The Kafr Qasim Massacre On the 29th of October 1956, the Israeli government and military imposed a surprise curfew on a number of Palestinian villages within 1948 Palestine that were located on the border the West Bank,49 with the Israeli border police informing the mayor of Kafr Qasim only 30 minutes before the curfew was enforced. Soldiers that were carrying out the curfew were told that they “should shoot to kill at any person seen outside their home after 17:00, making no distinction between men, women, children and those returning from outside the village”.50 Recently uncovered transcripts additionally revealed that the Israeli border police company commander stated that “it was desirable for there to be a number of fatalities”.51 When the villagers of Kafr Qasim, all of whom carried Israeli citizenships, returned home after the curfew had been enforced, they were rounded up by the Israeli border police and were shot at close range. Forty-nine Palestinians, including children, were murdered in just one hour. The ultimate goal of this massacre was to terrorize the Palestinian people and coerce them into fleeing from 1948 Palestine; soldiers who participated in the massacre admitted that the goal was to “leave a few dead in each village so that tomorrow the borders would be opened, and the Arabs would divide into two: those who escape through the border; and those who remain and will be like innocent sheep and not do anything”.52 Afterwards, the Israeli government and military attempted to cover up the massacre, but the news inevitably spread and the Israeli government was pressured to take the criminals to court. What ensued, however, was a colonial mockery of justice; only low-level soldiers were convicted and, although many initially received more than 10 years in prison, all of them were released in 1960 after receiving pardons or having their sentences reduced, and multiple members of the Israeli government provided the criminals with compensation for their time in prison “by giving them official appointments, including to positions of responsibility over Arab citizens in the city of Lydda and elsewhere”.53 Colonel Yishkhar Shadmi, who ordered the soldiers to impose the curfew by shooting villagers, was merely given “a reprimand and paid a symbolic fine of 10 prutot (one-100th of the Israeli pound before 1960)”.54 The villagers of Kafr Qasim were additionally forced to participate in a “sulha”, or a reconciliation ceremony, that took place in the village with multiple Israeli officials and military personnel in 1957, designed to whitewash the massacre and position it “within a contrived history of symmetrical violence between Arabs and Jews”.55 49 Which was controlled by Jordan at the time. Adel Manna, ‘Kafr Qasim, 1956: Israel's Army Massacres Its Own Peaceful Citizens’ (The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, 26 January 2018) <https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/14334/kafr-qasim-1956> accessed 3 October 2022. 51 Ofer Aderet, ‘Transcripts of Kafr Qasem Massacre Trial Revealed: “The Commander Said Fatalities Were Desirable”’ (Haaretz, 29 July 2022) <https://bit.ly/3C6KN8x> accessed 3 October 2022. 52 Ibid. 53 Manna (n 50). 54 Ofer Aderet, ‘General's Final Confession Links 1956 Massacre to Israel's Secret Plan to Expel Arabs’ (Haaretz, 13 October 2018) <https://bit.ly/3SBYjbl> accessed 3 October 2022. 55 Shira Robinson, ‘Commemoration under Fire: Palestinian Responses to the Kafr Qasim Massacre’ in Ussama Makdisi and Paul A. Silverstein (eds), Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa (Indiana University Press 2006), 144. 50 10