http://indymedia.org.il
Don't take too seriously the things written iFriday 16 Aug 2002
author: Norma Archbold
Don't take too seriously the things written in this book
From Illinois USA
Chacour in Blood Brothers leads us to believe that the Israeli Army slaughtered the people of an Arab Christian town (transliterated Jish or Gish) and buried them in a shallow grave where 8-year-old Chacour discovered the decomposed bodies.
I went with another journalist to Gish and spoke with an Arab Christian who was 16-years-old and living in Gish when the the massacre was supposed to have happened. He had never heard of a massacre there.
I spoke to the town historian on the phone and he had never heard of of a massacre there. When I mentioned Chacour and Blood Brothers, he said, "I wouldn't take too seriously the things written in that book."
Chacour claims that his family lived in Baram (about 2 miles from Gish) for a 1,000 years before they had to leave Baram and move to Gish in 1947-48. The historian of Gish told me that Chacour and his family were latecomers to Baram. Chacour's family were Melkite Christians while most of the families of Baram were Maronite Christians.
Baram was a Jewish community until the mid 1700s. A large synagogue in Baram testifies to this. Sometime in the 1800s Maronite Christians came from Lebanon and settled in the abandoned town and built a church which stands there today.
Baram overlooks the Lebanon border and was one of many Arab villages within a 3 mile wide path along the border whose inhabitants (for security reasons) were relocated farther away from the border.
Two Arabic Christians took us to visit Baram. It has been preserved as a park and is interesting because of the synagogue and church, and especially interesting are the ancient homes there. The houses were small and closely packed together. The two young men took us to visit the home his family had lived in. It was something like 40 ft. x 40 ft. (maybe less) with two dividing walls (about 3 ft apart) partway across the middle of the house, partially dividing it into 2 rooms. The space between the two walls was used for storage. In the main room toward the back and near the outer wall was a cistern cut into the stone.
Each year former residents of Baram get together at Baram with their families for a picnic to tell about how they loved living there. Indeed it is a magnificently beautiful spot and a wonderful place to see how people lived long ago. Some of the inhabitents want to move back there. However, if those ancient houses were destroyed and streets paved and cement homes built in their place, the former inhabitants (and mankind) would lose a great historical treasure.
The Arabic Christian inhabitants of Baram that moved to Gish have prospered and have full citizenship in Israel. They now have large expensive homes and the two young men who took us to Baram had attended university in Europe.
Chacour presents himself as forgiving the Israelis for a massacre that (according to the people living there) didn't happen. How difficult is it to forgive someone for something that never happened?
What concerns me about this book is that it is 6th on Amazon,s bestselling list out of more than 8,000 books. That means that tens of thousands of people around the world have received false information.
The Middle East is a powder keg. False information could start a world war there. It is in the best interests of everyone in the world to demand that absolute truth be published about the situation there.
The false information is all the more damaging because of the beautiful ideas expressed, which make us want to believe what Chacour says.
Two publishers stopped publication of this book and a 3rd publisher listed it as fiction after finding out that it is not true.