Video: 1967 mass murder of unarmed Egyptians by israelis

Q - Thanks so much for pasting this up. I wanted to let you know, the use of 1973 as the date in the title is incorrect, most likely on account of the poster on YouTube. You might also deem fit to modulate that, in the interest of accuracy.

Here's a fresh release from the Beeb:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2IF2mHAQoItAJJSBto/0-3...
Egypt shows 1967 'killings' films

and another from UPI:
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/egypt_lawmakers_seek_damage...
United Press International - International Intelligence -
Egypt lawmakers seek damages from Israel

Thanx again !

Arab News
Monday, 12, March, 2007 (22, Safar, 1428)

Editorial: Murder of POWs

If Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, or for that matter any other Israeli, is innocent of allegations that 250 Egyptian prisoners of war were executed in cold blood by Israeli troops in the 1967 War, then the government of Israel should call for a thorough investigation into the affair. Such a move would help quiet Egyptian outrage in what has become a major diplomatic incident threatening to compromise relations.

An inquest, or at least the start of one, by an independent body such as the International Court of Justice, is essential — not only to quell Egyptian fury but also to get to the bottom of the allegations. They are based on an Israeli TV documentary that showed Ben-Eliezer’s unit killed 250 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai Peninsula instead of taking them to POW camps.

That the source of the report is an Israeli documentary directed by an Israeli offers compelling evidence that something horrible did indeed take place in the deserts of Sinai 40 years ago. Had the documentary been made by an institution other than Israeli TV, then perhaps the story would not have attracted so much attention. Questions must also be asked about the startling about-face of the documentary’s director who now claims he misidentified Palestinian war dead as Egyptians and that since the film was aired, he has received documents showing that the Egyptian commando unit — while technically under the control of the Egyptian Army — was actually Palestinians. This is a very unusual U-turn, one which is highly suspicious and seems to have been made because of the huge controversy the film has generated.

And if in fact they were Palestinians, and not Egyptians, who were shot, would that make the allegations any less serious or the incident, if true, any less heinous? Or was executing unarmed Palestinians the right thing to do then as it is now?

There have been, over the years, several accounts of Israeli brutalities against Egyptians in 1967 and in 1956 when Ariel Sharon allegedly killed 900 Egyptians. Claims by an Israeli military historian that Israeli troops massacred some 1,000 Egyptian POWs in several incidents in Sinai were first made in 1995. No investigation was forthcoming then but one should be made now.

Ben-Eliezer has been forced to cancel a visit to Cairo to discuss natural gas imports for fear that he might be arrested. The affair is dominating Egyptian headlines and angry MPs have described those involved in the allegations as “terrorists.” The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli ambassador in Cairo to answer to the allegations. The foreign ministers of Egypt and Israel have met in Brussels after which Cairo said it was prepared to deal with the issue on a regional and international level if Israel fails to address the matter. It is well-nigh impossible that Egypt and Israel would go to the extent of breaking off relations over the reported incident; the two countries are linked by the 1979 peace treaty. Nonetheless, the treaty should not mean turning a blind eye to what might conceivably be a war crime.

More documentation - names, places, dates, numbers, from such venerable 'authoritative' sources as New York Times, Washington Post, Jewish Telegraph Agency. This is a compendium of reposted articles based on reports by
Israeli Army historian Aryeh Yitzhaki and others.

Israelis executed 100's of Arab POWs

ISRAEL REPORTEDLY KILLED POWS IN '67 WAR: HISTORIANS SAY DEATHS OF HUNDREDS OF EGYPTIANS WAS COVERED UP, The Washington Post, August 17, 1995:

Israeli soldiers killed hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 Middle East war - deaths that commanders who are now prominent leaders have known about for years, historians said today. The controversy involves some top politicians, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and legislator Rafael Eitan [who also gave us U.S. Navy spy Jonathan Pollard, and then lied about it], a former army chief. The allegations dominated news shows, shocking many Israelis who have long prized the notion that their army maintained high ethical standards throughout decades of warfare with the Arab world and military rule over Palestinians. The Army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Amos Gilad, refused to comment. Rabin, who was chief of staff when some of the 1967 killings allegedly were committed, walked away today when a reporter shouted a related question. His office later issued a statement denouncing the killings and calling them isolated incidents.

Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki said today that Israeli troops carried out several mass killings in 1967 in which about
1,000 Egyptian prisoners were slain in the Sinai. Yitzhaki, who worked in the army's history department after the war, said he and other officers collected testimony from dozens
of solders who admitted killing POWs. He said a report on the killings submitted to his superiors has been locked in a safe at military headquarters.

Another Israeli historian, Uri Milstein, said there were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender.

"It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it," Milstein said. "Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew of it."

