The York Dispatch · 21 June 1967

CP-1967-060

Arab Refugees Tell Of Cruel Israeli Treatment

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Transcribed from the clipping

ON THE RIVER JORDAN, Jordan, June 21, AP—Arab refugees crossing from the Israeli-occupied west bank of the River Jordan said the Israelis forced them from their homes and they left all belongings behind. Many of the men and women who clambered across the twisted steel girders of the wrecked Allenby bridge brought little more than the clothes they wore.

They said they did not know what they would do in the future. One man, a teacher of the Koran, the Moslem holy book, said he was prepared to go back as a guerrilla fighter to regain his home and his property. “I can pray, but I also know how to fight.

Vengeance will never be forgotten,” the man told reporters who watched the refugees crossing into Arab-held territory. Many refugees said the Israelis used a combination of harassment and force in driving them out of their villages.

One 70-year-old farmer who crossed with his family of 10 said the Israelis used bulldozers to knock down all the houses in his village near Jerusalem with the exception of three dwellings, which they used as observation posts.

“We told them we were willing to live under Israeli rule provided we could stay on our land,” he said, “But they said only ‘Go to Nasser.

Go to Hussein.’” … One refugee, 45-year-old farmer Abdel Khalim Hamoud from Beitour near Jerusalem, brought the five women in his family over the river because he said they were too frightened by the Israeli soldiers.

How this transcription was made

Transcribed from a scan of the printed column. NOTHING ON THIS SCAN NAMES THE NEWSPAPER and no date is printed on it, so both the publication and the date rest on the slide label. The label's spelling, 'The York Dispatch', matches the archive's existing spelling exactly, so nothing here touches canon; but the attribution itself is the label's, not the page's. The date is corroborated by the dateline, 'ON THE RIVER JORDAN, Jordan, June 21, AP', and by the text's 'since the Middle East war broke out two weeks ago' - the war began on 5 June 1967 - which fits same-day publication in an evening paper. THE EXCERPT CONTAINS ONE ELISION, marked with an ellipsis, so that the one named refugee sits inside the record's press text. The printed comma in 'he said, “But they said only' is as set and has not been repaired. 'Driven From Homes' is set in quotation marks above the headline as a kicker, not a deck, so the deck field is empty. Read from crops magnified to between eleven and fourteen times page scale.

Cite this clipping

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