Typhus

When Weapons of Mass Destruction are mentioned in today's society, the first names on the majority of lips include Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iraqi Kurdistan and perhaps World War One gas attacks, however, there is another almost unknown use of biological WMDs against a civilian population. The perpetrator may be a surprise to many. Let us travel back to Palestine, 1948.

The British Army are preparing to leave Palestine, having illegally handed the territory to Zionists who are in the process of creating Israel. On the 23rd of April 1948, Zionist forces occupied the Palestinian city of Haifa, and commenced relentless mortar fire upon the walled fortress city of Acre.

Acre, a city capable of withstanding the bombardment for some time, had one known weakness. Water.

Fed via aqueduct from Kabris, a village ten kilometers to the north, Acre had no dedicated water supply, and was completely dependent on this aqueduct for drinking, washing, even the agricultural water supply, when not supplemented by rainfall, was dependent upon this aqueduct.

The Zionists were attacking Acre from the landed side from Haifa, however, whether by official instruction or independent Zionist action, it was decided that the walled fortress city was capable of withstanding even concentrated attack for some prolonged period. This was not acceptable.

The Zionists, in their zeal and rush to drive the Palestinian Arabs from Acre, by either emigration or genocide, came to a new solution to the Acre problem. At some point along the aqueduct, assuredly where it passed through Zionist controlled territory, the water supply was poisoned with Typhoid.

ICRC files now available, under reference (ICRC G59/1/GC; G3/82), sent by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate de Neuron, from 6th May - 19th May 1948 describe both the situation within Acre, and the suspected source of the sudden Typhoid outbreak.

Typhoid is a bacterial illness contracted through the consumption of contaminated food and drink (remembering all aspects of Acre's water came via aqueduct, with no native water supply) and found in enormous concentration in feces of infected patients, it is a hugely communicable, difficult to treat condition.

In today's medical scientific world, Typhoid, in many instances, can be treated with IV antibiotics such as Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin). In 1948, however, these drugs had only been discovered in the previous twelve months, and certainly not available in mass quantities.

What followed was the first recorded use of modern biological WMDs, for which no nation or individual has ever been held to account.

ICRC files describe 50 British soldiers contracting Typhoid from infected water, however, these soldiers were rushed to Allied hospitals were the newly discovered drug, Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin) was in small supply, and put at the British disposal.

The inhabitants of Acre however, were offered no such assistance, and the British, keen to avoid another embarrassment in the Middle East, turned a blind eye and continued their Middle East withdrawal.

What is important to note is the ICRC reports make clear what they believed to be the genuine cause of the outbreak when water borne Typhoid was discovered in Acre, but not in the water source from which the city was fed. ICRC reports stress that they firmly believed the outbreak was not due to over crowding, nor to any unhygienic living condition within the beleaguered city.

When National Socialist Germany was accused of the murder of 6 million European jews, then, as now, the asking for proof of the claim, beyond mere hearsay, was met with derision, propaganda, and for many, imprisonment or execution at the show triald at Nuremberg.

It again seems that there is one legal set of principles for the Jewish people, where fact and proof was not required, and another for all other peoples, destroying any chance of equal rights, equal burden of proof, or even respect within the two respective spheres.