HISTORIAN ALLEGES POW DEATHS IN 1956, 1967, The Jewish Telegraph Agency, August 17, 1995:

An Israeli military historian has said he knew of hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war who were killed during the 1967 Six-Day War by Israel Defense Force troops, including a unit headed by the current Israeli housing minister. Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki of Bar-Illan University told Israel Radio on Wednesday that the killings involved a crack unit led by now Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Yitzhaki said the executions of 300 to 400 Egyptian commandos in El Arish was the worse case he knew, given that many of the Egyptians had surrendered. They were killed by members of the Shaked commando unit under the command of Ben-Eliezer, a lieutenant colonel at the time, he said. Ben-Eliezer said he was unaware of any prisoner killings.

Referring to the Six-Day War, Yitzhaki said not only were the executions known, but a report he prepared in 1968 on the deaths was not released under instructions from higher authorities. Responding to the reports, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he thought such incidents were exceptions to the norm and that they should be condemned by all.

DEBATE TAINTING IMAGE OF PURITY WRENCHES ISRAELIS: A MORE OPEN SOCIETY TAKES UP KILLING OF POWS DURING WARS, The Washington Post, August 19, 1995:

This week, as more soldiers came forward to say they saw fellow Israelis kill unarmed enemies in decades past, a long-suppressed public reckoning began. The stakes are profound for an army whose "purity of arms" has been the core of its self-image through five wars. . . . Also Wednesday, military historian Arye Yitzhaki of Bar Ilan University accused a storied reconnaissance unit, known as Shaked (Almond), of killing hundreds of Egyptians who had abandoned their weapons and fled into the desert in the 1967 Middle East war. . . . One day after Yitzhaki's charge came a first-person account by Gabi Brun of Yedioth Aharonoth, the country's most widely read tabloid. He wrote of watching Israeli troops execute five Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai Desert town of El Arish in 1967. The first of the five, he wrote, was forced to dig the grave. Each of them in turn was shot dead in it. "For a Jew to read this description, I don't know what to say," said left-wing activist Uri Avnery, who is demanding prosecution of Israeli war criminals. "This is the typical SS technique. This is a Nazi story in the most literal sense of the word." . . . Ariel Sharon, interviewed at home today, described the sudden debate of old war crimes as "a kind of national suicide. Israel doesn't need this, and no one can preach to us about it - no one," he said. "The Israeli armed forces are a model and symbol of high moral values . . . We speak about an event that took place 40 years ago. Now, when all of us live in a different condition, it's very hard sitting in armchairs and air-conditioned rooms to try and understand what happened on those battlefields. . . . I'm not justifying things like that." . . . . Rabin, too, described this week's traumatic debate as akin to 'national suicide.'

RABIN REFUSES TO PROBE ALLEGED ISRAELI WAR CRIMES, Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 21, 1995:

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected calls Sunday to investigate long-suppressed allegations of Israeli war crimes against Egyptian prisoners of war, saying both sides were guilty of aberrations.

"I'm not saying there were no aberrations," Rabin told the Cabinet in his first substantive remarks on the alleged atrocities. "There were aberrations on both sides. There is no purpose in raising events of the past, not on our side and not on theirs". . . . Cabinet Secretary Shmuel Hollander said Rabin stressed Sunday that "these events were real exceptions." Israel is reeling from two weeks of revelations that its soldiers killed prisoners and civilians in at least three Mideast Wars. The disclosures have shaken the widely held conviction among Israelis that their citizen-soldiers were morally superior to other armies. . . Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki charged that Israeli troops carried out mass killings in the Sinai in 1967 in which 1,000 Egyptian prisoners died . . . Many questions remain unanswered, including the extent of the alleged crimes, why details were censored for so long and the involvement of senior Israeli officials, including Rabin, who was Army chief of staff during the 1967 war.

AFTER A GENERAL TELLS OF KILLING POWS IN 1956, ISRAELIS ARGUE OVER ETHICS OF WAR, The New York Times, August 21, 1995:

At the same time, a reporter for Yediot Ahronot, Gabi Bron, described atrocities that he witnessed in the 1967 war: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death. I witnessed the executions with my own eyes in the morning of June 8, in the airport area of El Arish."

