On the murder of Egyptian POWs in 1956 and 1967: new film and Rela Mazali’s correspondence
[JPN Commentary: In the Hebrew version of Haaretz, the last item below is merely the accompanying “box” of a much larger item, titled “Egypt demands probe into ‘the murder of its soldiers’ in ’67”. The March 7 article, by Yoav Stern, describes Egyptian responses to the alleged mention, in a film recently aired on Israeli Channel 1, of the murder of Egyptian prisoners of war during the last stages of the ’67 war. On Tuesday, March 6, the Egyptian Foreign Minister addressed a press conference in Brussels on the matter, saying that his country was determined to receive explanations from Israel. Israel’s Foreign Minister retorted with accusations that (unspecified) “parties” in Egypt were using the issue to provoke a major crisis, intentionally misusing the film to disrupt Israeli-Egyptian relations.
The film in question, “The Shaked Report”, was alleged by Egyptian press to have quoted witnesses who claimed that 250 Egyptian soldiers were executed by the Shaked commando unit, whose commander in the summer of 1967 was Benjamin Ben Eliezer, currently Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructure. As a result of the publications, Ben Eliezer has reportedly cancelled an official trip to Egypt planned for the end of this week.
The issue, however, is not what the film does or doesn’t state.
The real issue, resurfacing here yet again, are the uninvestigated, but repeatedly publicized Israeli murders of Egyptian POWs both in 1956 and in 1967. I have personally heard testimony to the second case. In the summer of 2002, following one of the press publications, I received an email from my dear and longtime friend Amichai Kronfeld (1947-2005), a contributing editor to the Jewish Peace News listserve. Amichai wrote me,
“Two days ago (July 24) there was a small story in Ha’aretz about cases where Egyptian prisoners of wars were murdered in 1956 and 1967
The article mentions Israeli historians who exposed it and it also indicates that the issue was published in the Israeli press (the story itself is about the Egyptian demand for reparations).
I was a witness to some of these killings (on the beach of Al-Arish, in 1967). I have been talking about it for years and years but gave up eventually since no one believed me. The whole thing was a traumatic experience that surely shaped the rest of my life, for better or worse.” [Emphasis mine, RM]
In answer, I wrote him a long mail; the following are excerpts:
the first of the articles in question, if i remember right, was published several years ago, at least 3-4, in our local
[weekly] — it was an interview with an ex-officer whose name used to be pretty well known in the ‘wild-west’ days of unit 101, etc. (but escapes me now), who talked about being involved in the killings, and said (i think) he would have done the same today and he didn’t regret it.
as a result i think there was some followup in other articles and the story was kicked around in the press for a short while and then subsided.
i’ll do a short search.
—————————————————————-
post quick search:
ronen bergman, musaf haaretz, 17 nov 1995:
[all translations mine]
Headline:
IF YOU KNEW WHY WERE YOU SILENT? [im yadaatem, lama shataktem?]
Lead:
The Egyptian opposition tried to exploit the murder of the Egyptian prisoners of war in 1956 in order to prevent President Mubarak from attending the funeral of Itzhak Rabin in Jerusalem. Its failure doesn’t indicate that the affair has died down. Alongside suspicions of hidden Israeli motives, Egypt levels criticism at the late President Nasser and the current President: How is it that we first hear of the massacre from the Israeli press?
Some key sentences from the article:
“… it’s no wonder that Egyptians see hidden motives behind the publications in Israel concerning murders of Egyptian Prisoners of War, among them not only soldiers but civilians too, in 1956 and 1967. “It simply can’t be that Ariyeh Biru [that’s the guy’s name, r.] suddenly appeared out of nowhere,” says Mohammad Al-Muneem, formerly media consultant to President Mubarak and now head of the military desk at Al-Ahram. “And I don’t believe some journalist went to interview some ex-officer and that’s how the story came out.”
