ABSTRACT
Introduction On 22 December 2007, the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, ran a short news item about Israeli President Shimon Peres apologizing for the Kafr Qasem massacre of 1956, in which Border Police Officers killed 47 residents of the village (Ha’aretz 2007). ‘A terrible event happened here in the past, and we are very sorry for it,’ Peres said. ‘I have chosen to visit Kafr Qasem, where in the past a very serious event occurred that we greatly regret . . ..’ According to the newspaper, Kafr Qasem’s mayor Sami Issa interprets these words as an apology, ‘“we regret” and “we apologize” are the same thing,’ he said. Speaking with local leaders, Peres also used the word apology according to the president’s spokeswoman. Peres is the first sitting president to ‘apologize’ for the massacre (Segev 2007). In his comment on Peres’ apology five days later, Israeli historian Tom Segev highlighted the links between this massacre and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem through existing plans to expel the village’s inhabitants to Jordan (Segev 2007).2