EGYPT SAYS ISRAELIS KILLED POWS IN '67 WAR, The New York Times, September 21, 1995:

Egypt said today that it had discovered two mass graves in the Sinai [near El Arish] containing the remains of Egyptian prisoners of war and unarmed civilians shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. . . . At the same time, an Israeli historian said that as many as 300 unarmed Egyptian were killed in both the 1967 war and in the war of 1956. Those reports led to other allegations and revelations. . . . "I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military, and they opened fire at them all at once," Mr. [Abdelsalam] Moussa was quoted as saying. "When they were dead, they told us to bury them. . . Al Ahram [an Egyptian newspaper] also quoted a bedouin, Suleman Moghnem Salameh, who said he saw Israelis kill about 30 Egyptian soldiers and officers after they surrendered, leaving them for the Bedouins to bury. . . . President Mubarak has called for an investigation in Israel and punishment of those responsible. Israel responded by sending Elli Dayan, a Deputy Foreign Minister, to discuss the matter. During his visit here, he offered compensation to the victims but noted Israel's 20-year statute of limitations.

So what's NOT to know ?
a few more review links for the incurably curious...
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/806#comment-3704
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/814#comment-3835

Thanks for your comment, Richard01.- It's quite astounding,
in retrospect, to hear what Uri Avnery had to say about it -

"For a Jew to read this description, I don't know what to say," said left-wing activist Uri Avnery, who is demanding prosecution of Israeli war criminals. "This is the typical
SS technique. This is a Nazi story in the most literal sense of the word." . . .

And you, Richard, have clearly perceived that same irony,
of a 'Nazi' imprint, for yourself. Avnery has made many other cogent observations about the so-called Ashkenazis, as well.
I have a link for you in that regard.

But to respond to your specific question about the radio communications, if you read right through to the end of the following post, you will soon discover that Lt. James Ennes, of the U.S.S. Liberty, had the very same question, namely WHY was the Liberty attacked ? That simple question is actually the main reason I posted that segment...

The proposition is very intriguing, to say the very least,
that not only part of the reason, but the whole reason for the attack, was a probable interception by the "listening ship",
of a very incriminating broadcast, emanating from "El Arish"...
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/806#comment-370

Here's that other link I promised:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblebel...
The Life of an American Jew in Racist Marxist Israel

That link was missing a digit.
Here I go again:
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/806#comment-3704

Before one peruses the succeeding item, it is advisable to have at least a nodding acqaintance with a portion of the "Issah Nakleh Memorandum", which is specific to the following allegations. That item can be accessed here:
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/814#comment-3835

I stumbled upon the forthcoming section in my exhaustive research for some, or any corroboration for these accounts,
in lieu of a reply from History Worm. But history can't wait for the History Worm. When I found this, I knew I had hit some paydirt at last, although I am quite at a loss, for the moment,
to find any attributable source, other than the Charles Mingus Website. So here it is anyway, in the primary interest of greater ellucidation. I make no claims toward verification
at this point. With that obligatory disclaimer, let us proceed...

excerpted from - 'ENEMY OF MY ENEMY':

The Zionist lie about the “Six Day War” illustrates the extent to which this monstrous “State of Israel” depends on the U.S. support for everything (except manpower). It is now known that instead of the” Six Day War” as publicized, it was a 60-minute blitz, planned, promoted and perpetrated by traitors in the U.S. and using U.S. military strength to accommodate President Johnson’s Zionist friends.

The Johnson administration practiced the greatest deception on the Arab states to insure the success of this blitz. In the week immediately preceding it, President Johnson himself lulled the Arab states into a false sense of security when, with great publicity, he extended an invitation to President Nasser to send the Vice-President of the United Arab Republic to Washington as his personal guest. President Nasser accepted and started his Vice-President on his way to Washington.

In the same week, President Johnson instructed his Vice President Humphrey to proceed to Cairo immediately, as his ambassador of good will to President Nasser. Vice-President Humphrey was about to leave for Cairo when the 60-minute blitz was sprung on the U.A.R.. To more completely throw the Arab states off guard, President Johnson had prevailed upon them to submit the explosive issue of the right of passage through the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran to the international Court of Justice for an opinion, and it was agreed that neither side was to take military action of any description pending that opinion.

While preparations were in progress in Washington to receive the Vice President of the United Arab Republic, while Vice President Humphrey was preparing to board a plane for Cairo, and while peace prevailed along the Suez Canal and the straits of Tiran, a U.S. military U2, high flying photographic espionage plane was secretly flying over the Suez Canal Sinai area photographing every military airfield and military installation. These photographs were being made for the so-called State of Israel. Prior to the “60-minute blitz” the armed forces of the “State of Israel” had in their possession these photographs pinpointing every military airfield and military installation in this area of the U.A.R.

At this point the U.S. C.I.A. spy-ship the U.S.S. Liberty was introduced into the conspiracy. Like her sister ship, U.S.S. Pueblo and all other of the 200 C.I.A. spy ships, the Liberty was equipped with the world’s only electronic device, which, from a great distance, could render all radar inoperative. Before daybreak on the morning of June, 5, 1967 this device was activated, and with the U.A.R.’s radar defense system knocked out, the “State of Israel” was free to attack.
200 jet planes descended on the Suez Canal Sinai area. These planes were equipped with special tanks designed to spray L.S.D. 25 gas over the area.

