Palestinian American veterans have been forgotten as the country commemorates the end of World War II 70 years ago this month (August), just as they were forgotten at the end of the war itself. While they fought to free Europe from the Nazis, the victims turned around and not only stole their country but kicked them out
By Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
My dad George and his brother Moussa proudly served in the American Military during World War II.
They had established their American citizenship after arriving in America the 1920s and left their parents, brothers and sisters back home in Jerusalem, Palestine, then a free city controlled by the British. They did their part as Americans when war broke out on Dec. 7, 1941.
But what did America do for them, now 70 years later when we look back at the great sacrifices that American soldiers made to free Europe from Nazi control and save the Jews from the Holocaust?
What did the victims of the Nazis do in return?
My dad was proud of his service. And so was my uncle. When they enlisted right after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they wanted to enlist and serve together. Instead, the recruiters thought it unusual that his brother’s name was “Moses,” and they insisted her serve in the Navy.
After all, didn’t Moses part the seas to save his people?
World War II, called “The Survival War” by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ended in steady stages 70 years ago in 1945. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, one week after Nazi leader Adolph Hitler and several of his henchmen committed suicide in their Berlin bunker.
On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 150,000 civilians and injuring more. Japan surrendered announced its surrender on August 14 to prevent more nuclear bombings, and formally signed its surrender on Sept. 2. Victory over Japan (VJ Day) was commemorated on August 15.
Yes, 1945, 70 years ago, was a great time. Although America was only in the war under four years, the war took a major toll on Americas. So many Americans risked their lives to save Europe. So many Americans lost their lives, more than 400,000 with the majority dying in the Pacific fighting the Japanese.
And yet after all that sacrifice, it is ironic that my dad and his brother only a few years later would have to arrange to help their parents and their brothers and sisters flee from their homes in Jerusalem in the face of a military onslaught from Jews who fled to Palestine and organized terrorist networks and militias to steal the land of Palestine from the Muslims and the Christians, like my dad’s family, who lived there.
They became refugees and were forced to flee to Jordan where they settled in a camp for several years until they could be brought to America.
It must have been heartbreaking, especially as my Uncle Moses, the oldest brother, died right after the struggle to bring the family to safety away from the terrorism of the Jewish forces, led by men who would become Prime Ministers of Israel like Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun, and Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Stern Gang. Begin and Shamir introduced terrorism to Palestine right after the war ended.
Like many Jews who fled to Israel, they didn’t serve in the military or fought to save the Jews of World War II. Instead, they fought in Palestine killing Christians, Muslims and British soldiers.
Begin led the massacre of 100 civilians at Deir Yassin, one of a dozen unarmed Palestinian villages that Begin’s terrorists attacked. Begin wanted blood that he could showcase and use to frighten the other Palestinian civilians into fleeing. So did Shamir.
They hung British soldiers in the forrest. They murdered prisoners in cold blood, point blank to the head. They blew up train stations, post offices, and the most famous target, the King David Hotel where so many civilians worked to support the British Mandate government.
Those murdered by Jewish terrorists in Palestine were cast aside as Israel and the pro-Israel media wrote the stories. The vicious murders were sanitized to make the Israelis look good and to justify the theft of Palestine. The book “Exodus” was written by a paid-writer, Leon Uris, who was commissioned to write “the Story of Israel.” It was all lies, distortions, racism and libel.
But it was so easily sold to the feeble-minded Americans who were brainwashed so easily by Israeli propaganda and who till this day live in a headlock of fear and acceptance of those lies.
Paul Newman, who happened to be Jewish himself (I note it only to show the bias that existed in the film), played a key role in defaming the justice of the Palestinians, portraying an officer who helped hide children in a fictitious scene where the children were to be murdered by those blood-thirsty heathen Arabs. Of course, no such scene had even come close to happening.
Jewish terrorists took up arms in Palestine in 1945 and continued their reign of terror through May of 1948, before any of the so-called Arab armies invaded Palestine to save the Palestinians. In fact, it was the Jewish terrorist organizations, the Irgun, Stern Gang and the Haganah that targeted civilians and murdered men, women and children.
Vicious Arab haters in the mainstream American news media covered for the Jewish terrorists, downplaying their atrocities and exaggerating the threat from the Palestinian Arabs who were fighting to defend themselves and their lands.
Deir Yassin was the only massacre that was highly showcased int he media, but mainly because the representative of the International Red Cross managed to bully his way past the Irgun, Stern Gang and Haganah terrorists, to enter the village and witness the civilians slaughter for himself.
The Jewish fighters tried to cover up their crimes by throwing the mutilated bodies of women and children down the village well. But the International Red Cross representative screamed loud and long until the media began documenting the atrocities. The Haganah distanced itself from the Irgun and Stern Gangs, but continued to coordinate their attacks through 1949.
The real test of Americanism is loyalty to your country. So many Americans who have Israeli passports too eagerly serve in the Israeli military to continue the oppression of Palestinian civilians and to occupy Palestinian lands, and to build Jewish-only settlements on those lands.
But they refuse to serve in the American military, the country that took them in and through people like my father and uncle saved them.
My father and my uncle, American Arabs, were true American heroes. They served their country, America, by putting on the American uniform and putting their lives on the line for America during the war. A brutal war.
Many American Jews today are willing to put on the Israeli military uniform, but not the uniform of America.
And I guess that’s ok to most Americans. Brainwashing, racism and media bias have a way of altering the reality of what’s good and what’s not good.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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