.

And it's true that you didn't write it, but you did post it here.

Face facts, the Palestinians of today are not the Palestinians of 1929. The Mufti is dead.

[oberliner]

9. What about the Passover Massacre? That was less than 10 years ago

Hamas proudly took credit for that particular massacre in which thirty Israeli civilians (almost entirely senior citizens) were slaughtered at a Passover Seder.

[Ken Burch]

13. A horrible act. But what purpose does it serve to keep bringing these things up?

Both sides have done horrible things. And what I was saying was that, if a Palestinian state was actually in existence, it's extremely unlikely that even Hamas(assuming Hamas would still have the support it has now)would do things like that. When you're running a state, that in itself imposes requirements to act in moderation and with sanity. In a combat situation, in a situation where an oppressor is being resisted, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to prevent things like that from happening. And while those things shouldn't happen, they don't change the fact that the Palestinians do have a legitimate cause for resistance and that they have a right to a state. No one here would have accepted the argument that the human rights abuses committed by the anti-apartheid resistance in South Africa justified keeping the apartheid system in place OR keeping Mandela in prison.

If I had my way, Hamas would NOT have the place it has in the PA and neither would Fatah. But we all know it's impossible for anyone outside the Palestinian fold, INCLUDING THE ISRAELI government, to be able to do anything
that would lead to Palestinians having a better leadership. We all KNOW the continuing the Occupation can't have that effect, and it's about time for everyone to admit it.

You are a reasonable person, oberliner, and I respect you. This thread is just Aegis using the past to demonize Palestinians. And such demonization, horrible as what happened eighty years ago was, serves no purpose. You are genuinely interested in a peaceful settlement. Aegis isn't. He's just about keeping the war going. You really shouldn't get on the same side of any argument with the guy. He's big time trouble.

[Lakrosse]

11. In case you forgot the intifada,

more Israelis were killed then than the Hebron Massacre. Directly after Arafat turned down peace.

And the Palestinians still revere the Mufti. Edward Said continued to praise him until his death. Arafat was his cousin, and if you look at Arafat's full name, it included Al-husseini.

[Ken Burch]

12. Americans still revere George Washington and Andrew Jackson

Washington was a slave-owner and Jackson can fairly be called the Hitler of Native America.

If the Mufti is still revered, it's because he was seen as a resistance fighter, not because(unlike most Palestinians)the Mufti was an antisemite. You can't assume Palestinians revere the worst parts of his legacy.

There's equal infamy in the histories of both sides, and it's pointless to drag out things like this just to say "the past means we have to be bastards to you NOW".

Finally, many MANY more Palestinians were killed than Israelis in the course of the Intifada. And Israelis were killed because they were the other side in the conflict. There's no difference in that and in American and British forces killing each other for being on opposite sides in the Revolutionary War. It isn't worse to kill Israelis than it is to kill everybody else that's fighting a war.

This whole thread was just another Aegis "All Palestinians are evil and this justifies everything the IDF does" thread. No, he didn't SAY that, but that's the subtext in every Palestinian-bashing thread that Aegis starts. All he's about is keeping the Occupation going and keeping the war going.

[Lakrosse]

14. do you now hate every single

American president before Lincoln? This is completely irrelevent anyway.

Husseini came long after Jackson. Don't compare apples to oranges.

And no, there is no "equal infamy." The Arabs started the whole conflict when they attacked the Jews in 1920 because of Al-Husseini, the attacks continued without response until 1930 when Jews formed their own groups. Also, the Yishuv accepted both the Peel Commission and the Partition, which were BOTh rejected by the Palestinian Arabs. And the Palestinian Arabs and their Arab allies were the ones who invaded and began the war first, which itself was the direct cause of the refugee situation. Thats not "equal infamy." Why did Husseini attack Jews? No Arabs lost their land until the war they began, and wars produce refugee issues. All of the Jews' land they acquired from the late 1800s until 1947 (when the war the Jews didn't start happened) was purchased by Jews, and cities built up in areas formerly not developed, to which Arab immmigrants came. Churchill even noted this, as Twain even noticed Palestine was empty when he went there.

Fact is the Jews are not responsible for the conflict in the first place. The Jews had every right to settle in previously unsettled areas as international law, which the League of nations made the Balfour Declaration, mandated. What was the Mufti resisting? That he was gonna have a harder time getting "Greater Syria?" Had the Palestinian Arabs and Arab countries not warred on israel following partition and independence, there'd have been no refugee issue in the first place. Also, it was a pop. exchange, 600000 Arabs, 750000 Jews swapped from Israel and Arab countries, respectively.