Pilots and crewmembers wore gas masks purchased from Germany a short time before, and the gas was sprayed over the entire area in the same way agricultural fertilizers are dispersed. The United States Chemical Warfare division and its military use had been demonstrated by U.S. experts to “Israel.”

Because L.S.D. 25 is invisible, odorless and tasteless it can be inhaled without the victim’s knowledge. In ten to fifteen minutes after the gas enters the lungs, the victim becomes incapable of thinking or acting and is unaware of what has happened to him. He remains under the effect of this gas for from twelve to fifteen hours and its action can be prevented only by a special type of gas mask.

These 200 planes saturated the area with L.S.D. 25 gas in a
sufficient quantity to assure that all persons in the Suez Canal Sinai area were rendered incapable of thinking or acting. All persons lay around as though dead.

Allowing ten to fifteen minutes for the L.S.D. 25 gas to completely paralyze their victims, the “Israelis” now moved in with 200 bombers. These bombers were loaded with the most destructive type of bombs, including a secret bomb developed by the United States for the destruction of airfield runways. With no sign of resistance from their insensible victims, the bombers swept over the Suez Canal Sinai area several times, destroying every U.A.R. plane grounded on the airfields and pulverizing the sophisticated weapons in the military installations. Then the so-called “State of Israel” rushed hundreds of tanks into the area, with troops wearing gas masks to protect them from the L.S.D. 25 gas still in the air.

Reports of what had taken place began to reach the interior of the U.A.R.. Planes and tanks and troops were rushed into the Suez Canal Sinai area to join forces with the gas victims who were now slowly regaining their senses. Prior to that time the “Israeli” tanks and troops had reached the Suez Canal, where they dug in to remain. The canal was then rendered useless with sunken ships, the primary objective of the “60 minute blitz.” With their planes destroyed on the ground, their runways demolished and their weapons pulverized by the bombing, it was hopeless for the U.A.R.’s armed forces to attempt to reconquer the Suez Canal Sinai area. Fighting continued on a limited scale for the balance of the week.
Then the United Nations arranged a cease-fire.

In the first hours of the day of the “60 minute blitz” a tense mood of uncertainty gripped the White House. In the weeks preceding the blitz, General Earl G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in person assured President Johnson that if the United Arab Republic were blitzed they would be defeated in 3 or 4 days.

Ambassador Goldberg was finally convinced after C.I.A. Chief
Richard Helms assured President Johnson that General Wheeler’s estimated time was an understatement of how quickly the U.A.R could be defeated. Much could be gauged, however, since prior to this time General Rothschild, one time head of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Division, had reported to congress the success of experiments of L.S.D. 25 gas on U.S. soldiers, yet until the blitz had actually commenced, President Johnson rose before dawn each morning for the late intelligence reports and had called in his crisis command for long rounds of conferences.

It is easy to understand why those involved in the conspiracy preferred to have the “60 minute blitz” advertised to the world as a “6 Day War.” It was not wise to let the world know the truth about the part the United States had played in this treachery and it was wiser to make it appear that the brave little so-called “State of Israel” had struggled for six days before they singlehandedly defeated the giant U.A.R., with Jordan and Syria thrown in for good measure.

The so-called “State of Israel” is aware that it’s continued existence depends upon railroading the United States into war with Russia. This will be the third time that this nation has been suckered into a war as a direct conspiracy of Zionist lies. If this is permitted to occur, the United States is destined to emerge from that war a defeated nation.

Few people in the world are aware that Zionism is the creator of Communism. This is the tool to be used for the eradication of Christendom, which the Zionists have tagged as “Capitalism” or “Imperialism” to further confuse the issue. Thus the world has been cleverly divided into two hostile camps, one to annihilate the other.

That they are past masters of inciting wars, no one who is aware of their nefarious schemes can deny. Moshe Dayan, ex-gangster and self styled “General,” who is termed
Defense Minister of the armed uprising resulting in the occupation of Palestine and other Arab territory, was rushed to the United States to tell a television audience how “peace could be preserved in the Middle East". On December 8, 1968 on the ABC network, he was asked how he believed peace could be preserved in that area in view of the offers of Soviet assistance to the Arab victims of Zionist aggression. Without hesitation General Dayan replied “All you ( meaning the U.S.) will come in.” That leaves nothing to the imagination......
“General” Dayan told his story in the fewest possible words.**

( Howdya like them apples, folks ?
Could someone be "still tripping"? )

http://charlesmingus.projektvermittler.de/enemy-of-my-enemy-_174.html
Charles Mingus - enemy of my enemy

Damn, you are too quick Quasimodo, I'm still trying to find in my private library the printed information I received about this formidable caper of recent history. It was a blurb from a self-styled 'Christian Patriot Association' or something like it, where the amazing story of the LSD 'ways of deception' of the Israeli 6-day 'war' against Egypt was revealed to me. I'll keep looking, but the allegation seems VERY credible to me. Do the Egyptian intellectuals know, I wonder????

