Summary
American journalist whose report on the Israeli shelling of the Gaza market square on 5 April 1956, reprinted in Al Hamishmar, is quoted at length in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace: Stone called the shelling of Arab refugee encampments or markets “a cynical and murderous business” and urged a full parliamentary investigation, while the book quarrels with his description of the retaliatory Fedayeen atrocities as “fortunate” for Israel (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.224-227).
Details
- Stone reported the bombardment provoked much behind-the-scenes questioning in Israel, with so many different explanations “as to make one suspect the truth has yet to be told”; local commanders may have been “translating and improving” Ben-Gurion’s orders, as a Yiddish writer published Shakespeare “as translated and improved” by himself (PDF p.224-225).
- The shelling struck Gaza’s marketplace on Thursday, the chief market day: Stone’s figures are some 40 killed and 100 wounded, mostly civilians; the book’s bracketed note gives the UN source’s figures as 66 killed and 127 wounded, all civilians (PDF p.225).
- Stone’s second political aspect: the shelling called Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s bluff, hurting his prestige with the refugees he could not protect — mass-funeral demonstrations against his regime were reported in The Jerusalem Post of April 18 (PDF p.225-226).
- The translator’s footnote records that the quotation is taken directly from Stone’s article “The Truth About The Bombardment of Gaza”, I. F. Stone’s Weekly, Washington, 30 April 1956, p.4, rather than back-translated from Al Hamishmar’s Hebrew translation (PDF p.226).