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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋu |
Ma•a•rivꞋ, in its third editorial, refers to the Cohen-Kedmi Commission of Inquiry's report on the disappearance of Yemenite children in the early years of the state and says, "Its conclusions – mainly the one which determined that the children were not kidnapped – cannot comfort the families that lost their children." The editors laud former Supreme Court Justice Kedmi and the work of his commission, and declare, "With all of the pain and sorrow, one must come to terms with the fact that this mystery will, in all likelihood, never be fully solved."
hâ-ÂrꞋëtz writes: "During the last seven years, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the disappearance of Yemenite children in the early 1950s conducted comprehensive and thorough detective work. Now, with the publication of the report this week, it can be said that the investigation into the affair has truly been exhaustive. There is no solace in the report for that minority of families who did not get a report on the deaths of their children and the burial places. But the vast majority of families received reports of the documentation that was found."
The Jerusalem Post (Israel's only English national newspaper, very few Israeli readers) writes:
"Yemenite leaders, including MK [member of KᵊnësꞋët] Ar•i•yeihꞋ Ga•mᵊl•iy•eilꞋ (Shas [Sᵊphâ•râd•iꞋ Kha•reid•iꞋ political party]), called the report a ‘whitewash…'
"The commission also found proof of death regarding all but 33 of the babies who disappeared in Israel. (Of another 20 babies that were claimed to have disappeared in the embarkation camp in Yemen before reaching Israel, 13 were unaccounted for by the commission.)
"The commission said it was possible some or all of the unaccounted for babies had been given out for adoption…
"During the first years of their absorption, the Yemenite immigrants lived in tents in absorption camps. Because many of the children were sick and malnourished, all of them were taken out of their homes and placed in permanent structures inside the camps… the staff… who were mainly Ash•kᵊnazꞋim…
"In the second stage, the immigrants were moved to transitional housing neighborhoods, and the children lived with them at home.
"Some 200 children ‘disappeared' from the children's homes in the absorption camps, and the rest ‘disappeared' from hospitals during both phases of absorption from 1949 until 1954…
"During the period of the absorption camps, we must consider the authorities who decided to keep the babies in special houses, [the board of directors of the Jewish Agency] and the managers of the houses as responsible for the failure to keep up the contact between the parents and their babies, both with regard to the babies who died and those who, because of the failure to maintain contact, became ‘abandoned' and therefore 'candidates' for adoption,' wrote the commission members.
"They also held the Jewish Agency responsible for the second period, after the children's houses were dismantled and the babies lived at home and were taken directly to the hospital in cases of illness…
"Ga•mᵊl•iy•eilꞋ charged the Commission of Inquiry ‘abused its office in the gravest way and is a collaborator in the [Ash•kᵊnazꞋim] Establishment's whitewash. What happened then and is happening now is an organized crime on the part of the Establishment. It's obvious they stole the children. I don't deny that some of the children died, but most of them were kidnapped and put out for adoption."
"The report of the Cohen-Kedmi Commission of Inquiry into the disappearance of Yemenite children has soundly rejected claims of a conspiracy to kidnap children and hand them over to other families for adoption. But even if such horrific accusations have been disproven, the report reveals a pattern of paternalism and neglect that rendered such conspiracy theories hard to reject for so long."
Without even addressing the criminal disorganization or cruel haughtiness acknowledged by the Kahan-Qedmi Commission, the sheer – and confirmed – negligence in "losing" numerous babies, most (if not all) of whom were Tei•mân•imꞋ (Yemenites), is tantamount to – and perhaps was active – complicity in the "disorganized" (as opposed to organized) abductions, and both criminal and racist in its dimension. While no "organized government involvement" in an abduction network may be provable at this late date, I remain unconvinced that there were no "unorganized" individuals who carried out a number of such abductions.
To whitewash the criminal negligence acknowledged even by the Kahan-Qedmi Commission constitutes a second, contemporary, crime; a crime of today that cannot be blamed on any chaos existing in the early years of the Israeli state. The platitudes offered by the Ash•kᵊnazꞋim press, still paternalistic and neglectful, ring hollow and hypocritical.
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