The world must be reminded of the Palestinian genocide campaign against Jews - opinion

• Published date: 14 March 2024
• Author: YISRAEL MEDAD
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

However, if you are looking for this year's model, the entry is titled "Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza." That includes such sub-sections as "Alleged genocidal intent," "Academic and legal discourse," "Statements by political organizations and governments," and "Cultural discourse." When I last looked, there were 299 references, not including footnotes

The charge that Israel is engaged in a campaign of genocide in Gaza is ubiquitous, from The Hague to campuses, to the media, and in the streets. It is heard in museums and art galleries. It has led to the slogan "Abolish Zionism." In a medical journal, British Medical Global Health, Israel's policies were described as an "eliminatory settler colonial strategy."

All this is propaganda, of course. After all, despite Israel's campaigns against Hamas aggression, Gaza's population shows no real signs of any serious demographic downfall. Neither has that of Judea and Samaria, except for voluntary emigration abroad.

Yet, there was a genocide campaign. It was conducted not against 'Palestine', but in Palestine, in the Mandate of Palestine. It was a campaign of attempted genocide, not against Arabs but against the Jews. It began in April 1920, and through riots, pogroms, and terror, as well as political and diplomatic pressure, it has not let up.

Attacks against Jews during the British mandate

Following the first murderous riot in Jerusalem during the Passover festival that coincided with the Nebi Mussa celebration, mob violence occurred again and again throughout the Mandate period. These attacks, as well as those that followed, targeted almost exclusively the defenseless and the weak – women, the elderly, and the young.

Although there were instances of violence over property and land purchases, as in Jerusalem in 1851, when Rabbi Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref was stabbed to death after obtaining permission to reconstruct the Hurva synagogue, or in Petah Tikva in 1886, these were localized events. With the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference, and the separation of Palestine, known as Southern Syria, from Syria, the violence assumed a nationalist character that categorized all Jews as justified potential victims of Arab violence.

In Jerusalem, when Jewish schoolchildren marked the occasion of the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in a procession on November 2, 1918, Arab ruffians, encouraged by the Arab mayor, fell upon them with clubs. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who was in the...