Thanks for looking, History Worm ! Don't look too hard,
I'm sure it will turn up. Your initial interest in the Nakleh Memo' is what spurred me to go digging to begin with. Nakleh is a Palestinian, so he wouldn't suffice for an "Egyptian intellectual". But he was certainly on to something, for sure. And he didn't mind blowing off about it to Reagan, either.

I think the piece I just posted might have originated at a "Children of Yahweh" site, that may be somehow connected to your "Christian Patriot Association", but that's a long shot.

I had to dig pretty hard just to find that much. But it seems to be worth the trouble of finding something ( at all ) that you deem VERY credible at last. I still welcome, ( as I'm sure those "Egyptian intellectuals" would ) any more fuel for the fire that you can provide. No rush, I'm just trying to keep you on your toes...

Histuranically Yours,

Captured POWs were shot dead for 'daring to drink water'

16/03/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)
By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent

Cairo: Almost 40 years after his capture by Israeli troops in the Sinai desert, Egyptian Ameen Abdul Rahman is still haunted by his "ordeal" in Israeli detention.

Egyptians were recently enraged by a documentary film aired on Israeli TV claiming that Benjamin Ben Eliezer had ordered the killing of 250 Egyptian prisoners of war (PoWs) in the 1967 War.

Ben Eliezer had to cancel a visit to Egypt last week fearing for his safety after several Egyptian lawyers and human rights activists demanded his arrest and trial for alleged war crimes.

Egyptian MPs called for revising ties with Israel. Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Last week Israel handed to Egypt a copy of the controversial documentary.

Atrocities

"I was captured by the Israelis five days after the start of the June 5, 1967, war in central Sinai. [Israelis] rounded us up in an area called Al Husna in Sinai," Abdul Rahman recalled.

Abdul Rahman, who was a corporal in the reconnaissance corps of the Egyptian army at the time, said he was an eyewitness to "Israeli brutality".

"It was very hot. We were thirsty. The Israelis ordered the detained Egyptian officers to gather near a water tank to drink from it. But when they did, the Israelis executed them with machine guns," he told Gulf News.

"It was a bestial trick to physically liquidate them."

Abdul Rahman, who was detained by the Israelis for a year, accused Ben Eliezer, Israel's incumbent Minister of Infrastructure, of shooting dead two Egyptian prisoners of war for "daring to quench their thirst without his permission".

"We were held in a makeshift detention camp surrounded by a barbed wire fence around which there was a ditch. We were so thirsty that we could no longer perspire. An idea flashed through my mind. I collected shoe laces from my colleagues to make a long thread which I tied to a military boot. I used the boot to bring water from the nearby ditch. Our captors, however, took notice of this and led us to the commander of the camp who happened to be Ben Eliezer, who spoke Arabic in an Iraqi dialect.

"He shot in front of our eyes an Egyptian army captain and a soldier for arguing with him over water. I survived miraculously."

"The atrocities I saw are more chilling than this documentary," said Abdul Rahman, who has filed a suit against Ben Eliezer and ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a Cairo court.

According to Mohammad Abdul Tawab, another Egyptian soldier captured on June 7, 1967, the Israelis ordered them to sleep on top of each other in hangars at Al Arish Airport in Sinai.

"Seventy died of asphyxia. They were buried in holes covered with quicklime. About 400 injured PoWs were buried alive in those holes, too," he told Gulf News.

Egyptian officials have said they will pursue the issue of alleged PoW killings.

"We should verify every step to avoid mistakes in addressing the issue, but we will continue to pursue it," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gaith was quoted as saying in the local media.

Seeking retribution

The Egyptian government has been scathingly criticised by opposition newspapers for taking no action for "retribution".

Abdullah Al Sinawi, editor of Al Arabi, the mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, warned in an article this week that the current furore would boil down to nothing.

"Condoning the massacre with the passage of time may weaken Egyptians' morale in a way which would make it impossible in the future to mobilise our young people to fight Israel if the need arose or if Israel attacked us," he argued.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you doubt that the magnanimous Mubarak is more a
part of the problem than the solution of the current crisis, here's something more suitable for blackmail, from 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1790000/images/_1792765_eliezermubarak300.jpg
Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer
with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

http://electronicintifada.net/al-bassaleh/newsphotos2/jabba.jpg
Look-alikes?

