Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin has had some noxious epithets hurled at him, such as “lying Jew-boy,” “dirty lackey” and “traitor.” He's been told, “Damn you, Arab agents,” “You’re a zero” and “Go be president of Gaza,” he said in his speech from the Knesset podium at the opening of the winter session Oct. 27.

The president didn’t list the specific events that angered his critics, but the residents of Kafr Qasim are convinced that Rivlin was referring (at least partly, but perhaps principally) to his participation in the previous day's ceremony commemorating 58 years since the massacre in the village.

On Oct. 29, 1956, the first day of the campaign int, a border police battalion was sent to Kafr Qasim to enforce the curfew imposed on all the villages of the Triangle, in preparation for a possible war with Jordan. Col. Issachar Shadmi, the commander of the brigade positioned in the region, decided on his own to move up the curfew's start time without warning the residents in advance. The results were tragic: When residents returned to their homes from work, 43 were shot to death, including women and children. Another four were killed in the village and many others were wounded.

The State of Israel, led by Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, at first tried to hide the massacre from the public, but without success. Due to public pressure, 11 officers and soldiers were put on trial. Eight of them were convicted and received prison sentences of seven to 17 years. But after only one year, then-President Yitzhak Ben Zvi granted them a pardon and they were released. Since then, the residents of Kafr Qasim have been demanding that the State of Israel explicitly apologize for the massacre.