27 June 2006
On Saturday 24 June 2006, the Daily Express ran a feature by Paul Callan of almost two pages on British "war hero" Orde Wingate, who used his "military genius" and "brilliance as a tactician" to help Jewish forces establish "their precious homeland" ("The Untold Story of Our Most Eccentric War Hero").
Besides the serious factual inaccuracies peppered throughout the article, it paints a benevolent, selective portrait of Wingate that is as highly misleading as it is offensive to his victims and those who respect the rule of law.
Below are examples of Wingate's brutality, taken from Jewish and Israeli sources (such as Jewish academics and authors John Rose and Norman Finkelstein, Jewish militant Tzion Cohen, Israeli historians Tom Segev and Anita Shapira, and former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan), that would today be described as war crimes:
The activities of the "private army" Wingate set up "do indeed read like the activities of the Israeli army today on the West Bank and Gaza. Random killings and beatings in Arab villages suddenly entered without warning. Phoney 'trials' and 'courts' set up at whim in the villages, followed by executions. Many of Wingate's own troops thought he was mad. It's not difficult to see why. He had a penchant for crackpot schemes of provocation. On one occasion he wanted Jewish soldiers to dress up as Arabs, go to the Arab market in Haifa and start shooting" (John Rose, The Myths of Zionism, p. 130, citing Tom Segev 2000: 431).
"However, it is difficult to separate Wingate's excesses from the wider British apparatus of repression of the revolt…the principle of collective punishment imposed on entire villages, so beloved by the Israeli army, was pioneered by the British." (John Rose, The Myths of Zionism, p. 130)
Moshe Dayan described his own initiation into Wingate's Special Night Squad. After killing four and capturing five Palestinians in an attack on a "suspect" village, when the captives protested ignorance of the whereabouts of an arms cache, "Wingate reached down and took some sand and grit from the ground; he thrust it into the mouth of the first Arab and pushed it down his throat until he choked and puked." Questioned again, the Arab still denied knowledge of the arms and Wingate ordered a Jewish Squad member to shoot the still-spluttering and coughing prisoner. The Jew looked at him at him questioningly and hesitated. "Wingate said in a tense voice, 'Did you hear? Shoot him.' The Jew shot the Arab. The others stared for a moment, in stupefaction, at the body at their feet. The boys from Hamita (the 'suspect' village) were watching in silence. 'Now speak,' said Wingate. They spoke" (Dayan quoted in Leonard Moseley, Gideon Goes to War, 1955).
This extract from Dayan is particularly interesting because Callan quotes him in his article, but only showing Wingate in a favourable light.
"As time went on, [SNS member] Tzion Cohen wrote, the punishments became more severe. Sometimes Wingate would make the villagers smear mud and oil on their faces. On occasion he would shoot and kill them" (Cited in Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete, p. 430).
"Wingate, who 'rumor had it used to line up in a row villagers suspected of murder and then selected every tenth one to be executed', recruited field squads…for 'merciless raids' on Arab villages" (Normal Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, p. 113, citing Anita Shapira).
Arab Media Watch calls on the Express, in the interests of balance and impartiality, to publish a brief response piece from us on the "other side" of Wingate. To portray him in the way it has done is a stain on the British military, an injustice to the Palestinian people, and a disservice to its readers.
AMW is also awaiting statements from the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Woman, the Burma Star Association and the Chindit Memorial, which are honouring him today.