Also, in the intifada, don't forget most of the Palestinians killed were militants, which is what Israel aimed for. In wars, civilians, sadly, do die. Arafat gave us the intifada.

Why does this all matter? The 1929 Hebron Massacre reflected the hate which would spiral into what we see today. And don't forget, Jews didn't form their own groups until 1930, in response to Hebron.

[Ken Burch]

15. No, I DON't Hate every single American president before Lincoln

I have respect for the good things some of them did(sometimes after they left office, like John Quincy Adams' heroic post-Presidential terms in Congress in which he spoke out fiercely against slavery, defended the abducted Africans in the Amistad trial, and opposed the illegal and immoral American theft of Mexican territory in the 1845 war)while disliking the bad.

And yes, what Jackson did was a long time ago. Still, the Trail of Tears was far worse than what happened at Hebron.

What this thread reminds me of is an old and ugly American political tradition known as "waving the bloody shirt", which was used in post-Civil War America by descendants of the combatants in both wars. That tactic did damage to the United States that has still not been fully undone to this day.

The troubles in Hebron(and no, I don't defend what was done by the Arabs that year as you know perfectly well)were largely the result of the Ashkenazi Europeans moving in to Hebron and acting like it was their place more than it was the Palestinians. What happened in that year should NOT be used to justify more violence and more war and more land-grabbing in the present. And the motives of anyone who brings that up as if it should be an issue in the present are about preventing Palestinians and Israelis from moving on, and from preventing the compromise that is needed to end this.

Yes, mourn the victims(as the Palestinian victims of the Occupation should be equally mourned, especially since many were civilians)but don't used the misery of the past to justify inflicting more misery now.

Hebron in 1929 does NOT justify expanding the illegal West Bank settlements today.

[Lakrosse]

23. so to you its completely OK

that Arabs murdered Jews for no good reason whatsoever? The land on which Jews lived in Mandate Palestine before the partition was all bought legally from absentee landlords. That is capitalism. The Balfour Declaration was made international binding law by the League of Nations. The Arabs had no right to murder the Jews there and there is no justification or excuse. You don't see me defending Baruch Goldstein, do you? The political violence began in 1920 when the Arabs attacked first. The Ashkenazi Jews had every legal and moral right to move to Palestine.

[Ken Burch]

25. What I'm saying is that what happened in 1929 should NOT be used

to justify not ending the Occupation NOW.

And the whole "absentee landlords" thing is very iffy. Anyone on the progressive side of the political spectrum should be very wary of that, considering how that played out in Ireland and Scotland and in many other places.
Many of those landlords were Turks who were given the titles to the land for their services to the Ottoman Empire. I'd guess that not a few of them just plain and simple stole title to the land by brute force. It's not property rights in the legal and proper modern U.S. tradition(and there's a lot you could say about the U.S. tradition before, say, 1890, as any Cherokee, Lakota, Tohono O'odham or Coast Salish, for example, could tell you, and as any African-American could tell you about how we applied property rights to human beings). You're on shaky ground, literally, with the "bought fair and square" argument.

Did the Askenazi have the right to move to Palestine? Probably. Did they have the right to act as if Palestine was theirs and no one else's? Absolutely not. And it was the latter attitude that caused most of the problems. Anyone will fight back when someone else shows up announces that they have the right to dominate. And that is what the Zionist leadership(not so much rank-and-file Zionists who showed up knowing nothing about the situation and had been told by their leadership that Palestine was "a land without people")did. The Arab population reacted as they would have had anyone ELSE done this-had it been European athiests or had it been Evangelical Christians from Texas. It's time to admit that they didn't act as they did because of the religion Zionism claimed to represent.

But now, both sides need to put the past grievances away. There's nothing more the Palestinians can do about Hebron eighty years ago, and there's not much more the Israelis can do about Deir Yassin. Their needs to be a letting go, and this thread is about NEVER letting go, never moving past the history, and never ending the war. That's why Aegis started it. He wants the killing of Palestinians to go on forever.

[LeftishBrit]

27. While I agree with your main points...

and could say quite a lot about the disastrous effects of both sides nursing long-ago grudges on the Northern Ireland conflict over here, it is not fair to accuse BTA, or anyone else who points out the history on either side, or who disagrees with your viewpoint, of 'wanting the killing of Palestinians to go on forever'. To be frank, that is EXACTLY equivalent to accusing everybody who criticizes Israel of being antisemitic.

