Video testimony of a Palmach fighter who expelled Palestinians during the Nakba

The Israeli group Zochrot has posted a video testimony from Amnon Neumann, a man who fought with the Palmach during the Nakba of 1948. According to their web site, “Zochrot (‘Remembering’) seeks to raise public awareness of the Palestinian Nakba, especially among Jews in Israel, who bear a special responsibility to remember and amend the legacy of 1948.”

Public hearing at Zochrot, Tel-Aviv, June 17, 2010. The audience consisted of about twenty people. Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video-recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar. Video editing by Zohar Kfir

Omar Barghouti adds:

Despite some moments of remorse, the former member of this terror group tells the interviewer that he refuses to talk about the massacres, in particular, because he participated in them. He also tries to portray Palestinian villages as all made of straw and mud houses! Perhaps the selective amnesia that has afflicted almost all Jewish Israelis has not spared Neumann.

Warning to Palestinian refugees watching this: it can be really difficult to listen to parts of this testimony. I had to stop the video twice – the nonchalance with which Neumann describes (in clearly sanitized language) the forced expulsion, the killings of farmers tending their grapevines – is overwhelming.

Comments

Nabka

Permalink Christine Marie Boisvert replied on Fri, 12/30/2011 - 00:14

I read the article by Josef Algazi. Haaretz, 26 November 1993.
Tittle: The Censored Diary of Nahmani.
Based on unpublished passages from the diary of Josef Nahmani, describing the events of the War of Independence(1947-49). Nahnani was a veteran member of the ''Hashomer'' organization and the Haganah, and served as a representative of the Jewish National Fund. He was deeply involved in the Galilee episodes of those days which, in parts, determined the future character of the relations between the Israel and its Arab inhabitants.
I have read some of the most horrifying murders in cold blood, massacres of innocent unarmed Palestinian farmers, their expulsion by terror outrages and rape.
No Israeli could know about it. Palestinians do, and their children's children.