Ben-Eliezer and Mubarak in 2005

The infamous hero of Shaked affair, Ben-Eliezer passed away

On August 28, news came from Tel Aviv that former minister of defense and deputy prime minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer had passed away at a medical center. The 80-years-old Israeli official was suffering from kidney disease.

A screen shot from Rush Shaked
A screen shot from Rush Shaked

The Iraqi-born Israeli official gained hate in Egypt when Israeli war documentary “The Shaked spirit” or “Rush Shaked” was aired on an Israeli TV channel in March 2007, including testimonies of military veterans in the Shaked unit he headed in 1967 on how they killed 250 Egyptian POWs near Egyptian-Palestinian borders.

In an alleged U.S confidential cable sent from the U.S embassy in Cairo to Washington on 7 March 2007, it was detailed how Ben-Eliezer cancelled his visit to Egypt over the anger of the government of Egypt as well the anger of media.

Interestingly, according to Ben-Eliezer’s Wikipedia page, the Egyptian General Intelligence service warned him of coming to Egypt during that time otherwise he could be arrested.

The public anger during then in Cairo forced the Egyptian People’s assembly summoned the minister of foreign affairs then Ahmed El-Ghait to investigate the matter.

The Egyptian ministry opened an investigation into the documentary vowing to take strong steps if proven the Israeli guilt. It also released the transcript of the documentary in Arabic

The statements of the videos were clear that Egyptian POWs were killed despite they were not holding any arms and they were hiding according to the transcript released by the Egyptian ministry of foreign affairs to the Egyptian media in March.

In 2008, Ahmed El-Ghait stated that the investigation was still open till Israel would finish its investigation.

It is unclear to know the fate of the Egyptian investigations into the Rush Shaked documentary but Israel already made it clear that its veterans did not commit anything wrong as usual.

The Israeli ministry of foreign issued a statement in Arabic on March 7,2007 claiming that video stated those late Egyptian military were actually fighting combatants who had a battle and “both sides had battles and victims during that war”!!

The former Israeli minister of defense was proud of his very close friendship to Egypt’s ousted dictator and convicted ex-president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, a thing which brought to him criticism sometimes in Israeli media ironically after 2011.

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer stated in August 2011 that he and current Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered political asylum to Mubarak and his family following his ouster but he declined because “he was patriot”.

Mubarak and Ben-Eliezer in Sharm El-Sheikh
Mubarak and Ben-Eliezer in Sharm El-Sheikh in January 2012. “Getty Images”

As a minister of infrastructure, Ben-Eliezer witnessed along with Mubarak in June 2005 the signing of a memorandum of understanding for supplying Israel with Egyptian national gas.

Mubarak’s long-time friend, Hussein Salem was the main Egyptian partner in this controversial deal.

Ben-Eliezer had a very legacy when it comes to Egypt and its POWs as Lebanon and its invasion and history won’t forget that.

History will also remember how the Mubarak’s administration had an opportunity to restore back some of the rights of the Egyptian POWs but it gave it up.

This is What the “IDF1967” Twitter Account Forgot To Tell the World About ?? “Graphic”

In this year’s six days war anniversary the Israeli Defense Army launched a twitter account “@IDF1967” in Hebrew to recount the events of the what happened in the war that changed the Middle East forever.

This account did not mention the documented war crimes committed by the IDF against the Egyptian POWs as well Egyptian citizens and Arab citizens in general during the war.

It neglected the fact that thousands of civilians in the Suez cities canal were killed in the air strikes of the IAF where the internationally banned Napalm bombs were used. Thousands of Egyptians were forced to be displaced.

Thousands of Egyptians were forced to be displaced.

Read More

New Book About Egyptian POWs

There is a new book that was published in Cairo from days ago about the Egyptian POWs , the name of the book “The crime of murdering the Egyptian POWs

The book’s author is researcher Abdel Razek Said Soliman and its introduction is written by Dr. Ibrahim El-Bahrawy who mentions in his introduction the “Fortunes of a fool” novel . The book which is an actually a study depends on the Israeli literature and how it showed incidents of war crimes against out Egyptian POWs.

The book also show examples of the Israeli literature that covered the 6th of October war.

The book is currently available in bookstore.

Via Youm 7

For Our POWs In 1973

Al Jazeera channel official website made a report about the Palestinian detainee , Mansour Mowqda who is currently jailed in Israel for murder an Israeli Veteran officer.

The story of Mansour started in early 2002 where he worked at a farmer that was owned by a veteran IDF officer , that officer one day bragged in front of Mansour on how he killed Egyptian POWs in Yom Kippur October war 1973, yes in Yom Kippur war.

