Former zionist cmdr: We razed entire villages in 1948

A former Israeli army commander has confessed to razing entire Arab villages in the Nakba that led to the creation of “Israel” on the land of Palestine.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Pundak said in an interview with the Israeli army radio Monday on the occasion of his 100th birthday, “My conscience is at ease with that, because if we hadn’t done so, then there would be no state by now. There would be a million more Arabs.”

Pundak was the commander of the 53rd Battalion of the Givati Brigade during the Nakba and went on to supervise the establishment of the Armored Corps. He was also Ambassador in Tanzania and a founder of Arad.

In reply to a question about his keenness to lecture Israeli soldiers despite his old age, he said: “Israel is in danger today exactly as it was in 1948. If Jews do not fight as they did during the war of independence the state will be in danger.”

“War unites the Jewish people,” he added.

He spoke with pain of the 145 soldiers who were killed under his command over the years, and said that if they woke up miraculously and saw the division in today’s Israel, “they would run back to their graves.”