The Rape of Lydda III
Part Three: Shmaryahu Gutman
Shmaryahu was the ultimate zionist ideologue. Israel owes much to him. He did a lot of harm to Palestinians.
He was born in Glasgow to Russian Jewish immigrants, and settled in Palestine when he was 17. At kibbutz Na’an, he took the pioneers under his wings, and strove to educate them_ some would say to brainwash them and
turn them into rabid zionists. He never missed a single opportunity to preach his gospel: Israel needed a homeland, we’ve had enough of pogroms and persecution. We need to unite and if necessary, be willing to give our lives for our beliefs. If we need to kill the natives, so be it.
The potent symbol he adopted was Masada, visible from Na’an. In the first century, it was the site of a terrible tragedy, when a group of Jewish zealots found refuge in the fortress that Herod had built, when overwhelmed by a massive Roman force. Rather than surrender, they decided to commit mass suicide. Gutman strove to subvert the notion of defeatism. The Jews had known much persecution over centuries, and zionism had taught them to aspire for their own homeland, to protect themselves from continuing ignominy. Shmaryahu Gutman’s mantra was, Never Again. He inculcated this notion into the receptive heads of young ardent Jews who had lived through pogroms and persecutions themselves. Gutman made sure that their beliefs and aspirations were matched by the means of achieving them. He arranged for combat training, and accumulation of arms, for if the Jews were to own Palestine and create the new state of Israel, the Arabs who already lived there had somehow to be got rid of. Although the UN partition committee had decided that Lydda and Ramle were to be part of Arab Palestine, Ben Gurion and his powerful Jews had decided to overrule them, and incorporate the twin towns into the soon-to-be-created state of Israel, and no one was going to stop them. If the Arabs could be persuaded to leave, there would be no need to kill them, but if that was difficult, then
massacres could be arranged. By now, Gutman had progressed to leader of the Palmach, an elite arm of the Haganah_ the Jewish Hamas. It was his job to persuade the residents to leave. Zionist planes began by dropping leaflets ordering the Arab population to leave Lydda, or else. A number of killings had been carried out to show intent- 426 of them. The Arabs were disorganised and had few weapons, whilst the Palmach, having benefited from massive donations from all over the western world, and with highly trained officers like Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, Ishack Rabin and Mula Cohen in command, were a force to be reckoned with. Between 50,000 and 70,000 Arabs were thus driven out. That scenario was to be repeated again and again.