Mansour told his family that the officer was speaking proudly on how the Egyptian soldiers were put under the tanks’ track to be squashed then later were buried in mass graves. He even told him that he killed the Egyptian officer who was in charge of  those soldiers with three gun shots then how he urinated over his body. Mansour could not keep his anger and killed that veteran officer/ war criminal.

Of course he was arrested later after being shot by dumdum bullets and was sentenced a life prison term. His injury went from bad to worse to worst as his lower part of his body is completely paralyzed.He had multiple major  surgeries and he needs huge medical care and attention.

The ministry of detainees affairs in the Palestinian authority’s lawyers failed in getting health parole for him yet managed to reduce his sentence from life sentence to 30 years !!

Still Mansour is being mistreated despite his illness and his disability in the prison and its hospital which are like a living hell. He does not receive the proper medical attention or care he should get. The Palestinian detainees who do not suffer from health problems already are suffering from the ill treatment in the Israeli prisons so you can imagine how people like Mansour suffer.

Mansour on his wheel chair

Mansour killed one person , a war criminal and he paid a very big price for it ; a price that I am afraid that war criminal did not pay when he killed our POWs in very cold blood.

Mansour should get a health parole , already I do not know what price he will pay more than what he is paying.

Now moving to the real war criminal here who was that veteran IDF officer , well I am not surprised at his claims in fact it is well known fact the IDF used to execute our Egyptian POWs using tanks’ tracks to save bullets and time !! That disgusting Nazi technique was used in 1967 widely across Sinai especially in Al Arish whose people remember that fearful scene of tanks moving over human beings and how that scene was directed by Ariel Sharon !!  They had done it in 1967 and so I would not be surprised that they used it in 1973.

I want to help Mansour but I feel that I am helpless , all what I can do is to write this post.

Source : Al Jazeera Net (Arabic)

A Humiliation of Human rights

Le guerre des six jours il ya 40 ans” or “40 years on the six days war” is an essay written by Chitour Chems in 2007 in the 40 anniversary of the war that changed the Middle East forever. The essay discusses the six days war and its implications up till now showing new historical revelations that the Israelis knew in advance that Nasser did not want to go unlike what they claimed and have been claiming up till now despite the confessions of the Israeli decision makers then.

Despite it is a heavy historical political essay still it contains very interesting details about the massacres against our POWs in 1967 which I will quote here the translation due to its importance.

Among the horrors that Israel was guilty, the film “Shaked Spirit” released by the Israeli state television was shock. It shows the massacres of Egyptian soldiers and officers, it opens  the war crimes file committed by Israel despite the liquidation of 250 solider could be considered  quite simple in comparison to those Egyptians and Palestinians, and even Israeli historians themselves’ testimonies that the number of prisoners were Killed in the capture was 10,000. Indeed, the number of prisoners would be killed in the capture of 10,000. In His book “The unit Shaked,” Professor Uri Milistein Gives details and counts of war crimes, Even Has A photo of Ben Eliezer with the caption: “Liquidation after the war.”  In his book “The unit Shaked,” Professor Uri Milistein counts and gives details of war crimes, even has a photo of Ben Eliezer with the caption: “Liquidation after the war.”

Among the testimonies of this book include: “I saw a man digging a hole for about 15 minutes. Then, Israeli soldiers Asked Him to throw the shovel. Then one of  them with an Uzi sub-machine gun killed him.” Israeli Historian Gabby Born, in Yediot Aharonot ” We were close enough to see the town mosque with the naked eye. On the morning of June 8, 1967, in Sinai, in the City of Arish, Israeli forces Have Systematically Executed more Than 1000 Egyptian POWs. The Israelis Asked prisoners to dig their own grave Before  Then finish them off. “ James Ennes, Former American serviceman from the USS Liberty, the American spy ship Was bombed in 1967. Fouad Riyadh former judge at the international criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia  called for the formation of an Investigation committee to investigate the Israeli crimes Against Egyptian soldiers: These crimes are quite identical to those Committed  in Bosnia.

These testimonies are not strange to us , in fact we mentioned some of them before in our website here , the question now is when these testimonies will be recognized , when these testimonies will be taken seriously whether locally or internationally

It was Too Good To Be True

I thought that Ben Eliezer had to leave Qatar yesterday due to the attack on the Gaza flotilla , well I was wrong and I apologize for this as my sources were wrong , the infamous hero of Shaked war crime did not leave on the contrary he was having a very good cheerful time.

