Well fancy that! In an irony too delicious for mere words and in a story barely covered in the Western media, an arms cache was recently discovered in a Jewish synagogue, Hod Sharon, in Israel.
The arms, contrary to the suggestion in Israel’s right-wing Yediot Aharanot, belonged to the main Zionist terrorist group, Haganna. The idea that they belonged to an individual can be discounted!
But those with even short memories will recall that the pretext for the massive civilian casualties in the war against Gaza this year and against Lebanon in 2006, was that the ‘terrorists’ were hiding amongst civilians. The Israeli War Forces had no other alternative, although of course they bitterly regretted it (this is their ‘shooting and crying’ syndrome beloved of the ‘left’ Mapam kibbutzniks) than to murder 400 Gazan children.
But the fault you understand doesn’t lie with Israel, good gracious no, but those devilish ‘terrorists’ who insisted on fighting their war in Gaza’s urban districts.
You see, so the racist discourse goes, ‘they’ are not like us. They aren’t civilised and hide behind their own families. Such are the beasts and demons that Israel’s young soldiers had to face.
In fact as anyone familiar with the situation knows, even today Israel’s military forces have their headquarters situated, like the IWF HQ in Tel Aviv and other civilian areas. The rocket batteries used to fire missiles into Lebanon were situated in or adjacent to Israeli towns and kibbutzim.
Now we learn that Hagana was not only storing weapons in synaoguges (remember the excuse for targeting mosques) but the synagogue had ‘long and narrow windows, and slits for firing. These slits apparently made the synagogue an ideal location for stashing the weapons’ according to the curator of the synagogue’s museum, Simcha Klein. But colonialists memories are very short of course. What we do is entirely different from what they do, because we are human and they are not.
Below are reports of the discovery in the main Israeli press.
Tony Greenstein
A stash of weapons dating back to the 1948 War of Independence was uncovered at a synagogue in Magdiel, Hod Hasharon on Thursday.
Police said the weapons were found hidden on the second floor inside a wooden crate, when workers were cleaning out the area.
Sharon Sub-district Police sappers removed the weapons from the building.
The synagogue was used as a headquarters by the Haganah during the months preceding the declaration of statehood.
The synagogue was used as a headquarters by the Haganah during the months preceding the declaration of statehood.
The discovery come just over a week after a similar find at a kibbutz in the western Negev. At the end of January, a weapons cache was found at Kibbutz Nirim.
According to reports, the cache contained rifles, mortar shells, and explosive materials which were used to defend the kibbutz during the War of Independence.
British Mandate-era arms cache found in Hod Hasharon synagogue
By Noa Kocharek and Yuval Goren, Haaretz Correspondents
5th February 2009
Two Israeli curators on Thursday stumled upon an arms cache dating back to the British Mandate at a Synagogue in Hod Hasharon.
The weapons, which included grenades and bullet casings, were apparently stored in the building by the Hagannah Jewish militia.
Simcha Klein and Aviva Even-Hen, curators of the museum dedicated to the history of Hod Hasharon, found the arms while they were tidying rooms in the synagogue, which was crammed full of documents, pictures and old maps dating back to the beginning of the Zionist enterprise.
“While searching the rooms, we came across one small tin box that contained grenades, and another that contained dozens of bullet casings,” Klein said. “We then called the police, and sappers came and removed the weapons from the building.”
The curator added that she hoped that the museum would be able to display the munitions as an historic exhibit
Klein said that during the British Mandate, the synagogue used to serve as a shelter from Arab rioters, and therefore has long and narrow windows, and slits for firing. These slits apparently made the synagogue an ideal location for stashing the weapons
Pre-independence weapons discovered in synagogue
Workers at Hod Hasharon synagogue discover trunk with Haganah-era weapons while cleaning adjoining supply shed
Raanan Ben-Zur, 02.05.09, 14:59 / Israel News
Workers at Hod Hasharon synagogue discover trunk with Haganah-era weapons while cleaning adjoining supply shed
Raanan Ben-Zur, 02.05.09, 14:59 / Israel News
Weapons from Israel’s pre-independence era were discovered Thursday in a large synagogue in Hod Hasharon, in central Israel.
The location, which synagogue elders say served as a meeting place for members of the Haganah in the 40s, believe that the arms have not been touched since Israel’s War of Independence.
They said that the dozens of worshippers who frequent the synagogue, located near the area’s business center, were most likely unaware of the existence of the armaments.
The cache was discovered when caretakers of the building decided to clean out an adjoining supply shed on the second story of the synagogue. The weapons – three stun grenades, a Sten rifle, magazines and a steel helmet – were stored in a wooden trunk in the room.
At this point, it is unclear whether the arms cache belonged to the organization or whether it was merely a private stash belonging to one of the members.
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