Why VE-Day in Algeria commemorates the Gaza-style massacre of Arab Muslim civilians

Eighty years since the end of the Second World War in Europe will be commemorated all over the world on May 8th. Numerous nations will remember the most cataclysmic conflict in human history, and the multiple horrors that led up to the defeat of the Nazis.

In Algeria, the focus will certainly be on the fall of the Third Reich. Almost 30,000 Algerians were mobilised into the French Army, and some 7500 of them died battling Adolf Hitler’s forces. Among those who excelled were soldiers from the 7th Algerian Rifle Regiment, who were mainly from the city of Sétif.

Despite this, the return home of the 7th RTA heroes in time for VE-Day (Victory in Europe Day), 1945, did not stop it turning into one of the blackest periods in North African history. After so many Algerians made the ultimate sacrifice for the Allies in the fighting against Germany, many more were then slaughtered in some of the worst civilian mass killings ever.

The Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres saw the French authorities who then ran Algeria as a settler colony launch ferocious attacks on the indigenous population, as a collective punishment for dissent. An exact figure for those killed and wounded was always covered up, but evidence-backed assessments today put it at around 45,000. Many victims were children and babies who were bombed to pieces alongside their mothers in what has been described as a genocide.

Regular French Army units supported by armed settlers turned the three northeastern provincial cities, and surrounding countryside, into bloodbaths. Their principal targets were Algerian Muslims, and all the technology of the West’s burgeoning industrial security apparatus was used to obliterate them.

OPINION: Israel should note what happened to France when it tried to subjugate Algeria by massacring its indigenous population

Such facts have seen many comparing the atrocities to Israel’s non-stop killing and maiming of Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank. As 80 years ago, the Israelis are using overwhelming savagery, combined with unlimited weaponry supplied by compliant allies, and especially the United States, to carry out acts of collective punishment. They too have  been branded a genocide, while  causing horror around the world.

Meanwhile, Israeli propagandists use grotesque jargon to try and pretend that never-ending barbarity against the most vulnerable members of society is a fitting reaction to any form of resistance.

The Algerian massacres of 1945 started after the May 8th VE-Day gathering in Sétif turned into a protest against European settlers who were known as pieds-noirs, for black feet. Such colonials had been exported to Algeria when it was the pride of the French Empire – not just a conquered land turned into a trading outpost, but a fully-fledged extension of mainland France, complete with members of the Paris parliament.

One of the principal roles of the pieds-noirs and supporting military was to extinguish the traditional make up of Algerian society. This meant Arabs and Berbers being viewed, at best, as a servant class, as their land was stolen, and any hopes of national self-determination crushed. At worst, if angry voices turned into violent resistance – as often happened under military occupation – then savage repression was triggered immediately. The coloniser’s vengeance was never proportional – it just meant massacring as many people as possible, however innocent of any wrongdoing.

In 1945, tensions were at boiling point. The Second World War had intensified resentment against French occupiers who were nominally committed to the global fight for liberty from dictators such as Hitler, while hanging on to their colonies. Algiers had literally become the capital of Free France in 1943, yet Algerian nationalists seemed no nearer their dream of an independent homeland.

When Algerians peacefully unfurled anti-colonial banners and waved Algerian flags in Séfif on VE-Day, they came under the live fire of local gendarmes. This led to rioting, which spread to other parts of the country. Accounts are blurred, but it is estimated that around 100 colonial settlers were killed, and about the same number wounded, in fighting that lasted until late June.

READ: Palestinian prisoner rights group: Israel arrested 550 Palestinians in April, 52 Children

In turn, the French unleashed hell in a campaign of mass reprisals. They organised a strategy of ratissage – “raking over” Muslim villages to “restore order”, according to the propaganda messages. Beyond ground troops carrying out search-and-destroy missions, dozens of bombers dropped tons of bombs on hundreds of villages, while Navy ships in the Mediterranean joined in the shelling. Crimes ranged from the random shootings of civilians to the use of primitive gas chambers to wipe out hundreds of them at once. Mass graves enabled the French to hide the corpses as quickly as possible.

In this sense, the parallels with Israel’s response to the Hamas-led ground raid from Gaza of October 7th 2023 are unmistakable. Almost 1200 Israelis were killed, including unarmed civilians and members of the security services. Some were victims of the so-called Hannibal Directive, a procedure which condones the Israeli army killing their own if it prevents soldiers being kidnapped. In turn, the number of Palestinian raiders dispatched on that one day alone was 1609. Since then, well over 50,000 Palestinians are recorded killed, with many more maimed, or unaccounted for under the rubble of villages and towns that have been completely destroyed.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been an appallingly asymmetrical one since 1948. This is principally because of Israel’s high-tech armoury, and its determination to – like the French before them – view all Arab Muslims as a underclass who are easily disposed of. Thus, any act of armed resistance led by Hamas – whether the taking of hostages or the firing of rockets towards Israel – becomes an alleged justification to eradicate all living Palestinians.

In recent weeks, direct and illegal attacks on medics, aid workers, broadcasters, and a host of other innocents, have all been part of Israel’s onslaughts that have further destroyed its international reputation. Israeli leaders including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself are the subject of criminal arrest warrants, and its pretence to being a “civilised” western-style democracy is viewed with disgust.

Israeli mouthpieces who appear in the media to try and mitigate the carnage meanwhile use expressions such as “the right to defend ourselves,” without once conceding that the Palestinians have a legal and moral right to do exactly the same thing. This is especially so following almost 80 years of brutal military occupation underpinned by unlawful land theft and ethnic cleansing.

READ: Israeli army calls up tens of thousands of reservists to expand offensive in Gaza

As in Algeria in 1945, there are obscene attempts to try and pretend that the vast majority of Palestinians are combatants, and that all of the population’s homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and even tented camps are “command and control centres” full of arms. No evidence is ever offered showing how the poorest communities in the Middle East allegedly managed to set up this advanced military infrastructure, and then maintain it.

Nor do the Israelis explain why “human shields” (more deceitful jargon that the propagandists use all the time) would be used to try and deter notoriously savage soldiers who evidently never have any qualms whatsoever about killing civilians, including thousands of infants. Social media is full of Israeli Defense Force operatives – including ones from countries such as Britain and America – boasting about their atrocities.

On the contrary, the Israeli PR machine simply pours out misinformation, as happened in March, when it lied repeatedly about the cold-blooded murder of 15 paramedics in Gaza. The Israeli military tipped the bodies into a mass grave, before their depravity was exposed by footage on a retrieved mobile phone that had belonged to one of the dead medics.

After the Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres, France’s wartime leader, Charles de Gaulle, also instructed his Interior Minister, Adrien Tixier, to “bury the whole affair”, and it took years for the truth to come out. This was, of course, a long time before instant video filming and other technological breakthroughs made it much easier to track and record crimes against humanity in real time, as in Gaza now.

Despite this, the savagery of 1945 ultimately strengthened the resolve of aggrieved Algerians. The resistance movement grew stronger and more effective, and achieved ultimate victory in 1962, when the French lost the most treasured jewel in their Empire.

As the Israelis pursue their genocidal policies across occupied Palestine, while continuing to illegally grab land, they might want to use VE-Day to reflect on French history, and how a seemingly indestructible, ruthless oppressor was finally defeated.

OPINION: The massacre of Algerians in Paris on 17 October 1961 diminishes France’s reputation as a civilised nation

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