[Ken Burch]

28. It is hard to assign any positive motives to Aegis in particular

because he starts thread after thread after thread that are about nothing at all but advancing the proposition that Palestinians are all bloodsoaked psychos. He does this because he wants to silence any opposition to the Occupation. If you are against ending the Occupation, you ARE in favor of keeping the war going.

I don't say this about anyone else. I've said it about Aegis because of his insistence on starting these "All Palestinians are Pretty Much Just Nazi Monsters" threads. It's him, not everyone who disagrees with me on I/P issues.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

30. Some of your most recent threads

(And THIS hate-based thread should also be included, of course.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x283444
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x283443
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x282440
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x281107
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=280491&mesg_id=280491

You posted those to incite anger at Palestinians and to justify the Occupation. You didn't say those very words, but that is part of all of it. Those threads serve no constructive purpose.

You, Aegis, don't WANT peace. You, Aegis, just want "victory".

If you wanted peace, you would work to try to heal the wounds of this conflict, not start thread after thread devoted solely to demonizing Palestinians. Fine, Palestinians could use a better leadership, but Israeli denunciations of Hamas work AGAINST that goal, by creating the sense in Palestinian minds that rejecting Hamas means kowtowing to the IDF. Threads like yours HELP Hamas.

And you know perfectly well I despise antisemitism.
I have Jewish RELATIVES, you bastard. That makes it my duty to oppose antisemitism and I do oppose it.
I don't have to say "crush Hamas!" to prove that I hate antisemitism. What the Israeli government and the IDF are doing in Gaza and the West Bank ENDANGERS my Jewish relatives, and Jews throughout the world.

The actions committed by Hamas, loathesome as they are, are one side in a war killing people on the other side. It's absurd to say that they are ONLY doing what they're doing because the other side claims to be Jewish. They'd do the same thing if 500,000 Southern Baptists from Texas were illegally settling the West Bank. I want the killing of everyone on both sides to end. That can only happen if the Occupation ends. It can't happen through keeping the Occupation going while endlessly claiming that the occupiers are actually the victims.

You and I both know that if Hamas were militarily crushed, this could ONLY lead to its being replaced by a MORE extreme and unpleasant force of some sort. The answer is compromise and negotiations, not crushing the foe.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

32. Obviously, you were careful enough not to say the word "Nazis"

But you were inciting hatred against all Palestinians, and implying that Palestinians are each individually responsible for everything Hamas does.

You didn't have to actually say the "other N-Word" to make my point.

I don't do strawmen.

If you wanted peace, you wouldn't be inciting violence and hatred.

And I am against antisemitism. You don't have to put all the blame on Hamas for the I/P dispute to prove you aren't an antisemite. Why can't you just accept that the Israeli deaths in this war are no different than any other deaths in any other war? They shouldn't happen, but they aren't worse than all other wartime killing.

And I don't want Israel to disappear. Israel doesn't HAVE to keep expanding the existing settlements to avoid disappearing. Much of what I say is driven by wanting Israel to survive. Your way doesn't help Israel at all, nor does it help Jews anywhere else.

[Behind the Aegis]

33. More back-peddling.

"Obviously, you were careful enough not to say the word "Nazis""

Oh yes, now you know how I post. Yet another piece of proof you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to me.

"But you were inciting hatred against all Palestinians, and implying that Palestinians are each individually responsible for everything Hamas does."

BWAAHAHAHAHA! See this is your MO, you tell people what they doing without taking into account your inference could be WRONG!

"You didn't have to actually say the "other N-Word" to make my point."

You made no point, except in your own little mind.

"I don't do strawmen."

That is almost ALL you do! You should be the poster child for strawmen and logical fallacies.

"If you wanted peace, you wouldn't be inciting violence and hatred."

See...strawman!

"And I am against antisemitism. You don't have to put all the blame on Hamas for the I/P dispute to prove you aren't an antisemite."

AND ANOTHER ONE!

"And I don't want Israel to disappear. Israel doesn't HAVE to keep expanding the existing settlements to avoid disappearing."

If you say so, Burch. Your posts say something else all together.

"You are just about hate."

You are just about lies and hate and bigotry.

[Ken Burch]

34. You didn't have to use the words "Nazis" or "bloodsoaked psychos"

for my points to be correct.

And my inference about you is correct. You are against peace.

No one still thinks peace can come from the IDF crushing Hamas, in part because everyone knows that that's impossible and because everyone also knows that crushing Hamas can only lead to Hamas being replaced by something worse. Why, after all these years, do you still refuse to accept this?

If you wanted peace, you wouldn't keep starting hate threads.

