Israel Matzav

44 years ago today: 'Palestinian' terrorism strikes in California

Many of you may recognize the street scene between the King David Hotel and the David's Citadel Hotel. Some of you may even recognize the man in the picture - Robert F. Kennedy - who was assassinated by a 'Palestinian' terrorist and died 44 years ago today, June 6. But this picture is much older. It's from 1948, and Bobby Kennedy had ridden in a Haganah convoy to get to besieged Jerusalem where the picture was taken. He had suffered the wrath of his father for coming here (Joe Kennedy was a notorious anti-Semite), and his fiancee broke their engagement over the trip (he married her sister Ethel instead). Here's some of what I wrote about Kennedy four years ago.

Forty years ago this week, on the first Gregorian calendar anniversary of the Six Day War's outbreak, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated by a 'Palestinian' from Jordan named Sirhan Sirhan. I can still remember my parents waking me up the next morning turning on the television and seeing Frank Mankewicz, Kennedy's press secretary, standing on the roof of a car in the parking lot of a Los Angeles hospital describing the wounds from which Kennedy would later die. I will never forget that week - on Friday of that same week a boy in my class was hit by a car and killed. I was in 6th grade.

But twenty years earlier, just before the British Mandate came to an end, Bobby Kennedy came to Israel (then known as Palestine) as a special correspondent for the Boston Post, a paper whose name I recognize but which I don't really remember. His dispatches were published sixty years ago this week. This week, the Jerusalem Post published excerpts of the dispatches Bobby (pictured above near the King David Hotel in Jerusalem) wrote from Jerusalem and which were published in full by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. What's amazing about it is that Kennedy's father was one of the biggest anti-Semites in America, but that didn't rub off on Bobby. I'm going to give you one small excerpt to whet your appetites and then you must go and read the whole thing.

Now, a series of videos captures the events of Bobby Kennedy's assassination, shortly after declaring victory in the California primary (Hat Tip: The Corner). I want to show you a couple of the ten videos. Here's the one with the assassination itself. (For the history buffs, the one before it is one to see - it's amazing how much things have changed in the last 44 years).

Let's go to the videotape.



Can you imagine such confusion today? It continues in the next video (which I am posting below).

Let's go to the videotape.



And here's the announcement of Senator Kennedy's death.

Let's go to the videotape.



As many of you know, Senator Kennedy was murdered by a 'Palestinian,' Sirhan Sirhan, who was seeking vengeance for the Six Day War, which had occurred the previous year on the same date on the Gregorian calendar. Sirhan's death sentence was commuted when California abolished the death penalty, and despite several requests for parole, he remains in a California prison.

Robert Kennedy's assassination was thus the first 'Palestinian' terror attack on US soil.

Labels: Palestinian terrorism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:43 PM