His tongue to the whole world
His tongue to the whole world

It turned out that he attended cheerfully the world economic forum in Doha along with icons and leaders from Arab world like for example Prince Hamad of Qatar who was very angry yesterday for what happened against the peace activists issuing a powerful statement and demanding an immediate Arab summit !!

Also Queen Rania of Jordan who showered her twitter account with sad facts about Gaza suffering under the Israeli occupation yesterday was at the same time at the conference with Fouad !!

Queen Rania and Prince Hamad

I understand the double personalities our rulers suffer from but whom they think they are fooling.

Here is a photo of a war criminal smiling in Qatar

Happy Fouad

False Promises

In 1995 after the shameful confessions of IDF commanders of committing war crimes against our POWs in 1956 Suez War and what followed it affecting our mutual relations then , French Libération continued to cover the matter internationally revealing things we did not know about then back in Egypt for some reason. In August 1995 the French newspaper published a small newspaper based on an interview with an Israeli official , Elie Dayan who was the Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs with an unnamed Egyptian newspaper that Israel was ready to pay compensation to families of the 900 Egyptian prisoners massacred by Israeli soldiers during the wars of 1956 and 1967 and that those acts did not represent the Hebrew State…etc.

Here is the original article and its English translation.

I do not recall that interview but I believe the French newspaper could have quoted Al Ahram newspaper. It is very important statement for sure and I do not have to bet that in the original interview Dayan said the following : “Israel is ready to pay compensation for the 900 Egyptian prisoners if they were proven to be murdered by the IDF” because after few days we found in the same newspaper a small news saying that Shimon Perez , the new Prime minister then promised to open an investigation in to the matter in order to calm down the Egyptian angry public then despite the Israel’s Attorney General back then “Michael Ben-Yair” had ruled that there was no basis for prosecuting soldiers for wars crimes or offenses as he had described it in 1956 and 1967 war because of a 20 years limitation on homicide charges !! The attorney general did not considered the crimes against our POWs as war crimes !!

Here is the second article and its English translation

Search For the 1956 POWs Massacre in Israeli literature

Literature is known to be the mirror of the society and its share from its social and political defeats and triumphs especially when it is inspired by real events like wars.

In 1960 one of Israel’s finest authors and playwrights Aharon Megged wrote a novel called “The fortunes of a fool” which

Aharon Megged

was published in 1960 , the novel is about the Suez war and its reflection on the hero of the novel , the fool who suffers in his social life to the degree that he wishes to kill himself finding a final resort in a terrible war.

In the 310 pages novel there is a whole chapter dedicated to the military tribunal of that fool hero who refused to follow his commanders’ orders and kill the Egyptian POWs he was guarding where there is that interesting dialogue between the judge and the fool hero showing how the Israeli military establishment supported and approved ((still does)) the murder of unarmed Arab POWs.

There is no doubt that Megged did not imagine that tribunal and that support to POWs murder from nothing , there is no smoke without fire, already in 1956 Israeli military correspondent then Amir Oren wrote about the Metla massacre then in Israeli newspaper “Davar“. There is no doubt that Megged was inspired by Oren’s reports where he wrote that whole chapter in that novel to represent his hero as a fool in the eyes of a military establishment.

“The fortunes of a fool” was translated in to English in 1962 in the United States. I do not know if it has been translated

Fortunes of a fool

in to Arabic or not despite the fact that other Megged’s have been translated in the Arab world as an example to the contemporary Israeli literature. This novel shows the importance of reading and translating the Israeli literature which is another window to understand the Israeli and Zionist mindsets. I knew about this novel from a 2009 op-ed by Dr. Ibrahim El-Bahrawy ((professor of Hebrew in Ain Shams university)) who was among the first to introduce examples from Israeli literature to the Egyptian and Arabic readers since early 1970s.

The English translation is available in Amazon.com if you are interested in reading it.

Al Jazeera International’s First Person:Egyptian POWs

This old video below goes back to 2007 in the 40th anniversary of the Six Days war and it shows  Ex-Sergeant Amin Ramadan who speaks about his experience in captivity at notorious Atlit along his friend and co-worker for 40 years Goma’a Hassan who is still suffering from physical injury hunting him down since the Atlit days. I talked about this video in 2007 as a report that was published in Al Jazeera international , I did not know that it was based upon a video that aired on the channel but it is never too late.

Ramadan and Gomaa

Ramadan who has become a kind of an activist for the 1967 POWs , is already suing the Israeli government among others for a just compensation on what they have seen and suffered on the hands of the IDF in 1967. His testimony is from the important living testimonies that prove the involvement of Ben-Eliezer in the mistreatment and abuse of our POWs against international laws.