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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

[This post continues the series of excerpts from John Roy Carlson's 1951 work, Cairo to Damascus (link to in-print paperback). All posts in the series will be collected on this page.]

The first day of the end of the Mandate, the first day of an independent Israel, the first day of overt invasion. The Jewish area of Jerusalem is being shelled...indiscriminately.

pp. 261-262:

They took the boy to the operating room. For the next hour I looked for him in the crowded wards. Finally they brought him out. The color had left his face. His brown eyes were closed. He was whimpering, still under the anesthesia. They laid him on a bed that had been used, the sheeting soiled. (Two patients were often placed in one bed.) Gently the nurse rolled him over on his left side, and I saw that his arm was gone. In its place was a thick, round bandaged stump. He lay quietly on his side, consumed by fever and pain. I moved closer to take his picture, and I heard him cry softly: "Ima...Ima...Ima..." -- the plaintive cry of a boy for his mother. I took five photographs, and a strange thing happened with the, All came out blurred. It was I who had moved. I must have been too moved to hold still. Moved and angry. Angry is not the word. Enraged is more apt. Enraged that a boy of eleven should have to go through life without his right arm. What had he done? Whom had he hurt?

Above the groaning in the wards I heard another Arab shell land near by. It struck near St. Joseph's Convent, whose upper floors were later damaged by shells. I ascertained that the shelling came from a hilltop a quarter of a mile beyong the Garden of Gethsemane. The guns were British guns.2 [2On my way to Jericho some time later, I drove past the Garden of Gethsemane, and saw these British guns firing from their emplacements on a promontory on the Mount of Offence.] The shells bore British markings. The hands firing the artillery were those of the Arab Legion -- British trained. The conception of terrorizing the New City with indiscriminate round-the-clock bombing was British-inspired. It was planned by Glubb Pasha, British commander of the Arab Legion. The beleaguered Jews were fighting not only the Arabs, but in effect, the English as well. Not Arab shrapnel, but actually an English-made, English-directed shell-splinter had smashed that boy's arm. The cruelty of it, and the unfairness of blaming only the Arabs for a policy instigated by His Majesty's Government! The voice was Jacob's but the hands were those of Esau!

1 Comment

Thanks for taking the initiative to post this series. It is incredibly interesting. I have bookmarked the links to the collection of posts and to the paperback which I intend to read. Thanks again.

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