…
About 2 years ago, journalist Ronal Fisher (‘Maariv’) got a lead, according to him from a high ranking reserve officer whom he spoke to about the missing soldiers and prisoners of the IDF. Historian Dr. Uri Milstein says that he was the source who Fisher came to, seeking material about Raphael Eitan. Milstein according to Milstein directed Fisher to the murder of Prisoners of War in 1956 and gave him a list of people to interview.
[it then goes on about preparation of the article, for publication in Maariv and the fact that it was barred by censorship]
Fisher didn’t know that at the same time, Motti Golani was researching the Sinai Campaign, at the initiative and with the funding of the IDF history department. … somehow, the study, which was distributed in the IDF in a limited edition, reached Amir Oren, then the military correspondent for “Davar.” Oren realized what a bombshell it was. On July 21 [1994] he published an article about the study, the main points of which — and particularly the details about the murder of POWs — were featured on the first page of the paper.
…
Meanwhile, Giora Eilon, of the “Yediot” network of local weeklies, interviewed Ariyeh Bidu, andhis article was published … [Aug. 4, 1994]. Eilon says, “… the article was based on a single 20 minute conversaton with Bidu. I actually came to interview Bidu for an article focused around another interview with the commander of the paratroopers. … when the interview was over, I asked Bidu what he did in Mivtza Kadesh and he answered, ‘I jumped at the Mitleh.’ As I had read Oren’s article, I asked him, ‘Who killed the POW’s?’ and Bidu answered, ‘Me.’ And then we started talking about that.”
…
The publication caused many people in Egypt to recall massacres. Abd Al-Salm Mussa, an ex-officer of the Egyptian airforce, who says he was taken prisoner by Israel in 1967, recounted how he saw Isareli soldiers standing Egyptian prisoners in line and killing them in cold blood. Mussa was located by “Al-Ahram” and took a team from the paper accompanied by foreign TV cameras, to a sandy location near Al Arish, which was dug up in keeping with his instructions. A grave with 90 bodies was found at the site. 27 kilometers away, a local Bedouin, Sleiman Salama, recalls that he too witnessed the murder of POW’s. A mass grave was located there too.
…
the Israeli Embassy in Egypt [said that] till you send them [the bodies] to laboratory tests, they won’t tell you a thing about the circumstances of death. “We don’t understand what the Israeli Embassy is yelling about,” an American TV journalist responded, “we know very well how to tell a human skull from a camel’s head.”
The Egyptian Lawyers’ Guild held a press conference with both these witnesses and a few more people who witnessed massacres. It went on for hours … A CNN team stayed through to the end and witnessed a strange incident. An Egyptian citizen suddenly came in and started shouting that the witnesses were making it all up … A request of mine to the Egyptian Government Press Bureau to interview the family of a POW who was murdered, or a witness to the incident, received no answer.
…
The Egyptian public may have been surprised by the facts that were published in Israel, but the fact that Egyptian POW’s were murdered was known to many.” RM]
(Ha’aretz) On the development of an illegal new settlement in the West Bank & popular protest against it
Filmmaker: Movie makes no such claim
By Asaf Carmel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/834058.html
March 7, 2007
Broadcasting Authority Director-General Mordechai Shklar and journalist Ran Adelist denied yesterday that the Channel 1 documentary about the Shaked commando unit alleges that Egyptian prisoners of war were murdered.
Shklar said in a statement that reports about the documentary in the Israeli press – including in Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv – had relied on the Egyptian media.
He said that such publications had not bothered to watch the documentary before reporting about it. “The film depicts the events of the end of the Six-Day War, when the commando unit was ordered to hunt down the Egyptian commando unit in the Gaza Strip en route to Sinai,” Shklar writes.
He notes that the narrator says that “throughout the pursuit, which lasted several days, 250 Egyptian casualties were counted,” and that veterans of the commando unit were still “undecided” about the necessity of the operation. “Nowhere does the documentary claim the Egyptians were prisoners of war, the only question is whether they posed a threat,” he writes.
Adelist accused the Israeli media of acting with “typical indolence” in quoting the Egyptian media without verifying the validity of the claims.