[Behind the Aegis]

35. So, when in doubt, you just make up your own facts.

That is how it works with those mired in logical fallacies.

You aren't interested in peace, only shoving your POV down people's throats and when they disagree they are rabid anti-Palestinians. What does that sound like? Oh yeah, all those claims that anyone who disagrees with Israel is an anti-Semite and therefore all threads started which paint Israel in a negative light do nothing but promote hate against Israelis and encourages terrorism and anti-Semitism, at least that's the way it is using YOUR formula.

[LeftishBrit]

36. But if you applied the same criterion to everyone...

you would have to say, not only that those who post threads attacking the Likud 'hate Israel' or are 'antisemitic', but that those who post threads attacking Bush and the American Right must 'hate America' and 'want the terrorists to win'!

Surely that's against everything we stand for on this board.

It's one thing to say that you think BTA is WRONG, and that his ideas would be counterproductive to peace. Another to say that every time he (or anyone else) posts an attack on Hamas, it can only be 'a hate thread' based on a wish that 'the IDF should crush Hamas'.

FWIW, there have been some posts on the board (I will not call people out) which I *did* think were extremely anti-Palestinian. But these were not simply attacks on Hamas, or on other leadership. For that matter, I have not considered any of your posts as antisemitic, even when I've disagreed with them. One can criticize a government without hating the people - and that goes both ways in I/P, and for all governments across the board.

[Ken Burch]

37. You're a thoughtful person, and I will respect YOUR views on the matter

I believe Aegis is fundamentally wrong and his ideas are counterproductive to peace.

He does need to be challenged on his constant accusation that I "make up facts". I do not lie.

[Behind the Aegis]

38. Making up facts, KB style....

"Nobody alive in Palestine today is responsible for it" No one said anything of the sort.

"You're dredging it up to make some sort of point about the situation today" I posted it because it was an interesting review of a HISTORICAL event.

"Which would be a valid point if the Palestinians were the Nazis but they aren't." No one said they were, only you are trying to draw that parallel, repeatedly through this thread.

"This thread is just Aegis using the past to demonize Palestinians." A "fact" according to YOU.

"You are genuinely interested in a peaceful settlement. Aegis isn't. He's just about keeping the war going." Another KB "fact", one you have said a number of times and NEVER proved.

"You really shouldn't get on the same side of any argument with the guy. He's big time trouble." Another "KB fact" and a personal attack.

"This whole thread was just another Aegis "All Palestinians are evil and this justifies everything the IDF does" thread. No, he didn't SAY that, but that's the subtext in every Palestinian-bashing thread that Aegis starts." KB makes up a "fact" then disqualifies it because it isn't true in wording, while pretending the underlying is true. No proof, of course.

"That's why Aegis started it. He wants the killing of Palestinians to go on forever." No proof, but to KB it's fact.

Then just follow post #28 with more "facts," none which you substantiate and I disprove.

[Lakrosse]

10. have they apologized for it

like Israel has for Deir Yassin?

[Ken Burch]

16. The government apologized for Deir Yassin

I'm not sure Likud(the political heirs of the Lehi thugs who staged that attack on innocent people)ever did. Mind you, some of THOSE people still think it was heroism to murder Count Bernadotte, a man whose only crime was trying to find a settlement both sides could live with.

[Lakrosse]

24. the fact is the official leadership of Israel

apologized for it. None of the Palestinian leadership has apologized for anything, not even when they murdered 11 olympic athletes.

[azurnoir]

19. Could you provide a link to that apology? nt

[Ken Burch]

20. On further research, I stand corrected: The Israeli government NEVER apologized for Deir Yassin

The Jewish Agency apologized to King Abdullah(the Jordanian monarch of the day)but neither the Israeli government NOR the Lehi/Irgun fascist militias who killed those 107 people ever did so, and no one ever apologized to the survivors of the massacre victims themselves.

They should have respected the suggestion of Martin Buber and others that Deir Yassin be left permanently vacant as a commemoration of the evil of the act. Instead, the Israeli government built over it and left no trace of Deir Yassin's existence.

[oberliner]

21. The Jewish Agency for Israel was the Israeli government at the time

And they sent a formal letter of apology to King Abdullah as you noted. He would have been the only identifiable leader of the Palestinian Arabs to which the Israeli leadership at the time could have contacted in a formal capacity.

This was a rather unprecedented communication as Jordan was part of the Arab League which had declared war on Israel before it had even become a state and was actively taking part in the conflict at the time.

[Ken Burch]

22. There was no direct apology to the people of Deir Yassin

And there should have been.