First Published 2007-03-16, Updated 2007-03-16 15:15:00
Middle East Online

A documentary triggered a political crisis

Anti-Israeli protest in Egypt over 'PoW killings'

Hundreds of Egyptians protest what they call Israel's ‘massacres’ during June 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

CAIRO - Several hundred Egyptians demonstrated on Friday against claims in a recent documentary film that Israeli troops had executed Egyptian prisoners during the 1967 war, a security source said.

Hundreds of worshippers gathered after Friday prayers outside the Al-Rifai mosque in downtown Al-Arish, north Sinai, to protest what they called Israel's "massacres" during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the source said.

The protestors demanded that Israeli officials involved in the affair be put on trial before the International Criminal Court, and shouted "Down with Israel!" and "Revise our treaties with the Zionist enemy".

Last month, Israeli public television broadcast a documentary on the Shaked commando in which it said 250 Egyptian PoWs were killed by the unit led by then commander Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, currently the national infrastructure minister.

The documentary has raised a storm of protest in Egypt, forcing Ben-Eliezer to cancel a trip to Cairo earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Egypt demanded that Israel open an official inquiry into the claims despite an admission by the film director that he mistakenly identified as Egyptians, Palestinian fighters who were killed in combat.

"Israel is obliged to immediately conduct an inquiry into the incidents mentioned in the documentary ... and to communicate the results to Egypt," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said in a message to his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni.

Israel has repeatedly denied that its soldiers killed Egyptian prisoners during the 1967 Six Day War, and the film's director has admitted to mistakenly identifying Palestinian fighters killed in war as Egyptians PoWs.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed a peace deal with Israel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Egypt: Protest againt Israel's 1967 POWs killing

Posted: 16-03-2007 , 16:15 GMT

Egypt: Egyptian police on Friday dispersed a demonstration against Israel's alleged killing of Egyptian POWs during the 1967 war. The incident took place in Al-Arish, a town of north Sinai peninsula.

Some 50 protesters began the demonstration on Friday in response to Egyptian press reports of an Israeli documentary about a 1967 battle between Israeli troops and retreating Palestinian fighters.

The demonstration swelled to hundreds when it was joined by worshippers leaving a nearby mosque. The protesters chanted "Down with Israel!" and held banners reading "No to Camp David" - a reference to the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. The protestors demanded that Israeli officials involved in the affair be put on trial before the International Criminal Court.

According to the AP, the demonstrators demanded that the government abandon the treaty and remove the Israeli war memorials from Sinai.

A large number of riot police with batons charged the demonstration, snatched the banners and dispersed the protesters.

© 2007 Al Bawaba

The preceding survey could never be at all comprehensive without this inclusion of a significant contribution from that indispensable and ephemeral almanac, Time Magazine. "Opening Grave Wounds" must have caused quite a stir
in 1995, considering much of the corresponding furor that itspawned, ( during the last throes of a former heyday of something called "journalism"). It is cited as a reference in
the Smith/ Liberty video, and as a mainstay by many others.

I unearthed it while indulging my morbid curiosity about the strangely ambiguous, posturing profile of President Mubarak, which is evident even to this day. He has never been heads up or hands on about this issue since it was raised, and seems to regard it as some sort of 'tempest in a teapot'. Though the Immubable Mubarak is briefly mentioned in this article, a strong stench of hypocrisy yet remains from many previous accounts. But here, for reference sake, you may have it,
to gravely consider what good may ever come.... if any,
of "Opening Grave Wounds", ( my emphases included ):

TIME Magazine
October 2, 1995 Volume 146, No. 14
OPENING GRAVE WOUNDS

EVIDENCE OF ISRAELI ATROCITIES DURING 1967 WAR
THREATENS TO SEVER COUNTRIES' FRAGILE TIES

Despite a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the heritage of two wars in two decades still leaves unexpected and bitter traces. Last week new disclosures that Israeli soldiers massacred Egyptian pows during the 1967 war
added to a growing wave of anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt. The sequence of events leading to the unearthing of two mass graves outside the Sinai city of El Arish last week began a month ago with admissions by Israeli war veterans that unarmed Egyptian civilians and pows were murdered in the 1956 and 1967 wars.

The expedition that discovered the shallow burial sites was organized by the semiofficial Al-Ahram newspaper and guided by Abdel Salam Moussa, 55, a former air force officer who was taken prisoner by the Israelis during the 1967 war. The searchers found human bones and estimated that the first grave contained the remains of approximately 90 people. Recalling the killings, Moussa told Al-Ahram, "I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military, and they [Israeli troops] opened fire at them all at once. When they were dead, they told us to bury them." Another witness to such shootings, a local Bedouin named Soliman Salama, identified a second grave 27 km away where he said he saw Israelis kill about 30 Egyptian soldiers after they had surrendered.

