Cataloguing atrocities in Palestine

Khalidi, Thabet. The Rising Tide of Terror, or Three Years of an "Armistice" in the Holy Land.

€ 2,500.00

First edition. A catalogue of atrocities reported to have been committed by the Israeli army and militias against Arab civilians in the three years after the 1949 armistice which officially ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This conflict, referred to by Israelis as the Israeli War of Independence, and by Palestinians as the Nabka, or "the disaster", arose in the aftermath of the British withdrawal from the Mandate for Palestine. A two-state partition planned by the League of Nations failed, and in the ensuing conflict 700,000 Palestinians were dislocated or expelled into neighbouring Arab states.

The present pamphlet seeks to highlight ongoing aggression against Arab civilians in the aftermath of the uneasy peace treaty. The preface remarks on the lack of press coverage in American, British and continental newspapers, and the fact that the publication is in English indicates these nations as the intended audience. From a propagandistic perspective, it is significant to note the focus on the lot of Christian Arabs in Israel.

The barest facts given are that "[i]n a recorded total of 634 incidents of Israeli aggression on Jordan across the Armistice demarcation lines during the past 26 months (Dec. 1, 1949 to January 31, 1952), Arab civilian victims totalled over 100 killed, 85 wounded and 73 abducted - all inside Jordan-controlled territory. These included 30 women and 35 children killed or wounded, and five women and ten children abducted." These statistics are then elaborated with shocking and gruesome photographs of torture victims, murdered children, and disfigured corpses. This is contrasted with examples of humane treatment afforded Israeli prisoners by their Arab captors. There are also statistics on the appropriation of Arab homes, property, and agricultural produce in occupied areas. The map indicates the location of the incidents described in the text, mostly in the West Bank around the border of the armistice demarcation line.

Scarce in trade. OCLC finds 17 copies; not in the British Library.