Below is a translation, by the Alternative Information Center (AIC), of testimony provided by a policeman who participated in Israel’s oppression of the 1976 Palestinian Land Day. The now-defunct Hebrew-language weekly news magazine Haolam Haze published this anonymous testimony on 7 April 1976, which is brought here in its entirety.
“My luck was bad (and to this my swollen forehead will testify) and I was appointed amongst the police force meant to calm the riots which broke out amongst Arabs from the Galilee on the day they call Land Day.
After reading articles written by journalists present in the area, what remains for me is only to unpack the burden of restraint which obligates me as a policeman and to set several things straight.
I am not a leftist, but the aspects of my thought on what happened in the Galilee on 30 March (1976) will most certainly be attributed to the left bloc as this bloc, according to my broken heart, is the bloc with objective vision.
On 30 March at 00:30 my company was called for a briefing, over which the hatred of Arabs hovered, in which were heard expressions that obligated violence for the sake of violence against those violating our sleep, the Arabs. When we arrived to the area we were not greeted with rocks, so our ‘forces’ penetrated the village with armoured vehicles – an association from my parents’ stories about the British Mandate.
When seeing the practical displeasure of the people of the village, the officers from the force began to return war with the sub-machine guns in their possession. Satisfaction hovered over these officers, for it’s not every day that it is possible to be superheroes. And outdoing themselves were a first sergeant and logistics officer, who gave vent to their frustration with the office mechanism by shooting at the terrified village residents, the latter even hitting two of them — one of whom later died due to this injury.
After the village residents fled for their lives, the force entered some of the village apartments and began to vent their rage at all the home’s belongings. Before my eyes was unveiled a sight in which the television, record player, pictures and more were shattered. Such a sight could only remind me of the poems of Bialik and Tchernichovsky about the rampages against Jews at the end of the last century and beginning of this century.
What penetrated me most of all is the tremendous hatred hovering over most of my fellow policemen against the Arabs, a hatred which on 30 March found but a miniscule expression.
We are to renounce our hatred of the sons of Ismael, in order to justify our legitimate right to reside in this country.”
More stories like this at The Alternative Information Center (AIC).