The fury aroused in Egypt by the apparent proof of massacres was fueled by the press, which matched wartime photos
with imaginative illustrations showing Egyptian soldiers surrendering, being ordered to dig their graves, then being executed. Opposition parties and newspapers are pressing President Mubarak to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel until a full investigation into the executions is conducted. Director of Egypt's State Information Service Nabil Osman responded, "This is a very serious issue. The truth has to be made clear. Such crimes are against humanity, and ..........
they just don't fade away."

The sudden revival of old resentments threatened to poison relations between Cairo and Tel Aviv, and worse, to undermine a diplomatic alliance that is essential to the process of reaching a broader Middle East settlement. The controversy led Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to veto Cairo as the site for current talks with the Palestinians over self-rule in the West Bank, explaining that he would have to answer questions about the mass graves.

For the Israelis, who take pride in the morality of their armed forces, the revelations were deeply troubling. Prompted, he said, by conscience, retired Israeli General Arieh Biro admitted last month that he had executed 49 Egyptian pows with submachine gunfire in the 1956 Sinai campaign. The disclosure touched off a bout of soul-searching and prompted Israelis who had witnessed other executions of prisoners to come forward. The newspaper Yediot Aharonot urged a government investigation, not only to satisfy Egyptians but also "for our own sake, our conscience, our beliefs and our principles." Biro, 69, said he had been ordered to advance but lacked the means to take along his Egyptian captives; he could not leave them for fear that they would lead their advancing comrades to Israeli positions. So he killed them. He has "ached over" his actions, he said, but "under the same circumstances, I think I would do it again."

While Egyptian anger was on the rise, the reaction in Israel grew more muted. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "We know that Israeli prisoners were killed many times in the past. Without accepting them, atrocities are part and parcel of war. The Egyptians cannot claim the moral superiority to criticize us, while ignoring whatever their own side did."

The Egyptians are demanding that Israel officially apologize, launch an investigation into the incidents, punish those found guilty and compensate the families of every prisoner of war killed by the Israelis. Israel's Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair ruled last month that there was no basis for prosecuting soldiers for offenses in 1956 and 1967 because of a 20-year statute of limitations on homicide charges. Israel's only war-crimes law, Ben-Yair noted, related to crimes of genocide or crimes committed by Nazis during World War II. While the shootings of pows were "unlawful and intolerable acts," he said, they were not the kind of crimes covered by the law on genocide.

That reasoning has rankled many Egyptians, who point out that Israel has set a precedent in such matters by relentlessly tracking down Nazi war criminals all over the globe. "This is not just a political issue," said retired Major General Ahmed Fakhr, director of the National Center for Middle East Studies in Cairo and a veteran of all three wars, "this is an issue of families who were told that their men were missing in action. Now, after 20 years, they learn they were slaughtered in cold blood by the Israelis." Concludes Fakhr: "The Israelis opened that file, now they have to close it. And peace means justice."

--Reported by Amany Radwan/Cairo and Eric Silver/Jerusalem
Copyright 1995 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------
As a concluding note, here is another current bulletin.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3377525,00.html
Mubarak says war criminals will be punished - Israel News

My advice ? Don't hold your breath.

...and one more time, for old time's sake...
http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/01082004/584351/HAI_9283big1_a.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38137000/jpg/_38137107_meet-ap-300.jpg
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/179...
Binyamin Ben Eliezer with Hosni Mubarak

I was beginning to wonder why it was taking israel so long
to mount a counter offensive attack, considering it only took a couple hours in June of '67 to utterly destroy Egypt's air force.
They must be off their game lately...

But after all the foregoing conclusions, the next, and hopefully the last one, is just too damn good to pass up:

from Haaretz / AP / Adar 29, 5767 ( Goy Stardate 3-19-07 )

Documentary: Egyptians shot Israeli POWs in 1973
By The Associated Press

Egyptian troops killed dozens, if not hundreds of captured Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to excerpts of an Israeli TV documentary screened yesterday, responding to charges that IDF forces killed captured Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Channel 10 showed parts of interviews with IDF soldiers who served in the 1973 conflict, relating specific cases in which they said Egyptian forces killed soldiers who had been captured or had surrendered

The channel said its documentary was a response to the outcry over a different program shown earlier this month about the 1967 conflict.

The Channel 10 documentary showed a film of what it said were IDF soldiers, their hands bound behind their backs, shot to death in the Golan Heights and the Sinai desert.

Defense correspondent Alon Ben-David concluded that, "Investigations of the Egyptian army's behavior in wars against Israel will find dozens, if not hundreds, of cases of captured Israeli soldiers murdered in cold blood by their Egyptians captors."

