Kfar Kassem massacre

The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim (multiple transliterations possible: Kafr/Kfar Kassem/Qassem/Qasim, etc) October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israeli Border Police and resulted in 49 dead, including 15 women and 11 children aged 8 to 15.

On that day, the Suez War had just begun. Although Jordan was not involved in the war, it was expected and hoped that Jordan would enter the conflict on Egypt's side (Morris, Righeous Victims, p.289). Therefore troops were stationed along the Israeli-Jordanian frontier. A brigade of the Border Police led by Colonel Issachar Shadmi was ordered to prepare itself to defend a section close to the border known as the "Little Triange". The Little Triangle was a number of villages close to the border, not far from Tel Aviv, were about 40,000 Israeli Arab citizens lived.

The same day, on Shadmi's initiative, a nighly curfew was imposed upon all Arab villages in the area close to the Jordanian border from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. He summoned Major February 29, 1959) found him guilty of a minor administrative offence and fined him one grush (a small coin). The New York Herald Tribune of February 27, 1959 reported that Shadmi was sentenced to "a token fine of two cents for exceeding his authority by imposing an absolute curfew on an Arab village in Israel in 1956".

All of the guilty were out of prison by November 1959, due to presidential pardons or remissions. Soon after his release, Malinki was promoted and put in charge of security for the top secret Dimona nuclear reactor. Dahan got a job as a manager of the sale of Israel's government bonds in a European capital.

As a result of the Kafr Qasim case, the Israeli Supreme Court made a landmark ruling on the obligation of soldiers to disobey manifestly illegal orders. Judge Halevy stated that "The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: 'Prohibited!'."

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