By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News -
In a move that might shake the government’s stability, an MK from the Opposition’s Arab Joint List party tried introducing a bill Sunday to legislate the learning in all state schools of a 65-year-old massacre of Arab civilians by the IDF.
Aida Touma-Suleiman of the Hadash (Communist) faction in the Joint List has the support of the Islamist Ra’am and leftist Meretz parties for the “Kafr Qassem” Law that would give official state recognition of the mass killing that took place in the village by that name and make it a mandatory part of the curricula.
“I am a grandson of a survivor of the massacre…others in my family died,” said Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frej (Meretz) in a radio interview on Kan Reshet Bet. “I’m in politics to prevent such things in the future. Teaching such an issue in school so that we learn not to make such mistakes in the future is more important than any political considerations.
“I support this proposal with all my heart. This is a proposal for the good of our children…to learn what ‘manifestly illegal orders’ are… and how to preserve our inherent humanity,” he continued.
Frej added that it was not an issue that should make any coalition fall, as it is “an educational issue, an ethical one, an issue of how one builds a normal society.”
Right-wing politicians opposed the bill, which also called for a national day of mourning for the victims, defeating it Sunday in the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. Frej said that he would work with both Opposition and coalition members to formulate a mutually agreeable text, but the right-wing parties told Kan News that it’s not going to succeed.
“Kafr Qassem and similar topics are a red line and we won’t agree to any compromise on the issue,” they said, which could mean a coalition crisis is in the offing despite Frej’s opinion.
On the first day of the 1956 Suez War, October 29, the IDF expected Jordan to join the war on Egypt’s side. To help ensure quiet, the nightly curfew of 7 p.m. was brought forward to 5 p/m/ in Arab villages that sat on the border with what was then part of Jordan, including Kafr Qassem. Border Police were ordered to shoot those who went outside after curfew.
The change had not been publicized well enough, however, and when people returned home from work , one platoon near the entrance to the village opened fire. In total, 48 people died, almost half under the age of 17, and 13 more were wounded.
The military censor imposed a media blackout but the news leaked out and public pressure led to 11 Border Policemen being charged with their murder. However, the various sentences kept being reduced, so that all those convicted were released by the end of 1959.
The case became the sine qua non in Israel of the duty of soldiers to disobey patently illegal orders. As was pointed out in the trial, in many other locations, including other parts of Kafr Qassem, the soldiers did not shoot villagers when it was obvious that they simply did not know of the new curfew.
This is not Touma-Suleiman’s first attempt to pass such a law. Last year the Knesset debated it as well, when she defended the need for the legislation by saying that “recognizing the harm is a necessary stage in its repair.” Former deputy education minister Meir Porush then countered her claim that the massacre was not being taught, saying that it is brought up in the (mandatory) civics course in high school, in the section the students learn on illegal army orders.
In 2007, then-president Shimon Peres came to Kafr Qassem and formally apologized for what had happened, saying he “deeply regretted” the “difficult incident.” In 2014, Reuven Rivlin became the first sitting Israeli president to attend the village’s annual commemoration, calling it “an atrocious massacre” and a “severe crime” that weighed heavily on Israel’s collective conscience, but stopped short of apologizing.