One of the former soldiers, Issachar Ben-Gavriel, said he witnessed one of the incidents. He said he was one of a group of 19 IDF soldiers who surrendered at the Suez Canal, flying white flags and raising their hands. "They (the Egyptians) just shot them," he said, "Eleven guys."

Rather than offering more grist for the mill, I'm posting again
to this archival thread merely to throw some more fuel on
what appears to be a predictably dying fire.

Maybe if that fire is kept alive, and a day ever comes when this pig is roasted on it, justice may finally be served, and the following letter might be another piece of incendiary evidence that helped to feed the flames.

-from Gideon Spiro, an israeli anti-nuclear activist,
and posted in Hagada Hasmalit:

Red Rag - Letter to a War Criminal

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

To: Binyamin (Fuad) Ben Eliezer MP
Minister of National Infrastructure
216 Jaffa St., Jerusalem

The topic: War crimes of the Shaked Special Forces under your command in the June '67 war

Your attempt to avoid responsibility for war crimes carried out while you were commander of the Shaked Special Forces during the ‘67 war, as broadcast on Israeli public TV by Ron Edelist in the documentary "Ruach Shaked" - "The Spirit of Shaked", is typical of generals like you. When it suits them, they boast about their military achievements, but when their crimes are discovered, they run away like cowards.

The evidence exposed in the documentary by the participants in these crimes left us with no doubt: 250 Egyptian soldiers were murdered after they had laid down their weapons and were escaping to find refuge. The evidence came from high ranking officers, Brigadier General (IDF reserves) Amatzia Chen and Lieutenant Colonel (IDF reserves) Yariv Gershuni.

Lt Col Gershuni: "We received two Sikorsky helicopters for this mission. Our Piper aircraft would locate them (the Egyptian soldiers) from above, direct us, and we would land, spring out and kill them. Fuad (Binyamin Ben Eliezer) wrote on his trousers how many we killed… they were quite frightened. They tried to burrow holes in the sand to hide in and cover themselves with palm branches."

Brig Gen Chen: "It should be said that it was unnecessary. The (Egyptian) forces did not endanger us and we had come from above."

Lt Col Gershuni: "It felt like revenge... Nobody spoke about it for a long time, partly because it was unofficial, unorganized and without a justifiable target."

Brig Gen Chen: "The problem is that we did it. This is what's so bad. We didn't contemplate whether it was appropriate. At the end of the war we were cocky, there is no other word …
if it had taken place today, we could have stopped or even refused an order."

These quotes, taken from the documentary, were published in Ehud Asheri's column in Haaretz (March 9th 2007). Asheri defined what you did as "a hunting expedition of unarmed, defenceless soldiers."

Even this definition, an understatement, is enough to put you on trial.

Dr Uri Milstein, who researched the crime and wrote about it in his book, said these murders were carried out after a cease fire had begun, while Egyptian soldiers were fleeing in panic without weapons, scared that the nightmare of the Deir Yassin massacre would be their fate. In reality, it turned out their fear was real. It is important to mention that Milstein is not a “self hating Jew”, as some leftist people are labelled by the right-wing Israeli masses, but a right-wing person, who is an Israeli patriot with similar values that you represent. In this case Milstein, the historian, showed professional integrity and did not try to distort the truth, although it is shameful to Israel.

Your behaviour in this episode, keeping a tally of the numbers killed on your trousers, puts you in the same category as warlords such as Pinochet or the junta of fascists who took over Argentina. There, crimes were committed on only a slightly different variation to yours - victims were thrown from airplanes into the sea.

You are not the first war criminal who has served as a member of the Israeli cabinet, but in the political reality of today, there is no chance, unfortunately, that you will be charged. Although Egyptians are understandably and justifiably angry in light of the documentary, I doubt that the Egyptian government will arrest and prosecute you.

Human rights defenders, however, will not stop doing all they can to find a place where you can be prosecuted. I assume, although I have no knowledge of this, that there are some who think in secret services terms, and may feel like doing to you what, according to some commentators, Israel did to the Iranian General recently.

I belong to those who struggle to prosecute war criminals in Israel and if we won’t succeed here, since the current political and legal situation in Israel is not allowed to prosecute you at home, we will do our best to find an international tribunal which has the proper jurisdiction. In Israel, to our embarrassment, there is no law that states war crimes are without statute of limitations. I am going to publish this letter in the internet and I hope you will sue me for slander so we can discuss the issue in court where I will claim in my defence that what I said is the truth.

Copy sent to: Menahem Mazuz - Israeli Attorney General.

Gideon Spiro
March 15th, 2007

http://www.hagada.org.il/eng/
Hagada Hasmalit