Saturday, August 6, 2016

Too Many Skeletons in the Closet

1) "More than 400 government documents have gone missing from the [UK] National Archives in the last 4 years. They include Foreign Office files from the 1970s* on 'military and nuclear collaboration with Israel' and a 1947 letter from Winston Churchill." (More than 400 government files missing from National Archives, Tom Bateman, bbc.com, 3/8/16)

2) "Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country's state archives move online... Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks this week the 49th anniversary of the 1967 war, when it seized and occupied Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. Many of the the records to which access is being denied refer to that war and the first years of Israel's military rule over Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza... Nonetheless, some of the declassified material was revealing. Uzi Narkiss, who headed the army's central command at the time, suggested that he and other commanders hoped to ethnically cleanse most of the territories under cover of fighting. He told fellow officers: 'Within 72 hours we'll drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank'... One Israeli academic... has estimated that up to a third of records relating to the 1948 war that were declassified have been put under lock again. Given the large number of documents, many had yet to be examined by researchers." (Why Israel is blocking access to its archives, Jonathan Cook, aljazeera.com, 9/6/16)

[*1970-74 - Conservatives/ Heath; 1974-79 - Labour/ Wilson & Callaghan; 1979-83 - Conservatives/ Thatcher]

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