And there are more than a few Israeli rightists who still DEFEND what was done to that village.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Hebron's history of massacres

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre 1994.

The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre was an attack on Muslim Arabs praying at the mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron on February 25, 1994. Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli-American settler, off-duty IDF army reservist captain and member of the extremist Kach movement, opened fire on the worshippers. According to Israeli reports 39 Palestinians were killed and 125 wounded, while Palestinian sources stated that up to 52 people were shot to death.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre

The Hebron Massacre of 1929

by Shira Schoenberg

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For some time, the 800 Jews in Hebron lived in peace with their tens of thousands of Arab neighbors. But on the night of August 23, 1929, the tension simmering within this cauldron of nationalities bubbled over, and for 3 days, Hebron turned into a city of terror and murder. By the time the massacres ended, 67 Jews lay dead and the survivors were relocated to Jerusalem, leaving Hebron barren of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.

The summer of 1929 was one of unrest in Palestine. Jewish-Arab tensions were spurred on by the agitation of the mufti in Jerusalem. Just one day prior to the start of the Hebron massacre, three Jews and three Arabs were killed in Jerusalem when fighting broke out after a Muslim prayer service on the Temple Mount. Arabs spread false rumors throughout their communities, saying that Jews were carrying out "wholesale killings of Arabs." Meanwhile, Jewish immigrants were arriving in Palestine in increasing numbers, further exacerbating the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Hebron had, until this time, been outwardly peaceful, although tension hid below the surface. The Sephardi Jewish community in Hebron had lived quietly with its Arab neighbors for centuries. The Sephardi Jews (Jews who were originally from Spain, North Africa and Arab countries) spoke Arabic and had a cultural connection to their Arab neighbors. In the mid-1800s, Ashkenazi (native European) Jews started moving to Hebron and, in 1925, the Slobodka Yeshiva, officially the Yeshiva of Hevron, Knesset Yisrael-Slobodka, was opened. Yeshiva students lived separately from the Sephardi community, and from the Arab population. Due to this isolation, the Arabs viewed them with suspicion and hatred, and identified them as Zionist immigrants. Despite the general suspicion, however, one yeshiva student, Dov Cohen, still recalled being on "very good" terms with the Arab neighbors. He remembered yeshiva boys taking long walks late at night on the outskirts of the city, and not feeling afraid, even though only one British policeman guarded the entire city.

On Friday, August 23, 1929, that tranquility was lost. Arab youths started throwing rocks at the yeshiva students. That afternoon, one student, Shmuel Rosenholtz, went to the yeshiva alone. Arab rioters later broke in and killed him, and that was only the beginning.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html

Hebron, city (2003 est. pop. 155,000), the West Bank, called Al-Khalil in modern Arabic. Hebron is situated at an altitude of 3,000 ft (910 m) in a region where grapes, cereal grains, and vegetables are grown. Tanning, food processing, glassblowing, and the manufacture of sheepskin coats are the major industries. The city is also a road junction. Hebron has usually had a significant Jewish population, although following Arab riots in 1929 most Jews left and did not return until after the Israeli occupation following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when numerous Jewish settlements were established outside Hebron. One of Judaism's four holy cities, Hebron is also a sacred place for Muslims.

The site of ancient Hebron, which antedates the biblical record, has not been precisely determined. The Bible first mentions Hebron in connection with Abraham. The cave of Machpelah (also called the Cave of the Patriarchs; now enclosed by the Mosque of Ibrahim) is the traditional burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. David ruled the Hebrews from Hebron for seven years before moving his capital to Jerusalem, and Absalom began his revolt in Hebron.

The city figured in many wars in Palestine. It was taken (2d cent. B.C.) by Judas Maccabeus and temporarily destroyed by the Romans. In 636 it was conquered by the Arabs and made an important place of pilgrimage, later to be seized (1099) by the Crusaders and renamed St. Abraham, and retaken (1187) by Saladin Saladin. It later became part of the Ottoman Empire.

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Hebron

Were it not for nurturing the memories of historical wrongs, some of which predate the Common Era, there is no reason to believe that people in this part of the world cannot live in peace with one another.

[Ken Burch]

17. Well said. It's time to STOP nursing the grudges

The lives of the children should be what matters, not the deaths of the ancestors.

[LeftishBrit]

26. Agreed

[shira]

39. funny how some here believe posting an article based on historical reality (Hebron Massacre) is....

...demonization of Arabs, given the "motives" of the person posting it (pro-Israel).

Now imagine thoroughly bogus reports from Swedish sources extremely hostile to Israel.....

....not demonization?

:shrug: