Deir Yassin? Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre?

A word re researchers on the battle of Deir Yassin.

After reading from both sides....

1. It happened BEFORE the modern State of Israel was established.

2.  Accounts tell of at least some of Deir Yassin Arabs in arms and in battle, battling this group of 100 of early Zionists fighters (at the time, radicals).

If to take an example from a source that quotes both sides, it might explain even a panic and total fear by the Zionist side (which might have led to a spiriling fight). As they described Arabs hiding guns in their robes surprisingly firing at their captors after surrendering:

Jordan, Second Edition, Hal Marcovitz, Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., 2009, Culture, p.39

By the spring of 1948, there appeared to be no hope for a peaceful resolution. Both sides took up arms. One of the first major battles was at Deir Yassin, an Arab village that overlooked the highway leading to Jerusalem. 

Deir Yassin was considered strategically important because a well-armed group of soldiers hidden in the village could convoys and troops heading for Jerusalem. About 100 members of a Jewish guerrilla group known as the Irgun attacked the town on April 9.

They were met with armed resistance by villagers. The siege took hours.. Both sides claimed ... were committed during the battle: Jews declared that Arabs who surrendered hid guns in their robes, then opened fire on their unsuspected captors....

3. So much for the myth of "unarmed": for instance, in the New York Times at the immediate date, April-10-1948, it tells about: "stronghold taken ..." And "In house to house fighting."

4. The village was chosen for being an important strategic point.

5. It would be foolish to say that each and every single person within the groups of these secular armed Zionist fighters involved there were all righteously peaceful or non-aggressive like some Yeshiva boys. 

6. Even critic Benny Morris, as late as 2019, affirms it was in the context of a justified defensive war forced up by Arabs who carried out massacres on civilians.

7. It was in the context of a wave of Arab attacks after Shukeiri's 1947 'bloody' announcement. 

Second answer to the professors - from A. DovBenMeir's desk. June, 2007

The war against the Jewish community began on November 30, 1947 (and not on May 15, 1948). It started a day after the UN resolution and the statement of the Palestinian representative at the UN - Ahmad Shukeiri, that every word included in the UN resolution will be erased with the blood of the Jews.

On that day, seven innocent Jewish citizens traveling on a bus near the city of Lod were killed.  since then, until the date of the tragic event in Deir Yassin (April 1948), thousands of Jews were killed by Palestinians - in attacks on Jewish settlements, Jewish neighborhoods and road transportation.

This was an irregular civil war on the part of the Palestinians, in which the villagers took part and Arab urban youth - in the form of hundreds of organized groups that launched attacks on their Jewish neighbors.

8. It would be illogical to say that it is totally impossible for it to have gone out of hands by some individuals when already in battle, especially if not by direct order. Moreover it is widely established, these fighters helonging to extremists groups, were not well trained. Thus mayhem and disorganization might be inevitable.

9. Even by Arab Palestinian account, this was their 'worst' experience. It seems.

A year later Issa Nakhleh who "charged" /  coined the atrocious sentence along the line of "brutality exceeding" (supposedly) Nazis' atrocities , he has referred to this specifically (as he uses this phrase in his 1964 book exclusively to this case). Sure enough, some 23 yeas later, this Palestine-encyclopedia author denied Hitler killed Jews. 

{Nakhleh's outrageous weird twisted-fantasy line about the case his naked lie "paraded-naked " invention is an example}.

10. Red Cross' Jacques de Reynier report and propagandists who falsely claim in his name:

In de Reynier's report, there's only one singular case about one pregnant woman and that she was shot point blank. He affirms about the fighters "all of them were young, some even adolescents, men and women, armed to the teeth." He did see bad scenes but none confirming the atrocities Issa Nakhleh or his buddy editor  (infamous anti-Jewish long record, as well as the "protocols" publisher, twice) mundo-arabe quoting an Arab reporter that claimed to say Jaques de Reynier affirmed any of their exaggerations including about "many" pregnant women , as well as about a so called "paraded naked" line, is 100% false. It does not appear at de-Reynier and does not appear in any real source.

11. While details of degree of battle and of armed Arabs may remain disputed, the so called follow up retaliation massacre by Arabs of 79 Jews, the ambush on a civilian convoy bringing medical supplies and personnel to Hadassah hospital (April-13-1848) - that was the exact definition of a bloody massacre. Worth mentioning, this humanitarian target was always a place where all were treated there, Arabs, Brits, Jews.

It's striking what newspaper next day reported: "The Arabs, aroused to fury because a large Jewish convoy carrying food to the beleaguered Holy City had slipped through their lines earlier, charged on the small hospital caravan..." 

You read right

12. Background: it's imperative to note, the battle happened mere days after the terrible case of Arab attack on Kfar Etzion massacring many who have surrendered:

 Jordan, Second Edition, Hal Marcovitz, Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., 2009, Culture, p.40

...on May 4 , 1948, the Arab Legion attacked the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion. After a day of fierce fighting, the Arabs were forced to retreat. They returned a week later and laid siege to the settlement for two days, finally overrunning the badly outnumbered defenders.  Kfar Etzion would turn out to be one of the few Jewish losses in the war.

12. There is a strong possibility that details were exaggerated at the height of frictions between the factions. Haganah vs the two groups. Meir Pa'il might have exaggerated in details of rivals' actions.

13. It is all too transparent, the true motive of ardent anti-Israel critics from its left, including the late 1990's wave of those "new historians" or shall we say, rewriters. It almost looks like some competition in that trend. The same reason, they won't talk or talk much about the mentioned massacre at Hadassah hospital convoy.

14. The exaggeration of the episode began by Arab leaders when encouraging their populace to leave Palestine. 

Observation:

It was later on augmented by the what is is known in the Middle East as Arab honor.  A bravado.

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The Truth About Deir Yassin

M. Bard

Today’s violence is a continuation of a long, tragic history of conflict in the Middle East. Many terrible incidents have occurred, but one that is persistently cited, particularly by anti-Israel propagandists, as an example of the Zionists’ hostility toward the Palestinians is the 1948 battle of Deir Yassin. It’s an unpleasant story, but one you should know.

In early 1948, the 150,000 Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem were under constant military pressure; the 2,500 Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade. Jewish convoys tried to reach the city to alleviate a critical food shortage, but Arab forces, which had engaged in sporadic and unorganized ambushes since December 1947, attempted to cut off the highway linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem - the city's only supply route.

The Arabs controlled several strategic vantage points, which overlooked the highway and enabled them to fire on the convoys trying to reach the beleaguered city with supplies. Deir Yassin was situated on a hill, about 2600 feet high, which commanded a wide view of the vicinity and was located less than a mile from the suburbs of Jerusalem.

On April 6, the Haganah launched an operation to open the road to Jerusalem. The village of Deir Yassin was included on the list of Arab villages to be occupied as part of the operation. Three days later, while the Haganah was still engaged in the battle for the nearby town of Kastel, Lehi and the Irgun decided to attack Deir Yassin.

The Irgun and Lehi were underground organizations that had split from the Haganah to wage a more aggressive fight to drive the British out of Palestine. This was to be their first major attack against the Arabs.

More than 100 men from the two groups converged on Deir Yassin. Contrary to revisionist histories that the town was filled with peaceful innocents, residents and foreign troops opened fire on the attackers. One fighter described his experience:

I was among the first to enter the village....At the top of the street I saw a man in khaki clothing running ahead. I thought he was one of ours. I ran after him and told him, "advance to that house." Suddenly he turned around, aimed his rifle and shot. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was hit in the foot

The battle was ferocious and took several hours. The Irgun suffered 41 casualties, including four dead.

Afterward, the Irgun escorted a representative of the Red Cross through the town and held a press conference, unprecedented behavior for a group that later would be accused of committing a massacre. The New York Times reported that more than 200 Arabs were killed, 40 captured and 70 women and children were released. The number of Arab dead, which was invented by an Irgun member, was accepted for 40 years. A study by Palestinian researchers from Bir Zeit University arrived at a figure of 107 Arab civilians dead and 12 wounded, in addition to 13 "fighters," evidence that the number of dead was smaller than claimed and that the village did have troops based there.

In fact, the attackers left open an escape corridor from the village and more than 200 residents left unharmed. After the remaining Arabs feigned surrender and then fired on the Jewish troops, some Jews killed Arab soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. None of the sources specify how many women and children were killed (the Times report said it was about half the victims; their original casualty figure came from the Irgun source), but there were some among the casualties.

Some women were killed because of men who tried to disguise themselves as women. The Irgun commander reported that the attackers "found men dressed as women and therefore they began to shoot at women who did not hasten to go down to the place designated for gathering the prisoners." Another story was told by a member of the Haganah who overheard a group of Arabs from Deir Yassin who said "the Jews found out that Arab warriors had disguised themselves as women. The Jews searched the women too. One of the people being checked realized he had been caught, took out a pistol and shot the Jewish commander. His friends, crazed with anger, shot in all directions and killed the Arabs in the area."

Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi "there was no rape," but Khalidi replied, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror."

Unlike the reaction today of the Palestinian Authority to the murder of Jews, the Jewish Agency immediately expressed its “horror and disgust” upon learning of the civilian casualties. It also sent a letter expressing the Agency's shock and disapproval to Transjordan's King Abdullah.

Arab political leaders hoped exaggerated reports about a “massacre” at Deir Yassin would shock the population of the Arab countries into bringing pressure on their governments to intervene in Palestine. Instead, the immediate impact was to cause Palestinians to flee.

Just four days after the reports from Deir Yassin were published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital, killing 77 Jews, including doctors, nurses, patients, and the director of the hospital. Another 23 people were injured. This massacre attracted little attention and is never mentioned by those who are quick to bring up Deir Yassin.

Deir Yassin remains a staple of anti-Israel propaganda because it was unique.

http://www.mitchellbard.com/articles/deiryassin.html

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ISRAEL’S 50TH, THE NEW HISTORIANS AND NPR

BY: ANDREA LEVIN MAY 11, 1998

Israel’s 50th anniversary with its outpouring of media coverage has been a numbing reminder of journalism’s herd instinct, the tendency of reporters to imitate one another, repeating the same themes and citing the same experts. The line on Israel’s birthday has been that this is a time for some limited upbeat appraisal — the Israeli high-tech sector is extraordinary — but much dour reassessment of Israel’s past.

In this vein many reporters have quoted the "new historians," a self-styled group of Israeli writers who claim to have exposed the falsity of Zionist "myths" about the founding of the nation. Israel, according to writers such as Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev, bears little resemblance to the heroic image purveyed in history books. For these authors the Zionist enterprise is deeply flawed, if not rotten at its heart.

They claim, for example: the Jews were not a vulnerable, outnumbered force in 1948 but a cleverly organized, well-armed military that overwhelmed weaker opponents; the Jews expelled Palestinian Arabs from Mandate Palestine in a violent and calculated plan; the Jews did not face implacable Arab enmity, but passed up promising opportunities for compromise; Palestinian Jews deliberately turned their backs on European Jews in the Holocaust. And more.

All these assertions have been systematically examined and refuted in articles and books by Israeli scholars, including Shabtai Teveth, Itamar Rabinovich, Efraim Karsh and others, but the media have lionized the revisionists and their themes and virtually ignored the refutations and the authorities making them.

In the first weeks of April alone leading up to Israel’s birthday, dozens of articles cited the views of revisionists without any indication their claims have been discredited. Only one reporter, Nicholas Goldberg in Newsday, included the rebuttals.

He quoted Efraim Karsh, Chairman of the Mediterranean Studies Department at Kings College London and author of Fabricating Israeli History. Karsh’s research finds the so-called "new historians" have manipulated and misrepresented original sources, and in effect invented a history to suit their current political agenda.

Nowhere were these revisionist writers cited more deceptively than in an April 9 broadcast on National Public Radio. Correspondent Eric Weiner devoted a long segment to Deir Yassin, an Arab town overrun by Jewish forces fifty years ago to the day. Controversy has raged over whether Arab casualties occurred in the course of a military operation or as a deliberate massacre.

Although it is clear that Arab forces in Deir Yassin were attacking Jewish convoys trying to break the siege of Jerusalem, that the Jews counterattacked trying to dislodge those forces, and that Arab civilians were killed in the course of the conflict, Weiner offers not a word about these issues. Instead, in an unabashedly one-sided presentation he promotes Ilan Pappe’s version, that Jews massacred Arabs there. And he repeats Pappe’s outrageous claim that "massacres were part of a Zionist plan to forcibly expel or kill as many Arabs as possible."

In a particularly scurrilous segment Weiner interviews an Arab eyewitness at Deir Yassin who claims the Jews prevented the Red Cross from treating a badly injured Arab infant whose mother was dead. The NPR reporter offers no corroboration for the claim, nor does he challenge the speaker. Though there are Jewish eyewitnesses who would present the other side, Weiner fails to interview them.

In fact, counter-evidence in the Deir Yassin story has been offered repeatedly not only by Jewish but by Arab sources. For example, as the Jerusalem Report noted in an April 2, 1998 article:

In a BBC television series, "Israel and the Arabs: the 50 Year Conflict," Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news in 1948, describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (the representative body of the Arabs of British Palestine).

"I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story," recalled Nusseibeh, now living in Amman. "He said, ‘We must make the most of this.’ So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities."

A Deir Yassin survivor identified as Abu Mahmud, said the villagers protested at the time. "We said, ‘There was no rape.’ [Khalidi] said, ‘We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.’"

Weiner, in citing Pappe’s crude revisionist history, casts Pappe as a beleaguered reformer trying — thus far unsuccessfully — to introduce his enlightened version of history in the Israeli school system. Unmentioned are Pappe’s extremist political agenda as an activist in the Israeli Communist party and former candidate in the 1996 Knesset elections on the Communist party ticket. The party platform opposes the Zionist character of Israel and calls for resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of formulas that would entail the dissolution of Israel.

It is unfortunate that a reporter for National Public Radio should offer his audience "news" more reminiscent of Hazem Nusseibeh’s self-confessed 1948 propaganda than of responsible journalism.

Speaking at a conference of Arab-Americans a year ago, NPR Foreign Editor Loren Jenkins assured the audience that 90% of the criticism received at the network faults the coverage for being "pro-Arab." He said the complaints are "overwhelming on one side." Needless to say, Jenkins did not address the bias and distortion in NPR coverage that are the basis of those complaints

https://www.camera.org/article/israel-s-50th-the-new-historians-and-npr/

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Besiege / Yehuda Lapidut - DEIR YASSIN

In mid-March, Gal (Yehoshua Goldschmidt) returned to Jerusalem and was appointed Operations Officer of the Irgun. Gal had served as Commanding Officer of the Fighting Force in Jerusalem till 1946 when, on the wanted list of the British, he was forced to leave for Tel Aviv. He was a daring fighter and had taken part in numerous actions against the British. With his arrival, Irgun activity in Jerusalem took on a new direction. 

At that time, negotiations had begun between and Raanan (Mordechai Raanan-Kaufman), Irgun Commander in the city, and Lehi Commander in Jerusalem, Meir (Yehoshua Zetler), leading to close co-operation between the Irgun and Lehi. This was no mean achievement in light of the resentments and rivalry, which had developed between the two organizations since the 1940 split. 

It was decided to occupy the village of Deir Yassin with a joint force of the Irgun and Lehi. 

Deir Yassin lies on a hill west of Jerusalem, eight hundred meters above sea level, and seven hundred meters from the Jewish neighborhood of Givat Shaul. The Deir Yassin fortified position overlooked the westerly Jewish neighborhoods of Givat Shaul, Bet Hakerem, Yefe Nof, and the road to Bayit Vegan, as well as the section of road linking Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The village served as a halfway site for forces moving up from the Arab villages of Ein Karem and Malha in the south to Kastel and Kolonia, which overlooked the main Jerusalem - Tel Aviv road. 

As mention before, Deir Yassin was listed among the Arab villages to be occupied during this Operation. During the fierce battle for Kastel at the beginning of April, Arab reinforcements had passed through Deir Yassin on their way to the battlefield and had helped to drive out the Jewish occupying force.

When the Haganah command learned of the plan to occupy Deir Yassin, Shaltiel asked Raanan to co-ordinate the operation with the scheduled renewed assault on Kastel. Shaltiel even dispatched identical letters to Raanan and Zetler, in which he approved the operation in advance:1 

To: Raanan 

From: Shaltiel 

I have learned that you intend to carry out an operation against Deir Yassin. I would like to call your attention to the fact that the occupation and holding of Deir Yassin are one of the stages in our overall plan. I have no objection to your carrying out the operation on condition that you are capable of holding on to it. If you are incapable of doing so, I caution you against blowing up the village, since this will lead to the flight of the inhabitants and subsequent occupation of the ruins and the abandoned homes by enemy forces. This will make things difficult rather than contributing to the general campaign and reoccupation of the site will entail heavy casualties for our men. 

An additional argument I would like to cite is that if enemy forces are drawn to the place, this will disrupt the plan to establish an aerodrome there. (Italics mine, Y.L)

When Shaltiel wrote the letter to Raanan, it was already known to the Haganah Intelligence that armed forces, including Iraqi volunteers and Palestinian guerrillas, had entered Deir Yassin. The Mukhtar (head) of the village himself had met with the Haganah liaison in order to inform him that he had no control over the armed forces in the village, and that his promise that Deir Yassin would remain peaceful was no longer biding. 

Deir Yassin was never a peace-seeking village. Akiva Azuly who served as Haganah Second in Command in the Givat Shaul area testifies that shots were fired toward Givat Shaul from time to time.2 On April 3, 1948 fire was opened from Deir Yassin towards the Jewish quarters of Bet Hakerem and Yefe Nof. In addition it was found that the Arabs built fortifications in the village and that a large amount of ammunition was being stored there. A few days before the attack on Deir Yassin there were reports about the presence of foreign fighters in the village, among them Iraqi soldiers and Palestinian guerrillas. 

Research carried out by the University of Bir Zeit3 reveals that Arabs from Deir Yassin participated in violent actions against Jewish targets and that during the battle for Kastel many villagers fought with Abd-el-Kadr el-Husseini. It is also stated in the above research that ditches had been dug at the various entrances to the village, and that more than l00 men had been trained and equipped with rifles and 2 Bren guns. There was also a local guard force at the entrance to the village. 

The armed forces, which had taken over the village, constituted a grave threat not only to the small airfield, which was to be constructed nearby, but also to the adjacent Jewish neighborhoods and to vehicles on the main road to the coastal plain. 

About a week before the operation, I was summoned to a meeting at regional HQ, attended by Raanan, Gal and Giora (Ben-Zion Cohen), who had been appointed commander of the operation. I was assigned to act as his deputy. Raanan explained that the capture of Deir Yassin had both military and political objectives. Militarily speaking, the aim was not only to free the western suburbs of Jerusalem from the threat of Deir Yassin, but also to clearly seize the initiative for once. Occupation of the village would demonstrate to the Arabs that the attacker could also be attacked. It would elevate the morale of the people of Jerusalem and restore their self-confidence. 

Politically speaking, the operation would mark a change in conception and would alter the direction of the war. Action would no longer be reactive, but proactive, with the intention of holding onto battle gains. The world would see that the Jews were not willing to relinquish Jerusalem, but prepared to fight for it. 

I was obliged to curtail my participation in the course then taking place at the villa in Kiryat Shmuel in order to devote my time to preparations for the operation. At a meeting held in Gandhi's home, where the Irgun's regional command was housed, we had a great surprise: Raanan opened a parcel containing new home-made Sten guns which had arrived from Tel Aviv. The fact that the Irgun had progressed to the point where it was capable of manufacturing its own weapons was considered a significant development. Living in Jerusalem under the shadow of the British occupation, we found it hard to grasp that the coastal plain had been enjoying autonomy for the past few months (in accordance with the UN resolution, the British had left the area on February 1, 1948). Gandhi immediately organized wineglasses, and Mother Gandhi opened a barrel of homemade pickled cucumbers. We drank a toast and gorged ourselves on the delicacies laid out before us. Merry from the wine, we asked permission to fire a few rounds from one of the new Stens. Raanan feared that the firing would place us at risk (Gandhi's apartment was in the center of town), but he succumbed to the pressure and eventually allowed us to fire three shots. I was awarded the great honor: we went out onto the balcony and I fired a single shot. When I then set it to fire rounds, it once again emitted a single bullet. This malfunctioning was to recur often, causing us great frustration. 

Returning to the villa late at night, I thought to what a pity it was that they hadn't sent us Bren guns instead of the Stens. Didn't they understand that the underground days, when the submachine-gun was our chosen weapon, were long gone, and that we now needed heavy machine-guns? 

Two days before the Operation we held a daytime briefing with all the section commanders, and later went out on a night patrol. At the first meeting, I made the acquaintance of Avni (Yosef Avni-Danoch), who had recently been released from the Latrun detention camp. His courage in actions against the British had earned him the nickname Abu Jilda, after a notorious Arab brigand of the 1930s. At the briefing location, at the far end of Bet Hakerem, Giora explained the plan of action and the role assigned to each of us. That night we patrolled the route we were to take during the operation, coming very close to the village without attracting attention. We halted only when the dogs began barking, since we feared that they would rouse the guards and we wanted to avoid an exchange of gunfire. The fact that we had succeeded in coming so close to the houses of the village inspired us with confidence and convinced us that the battle would be brief and uncomplicated. 

GOING INTO BATTLE 

On Thursday, April 8, about 80 Irgun fighters assembled at the Etz Hayim base (the Lehi met separately at Givat Shaul). This was the first time that so large a number of underground fighters had gathered openly, without fear of British policemen or soldiers. The atmosphere was festive and our spirits were high; at last we were on the offensive. The fact that two underground movements were collaborating increased our sense of security and solidarity, and in honor of the event we chose the password 'Fighters' Solidarity' (Ahdut Lohemet). 

Raanan, Commander of the Irgun in Jerusalem, opened the meeting. Raanan, tall and impressive, had come to Jerusalem from Petah Tikva, where he was on the wanted list. Raanan surveyed the strategic plan, aimed at liberating the whole of Jerusalem and annexing it to the Jewish state. He emphasized that this was not a punitive action, but the conquest of an enemy target, and that we must avoid causing unnecessary injury. He stressed repeatedly that we must not harm old people, women or children. Moreover, any Arabs who surrendered, including fighters, were to be taken prisoner and not hurt in any way. Raanan related that in order to prevent superfluous casualties, it had been decided that an armored car equipped with a loudspeaker, which would enter the village ahead of the troops before they opened fire, would launch the operation. By this means the villagers would be informed that the village was surrounded by Irgun and Lehi fighters, and would be exhorted to leave for Ein Karem or to surrender. They would also be informed that the road to Ein Karem was open and safe. 

Gal, Irgun Operations Officer in Jerusalem, spoke after Raanan. He explained that the objective was to occupy the village and to hold the position. The plan was to attack in two spearheads: a force of two Irgun platoons would attack from the Bet Hakerem direction, and a platoon of Lehi would attack from Givat Shaul. Another small force, consisting of a section commanded by Menashe (Yehuda Treibish) was assigned to capture the fortified position south of the village (mount Herzl direction), with the aim of preventing Arab reinforcements from Ein Karem and Malha arriving. 

At 2 a.m. the Irgun fighters were driven from the Etz Hayim base to Bet Hakerem. The force moved into the wadi, where the platoons split up, each platoon climbing up the terraced slope to its assigned area of action. 

The Lehi unit assembled at Givat Shaul and proceeded from there towards the target. Some of the force advanced behind the armored car, which was proceeding along the path towards the center of the village. 

Close to 04:45, the village guards spotted suspicious movement. One of them called out in Arabic: 'Mahmoud', and an Irgun fighter, who thought that someone had shouted the password 'ahdut' (solidarity), responded with the second half of the password in Hebrew 'lohemet'. The Arabs opened fire and shots were fired from all sides. 

The armored car advanced along the path to the outskirts of the village, where it encountered a trench and was forced to come to a halt. A message was read out over loudspeaker at the entrance to the village, whilst shots were fired at the car from the adjacent houses. Injuries inside the vehicle were reported and a first-aid unit set out from Givat Shaul. Dvora Simchon, one of the rescue team, was wounded in the arm while attending to the injured. 

The other units launched an onslaught, accompanied by explosions and gunfire. Arab resistance was strong and every house became an armed fortress. Many fighters were injured in the first onslaught, including a number of commanders who had been advancing ahead of their units. 

When the center of the village had been occupied, we concentrated all the wounded in a courtyard and sought ways to evacuate them. Among them was Yiftah (Yehuda Segal), who had been hit in the stomach, but remained fully conscious. When I asked how he was, his reply was unambiguous: "Please do me a favor and shoot me in the head. I can't bear the pain any more." We laid him on a makeshift stretcher (a door which had been ripped from its hinges) and four fighters carried him towards Givat Shaul. It turned out that the road was impassable because of gunfire from the Mukhtar's hilltop house and we were forced to take a roundabout route. Yiftah reached Givat Shaul safely, and was evacuated to hospital from there. Another casualty was Giora, commander of the operation, who was hit in the leg by a bullet fired from one of the houses.

The pace of the battle was slow because we were fighting in a built-up area, and both sides suffered heavy losses. In order to silence the source of fire, our fighters were forced to use hand-grenades, and in some cases even to blow up houses. Shots were fired from all sides and we rapidly half our fighters, and our ammunition was seriously depleted. 

A report on the course of the battle was transmitted by courier to headquarters at Givat Shaul (neither the Irgun nor the Lehi had wireless equipment). When news of the steadily growing number of casualties and the shortage of ammunition became known, several Lehi people went to the Schneller camp and asked a Palmach unit to come to our aid. The troops set out in an armored car, equipped with a machine-gun and a 2" mortar. On arrival at the village they fired several shells and machine-gun rounds at the Mukhtar's house. At that very moment and without prior co-ordination with the Palmach, Avni charged and occupied the Mukhtar's house. All firing ceased and occupation of the village was complete. Avni, who had been wounded, was bandaged and evacuated to hospital. 

After the Mukhtar's house had been taken, I went out to patrol the village. I climbed to the top of one of the two-storey houses to survey the surroundings. On the roof I was greeted by the sight of the corpse of an Arab fighter, an Iraqi judging from his uniform, with a rifle beside him and an ammunition belt on his body. I stood there, hypnotized. A vision passed before me of comrades who had been killed and injured in a war, which we had never wanted in the first place and for which we (and the Arabs) were paying heavily in terms of human life. Could we really not settle the dispute without bloodshed? The whistle of a bullet passing nears my head, which buried itself in the wall opposite. I snatched the rifle from the ground and jumped down into the courtyard. The sniping continued well into the evening. 

Towards evening a unit arrived from town to take over the duty of guarding the village. From Givat Shaul I went by motorbike to visit the wounded in hospital. To my shock, I discovered that I had forgotten to remove the rifle from my shoulder. This was the first time that I had driven through the City Street openly armed. It was Friday evening, and Jews in festive attire were making their way to synagogue. The crowds cheered as I passed a clear expression of solidarity with the underground movements fighting for the city. When I reached our provisional hospital, I was happy to meet Nurit who had come to nurse the wounded. I gave her a souvenir, a handsome 'shabariyeh' (the dagger the Arabs wear in their belts), which I had brought from the battle. 

After the battle we learned what had happened to Menashe's unit. On reaching the fortified position overlooking the road to Ein Karem, they had encountered heavy fire. One of the fighters was killed and two were wounded, and after their ammunition had run out they had withdrawn to Bet Hakerem. On their way to the battle, they had met a Haganah unit, which had received prior word of the action and wished them success. 

Only years later was permission given to publicize the report written at the time by the Haganah Intelligence Officer, describing the role of the Haganah in the battle for Deir Yassin. It reads, in part, as follows:4 

In the morning hours, it was decided to extend fire support. This support took two forms: 

a) Blocking the way to Arab reinforcements coming up from Malha and Ein Karem. 

b) A rear attack on Arabs dug in on the western slope of the village. 

The two actions were carried out from the Masrafa (Mt Herzl) positions. In order to enable the forces to attack from the rear, a Spandau machine-gun was brought. The Arabs were taken by surprise by the gunfire and suffered considerable losses when forced to reveal themselves to our positions. (Italics mine Y.L.)

When the fighting ended, it was discovered that hundreds of villagers had retreated to Ein Karem, exploiting the fact that the road was open. Those who remained in the village surrendered and were taken prisoner. The prisoners, mostly women and children, were loaded onto trucks and taken to East Jerusalem, where they were handed over to their Arab brethren. 

On Friday evening it was brought to Raanan's attention that foreign journalists were roaming the village seeking information about what had happened. He asked Dan (Kalman Bergman), a member of the Irgun H.Q. in Jerusalem, to call an improvised press conference, at which he described the course of the battle. He said that the action had been carried out with the knowledge of the Haganah, and that stringent instructions had been given to the fighters not to harm women and children. Dan reported that heavy losses had been incurred because the fighting had been conducted in a built-up area, and said that those inhabitants who surrendered had been taken prisoner and transferred to East Jerusalem. He concluded by saying:5

The capture of Deir Yassin is the first stage. We intend to attack, to occupy and to hold fast until all of Eretz Israel belongs to the Jewish State... and if the British come to the village, we will fight them.

The last comment reflected the fear that the British would take advantage of the fact that a large number of Irgun and Lehi fighters were concentrated in the village to try to attack them. In fact, it later transpired that the High Commissioner had consulted with the British commander and had indeed decided to bomb the village. However, by the time technical arrangements had been made for the air attack (RAF planes had already been transferred to neighboring countries), the Irgun and Lehi forces had left the village. The British considered using ground forces, but rejected the idea for fear of incurring heavy losses. 

Fear of a RAF bombardment led Raanan to inform Shaltiel that the Irgun could no longer hold on to the village. They withdrew three days later and were replaced by the Haganah. 

The day after Deir Yassin was taken, enemy guns positioned at Nebi Samuel shelled Givat Shaul. This was the first bombardment of Jerusalem and it caused great panic. Some residents packed their belongings and moved in with relatives in other parts of the city. This was the first of a series of bombardments, which intensified when the Arab Legion entered Jerusalem. They were to claim many casualties and cause great disruption to life in the city. On that first Saturday, however, we made the important discovery that Jerusalem's stone houses were impervious to shelling and that the city could not be subdued by that means alone. 

Word of the occupation of Deir Yassin spread through the city and the Jews of Jerusalem greeted it joyfully. Not only were the western neighborhoods safe, but also the Jews had taken initiative. The capture of the village marked the completion of the breakthrough of Operation Nachshon, and instilled New Hope in the hearts of Jerusalemites. The fighting force that returned from the battle was cheered by a large crowd, which thronged the streets. The slogan 'Ahdut Lohemet' (Fighters Solidarity) came to symbolize the new offensive stance against the Arabs and the Irgun became a focus of renewed pride for Jerusalemites. 

FACTS AND COMMENTARIES 

So much has been written and said about what happened at Deir Yassin, that the battle waged on the morning of April 9 has taken on mythological proportions. Careful analysis of the events is necessary in order to distinguish between fact and fiction. 

The first issue needing clarification concerns the number of Arab casualties in the battle. 

On Saturday night, April 10, the Irgun radio station 'Kol Zion Halohemet' broadcasting from Tel Aviv announced that, according to a wireless report from the Irgun HQ in Jerusalem, the attackers had suffered four dead (the number later rose to five, when Yiftah died) and 32 wounded. According to the report 240 Arabs had been killed 6 

This news item was in fact inaccurate: the Irgun commander in Jerusalem had deliberately exaggerated the number to undermine the enemy. In his testimony, Raanan related that when he radioed HQ in Tel Aviv, he had been unaware of the precise number of casualties. He had invented a number, and had been aware that the true figure was much lower. Exaggerated reports of enemy casualties, he argued, would instill fear in Palestine's Arabs and deter them from attacking Jews. 7 It is interesting to note that the Supreme Arab Committee, in its turn, believed that claims of a large number of Arab casualties would lead them to seek vengeance and only render them more militant. Hence the Committee further exaggerated the story and reported 254 Arabs killed. 

Research conducted some time later, based on Arab sources, reveals that the number of Arab dead did not exceed one hundred.8 An accurate body count of the Arab victims was conducted after the battle by two physicians, Dr. Z.Avigdori (who was Chairman of the Palestine Physicians Association, Jerusalem branch), and his deputy, Dr. A. Druyan. These physicians came to the village and asked permission to examine the corpses. They told the Irgun commander that they had been sent by the Jewish Agency to report on any mutilations or other atrocities perpetrated by Irgun and Lehi fighters on the Arabs. They asked to be able to move freely about the village so that they could report only what they saw with their own eyes. They went from house to house, unimpeded, counting the corpses and checking the cause of death. The report, which is filed in the IDF Archives, attests that there were no more than 46 corpses in total. In addition, they reported that bullets or bombs had caused the deaths, and that "all the bodies were dressed in their own clothes, limbs were whole and we saw no signs of mutilation." 9 

However, all publications reporting on the Deir Yassin affair quoted the initial Irgun figure of 240. Those who knew the truth preferred not to reveal it, since their propaganda needs were better served by the inflated figure. 

The enhanced prestige of the Irgun was anathema to the leaders of the Yishuv. The occupation of the village as such, and the Irgun report that such actions would continue, were irreconcilable with the treaty with King Abdullah and with Ben-Gurion's plans for the future of Jerusalem. It should be recalled that the Zionist Executive was then discussing the possibility of an accord with the Irgun, to which the Mapai leaders were vehemently opposed. 

This was the background to the smear campaign launched by the Jewish Agency in the wake of the occupation of Deir Yassin. Three days after the battle, David Shaltiel published a damning leaflet in which he ignored the physicians' report and that of the Haganah unit, which had taken part in the battle. The leaflet overlooked the fact that Shaltiel had known of, and even approved, the action and had claimed in a letter to Raanan that the conquest of Deir Yassin was part of the Haganah's plan. It described the Irgun and Lehi fighters as a band of robbers, whose aim was murder and looting. He declared, among other things, that: 10

The Irgun and Lehi were not aiming at a military operation when they set out on Friday morning, although in their whispered propaganda they broadcast the falsehood that they were going to save Kastel. If they had had real military objectives and not mere propaganda aims, they would have moved against the nests of marauders in the Jerusalem district, where they could have helped ease the heavy pressure on the capital. But they chose one of the quiet villages nearby... and for an entire day Irgun and Lehi troops slaughtered women, children and men, not in the course of a military action, but deliberately and directly for purposes of butchery and murder alone....

The Irgun hastened to reply, and issued a leaflet, denying the Haganah charges one by one. The leaflet states that: 11

Deir Yassin was captured after heavy fighting. Our fighters were shot at from almost every house with rifles and machine-guns. The large number of our casualties, several dozen, bears witness to this, as does the quantity of arms which fell into our hands and the number of Syrian and Iraqi dead, who were part of the regular army force there. Our troops conducted themselves, as no other military force would have done: they waived the element of surprise. Before the actual battle began, they cautioned the villagers by loudspeaker and appealed to women and children to leave at once and find shelter on the slope of the hill... 

We would like to express our deep regret at the fact that there were women and children among the casualties, but this is not the fault of our fighters. They did their humanitarian duty and even more...

The Irgun published Shaltiel's letter to Raanan, which revealed that Shaltiel had not only known about the operation and sanctioned it, but had even considered it part of the Haganah plan. The publication of the letter caused great embarrassment to the Haganah leadership and severely undermined Shaltiel's credibility. 

The Jewish Agency went even further when; in addition to the leaflet it also sent condolences to King Abdullah. 

This cable from the Jewish Agency to King Abdullah was unprecedented and is worthy of deeper scrutiny. Kirkbride, the British Minister in Amman, in his cable to London, expressed his surprise at the message since Jordan was part of the Arab League, which had declared war on Israel even before its establishment. Moreover, Arab Legion soldiers stationed in Palestine had often taken part in acts of hostility perpetrated against Jews. Jordan had even allowed Iraqi troops to pass through her territory to join Arab forces fighting the Jews. In Deir Yassin itself, Iraqi soldiers had fought alongside the Palestinians. Jordan, Kirkbride felt, ought rightfully be regarded as an enemy or at least a potential foe. 

The fact that Abdullah's friendship was of strategic importance to the Jews might explain why the Jewish Agency sent him such a conciliatory cable. It was their way of indicating to him that they did not consider him an enemy, and that they continued to honor the agreement made with him in November1947 (see: POLITICAL MOVES) Furthermore, although Abdullah was monarch of Transjordan, he was also the uncrowned leader of Palestine's Arabs. Thus Abdullah was the person to whom to address any apology concerning the 'barbaric acts' committed against the Arabs of Deir Yassin who were not Jordanian subjects. It seems that the Jewish Agency wanted to make it clear that it dissociated itself not only from the acts of the 'dissidents' at Deir Yassin, but also from their declaration concerning the liberation of Jerusalem and the entire country. 

King Abdullah, not easily appeased, rejected the apology. In his reply, he noted that it was generally accepted that the Jewish Agency was responsible for all Zionist activities everywhere and that no Jew would act in such a way as to flout its policies. Abdullah concluded his cable by leaving open the option for dialogue, and wrote that "the Jewish Agency will do all that is necessary with regard to such atrocities..." and that the Irgun and others " must take careful note of the possible consequences of their savage acts and their inevitable outcome, if they continue in this manner."12 

Deir Yassin, rightly or wrongly, became synonymous with Jewish atrocities against Arabs, and It is important to ascertain whether in fact a massacre took place at Deir Yassin and whether or not Arab corpses were mutilated. 

'Massacre' means the premeditated slaughter of defenseless human beings. The unprovoked Arab attack on the Jews of Hebron in 1929 and their indiscriminate murder was a massacre. The murder in February 1948 of more than forty Jews by their Arab co-workers at the Haifa Refineries was a massacre. In both cases, the massacre had been planned and the murders were premeditated. The murder of the Etzion Bloc settlers by Arab Legion troops after the defenders had surrendered and were unarmed was another massacre. But Deir Yassin? 

Firstly, one should recall the strict orders given to the fighters before the battle not to harm women, children and old people. It was also explicitly stated that Arabs who surrendered were to be taken captive 

Secondly, and unprecedented in battle, the villagers were informed by loudspeaker that the road to Ein Karem was open and secure and that those who left would not be harmed. The commander of the Irgun in Jerusalem was willing to forfeit the surprise element of the attack in order to minimize Arab civilian casualties. The Arabs have never denied that a loudspeaker was used, and an Arab League publication on Israeli aggression notes, inter alia: 13

On the night of April 9, 1948, the quiet Arab village of Deir Yassin was taken by surprise when a loudspeaker called the inhabitants to evacuate the village immediately.

Thirdly, it is universally conceded that a fierce battle raged at Deir Yassin. In the research carried out at Bir Zeit University, it was stated that more than 100 Arab fighters equipped with rifles and 2 Bren guns and plenty of ammunition did battle with the Irgun and Lehi. The Arabs were holed up in stone buildings whilst the attackers were exposed to enemy fire. The fierce gunfire directed from the houses forced the attackers to use grenades and in several cases to blow up houses in order to advance. Thus, women and children were among the victims. 

The number of dead is a determining factor in considering whether Deir Yassin should be termed a battle or a slaughter. According to all extant documents and testimony, it is now clear that the number of Arabs killed was less than one hundred, and not 240 as published. Moreover, the battle was the first in the War of Independence to be waged in a built-up area, a feature known to make warfare extremely difficult and costly in human terms. Thus 35% of the Irgun and Lehi forces were injured or killed by enemy fire during the battle. 

All the Arab victims at Deir Yassin were killed in battle and all killing ceased when the battle ended. Those villagers who surrendered were taken prisoner and no harm came to them. When the fighting was over, they were conveyed by car to East Jerusalem and handed over to their Arab brethren. 

In the light of the facts surrounding the battle for Deir Yassin, one cannot escape the conclusion that in condemning the Irgun and Lehi, the Jewish Agency leaders were acting out of purely political considerations. They were concerned by the growing sympathy for the Irgun in the country at large and in Jerusalem in particular. An increasing proportion of the Yishuv now recognized the justice of the Irgun cause and believed that the end of the British Mandate was the outcome of the protracted struggle of the underground against the foreign rulers. 

The unique situation in Jerusalem had intensified support for the Irgun in that city. The city was outside the borders of the Jewish State and Jerusalemites felt orphaned. The growing number of Arab onslaughts and escalating casualties (more than anywhere else in the country), isolation from the coastal plain and food shortages had evoked disillusionment among them with the Haganah and the Zionist Executive. Establishment leaders who had remained in Jerusalem were deeply concerned about the underground's rising popularity, and they emphasized this in their reports to Ben-Gurion. Thus, for example, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in a document describing the grave plight of Jerusalem at the beginning of April writes: 14

[...] Let us not forget that half of the inhabitants of Jerusalem are Oriental Jews, among whom the Irgun has found a home...

Ben-Gurion feared that the rise in the Irgun's strength in Jerusalem would disrupt his political plans for the city, and hoped that the charges against the Irgun and Lehi would reduce public sympathy for them. 

In its smear campaign against the Irgun and Lehi, the Zionist leadership tried to create the impression that they were marginal groups with no influence, and that their actions and declarations were not representative of the nation as a whole. The leadership wanted to isolate the two movements, both within theYishuv and vis a vis the outside world. In this it failed. Sympathy for the movements among Jerusalemites was growing steadily and foreign diplomats recognized the Irgun as a factor to be reckoned with in discussions on the future of Jerusalem. 

The Deir Yassin affair had a strong impact on the course of the War of Independence, and was summed up as follows in the "History of the War of Independence" produced by the History Division of the IDF:

The Deir Yassin affair, known throughout the world as the 'Deir Yassin Massacre', damaged the reputation of theYishuv at the time. All the Arab propaganda channels disseminated the story at the time and continue to do so to this day. But it indubitably also served as a contributory factor to the collapse of the Arab hinterland in the period, which followed. More than the act itself, it was the publicity it received from Arab spokesmen, which achieved this aim. Their intention was to convince their people of the savagery of the Jews and to rouse their militant religious instincts. But, in actual fact, they succeeded only in intimidating them. Today they admit the error themselves. (Italics mine, Y.L.)

Hazen Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news in 1948, was interviewed for the BBC television series, "Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict." He describes an encounter with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, at the Jafa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.

I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story," recalled Nusseibah, now living in Amman. He said, "We must make the most of this." So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities."

A Deir Yassin survivor, identified as Abu Mahmud, said the villagers protested at the time.

"We said, 'there was no rape.' Khalidi said,' we have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews."

In an arlicle "Deir Yassin a casualty of guns and propaganda", by Paul Holmes (Reuters) 15, he interviewing Mohammed Radwan, who was a resident of Deir Yassi in 1948, and fought for several hours before ruing out of bullets.

"I know when I speak that God is up there and God knows the truth and God will not forgive the liars", said Radwan, who puts the number of villagers killed at 93, listed in his own handwriting. "There were no rapes. It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab the armies would invade", he said. "They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin."

In the book "War Without End", by Anton La Guardia (Thomas Dunne Books, N.Y. 2000) we find the following:

"Just before Israel's 50th anniversary celebration, I went to Deir Yassin with Ayish Zeidan, known as Haj Ayish, who had lived in the village as a teenager. 

'We heard shooting. My mother did not want us to look out of the window. I fled with my sister, but my mother and my other sisters could not make it. They hid in the cellar for four days and then ran away.' 

He said he never believed that more than 110 people had died at Deir Yassin, and accused Arab leaders of exaggerating the atrocities. 

'There had been no rape', he said. 'The Arab radio at the time talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true. I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters.'

The Deir Yassin affair remained in the headlines for many years, and Menahem Begin never evaded responsibility for the events. He consistently claimed that occupation of the village was the logical response to Arab aggression, whose objective was to exterminate the Yishuv. Whilst expressing regret at the casualties, he argued that they were an unavoidable fact of war. Historians have accepted the view that Begin knew in advance of the attack, ordered the use of the loudspeaker and gave orders not to harm women and children. 

This was not in fact the case, as the following story clearly demonstrates: Menahem Begin was elected Prime Minister in 1977 and three years later signed the peace treaty with Egypt. Operation Peace in Galilee was launched in 1982, when the IDF was forced to enter Lebanon to root out the terrorist organizations there. During that war, Christian forces entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and slaughtered Palestinian Arabs. The horrific scenes were filmed by television crews and broadcast throughout the world. The IDF was accused of not having prevented the Christians from entering the refugee camps, and was held responsible for the pogrom. As soon as the New Year's festival had ended, a special cabinet meeting was held at Begin's home to discuss Sabra and Shatila. 

I was advisor to the Prime Minister at that time and was due to meet Begin the following day. Naturally, our conversation focused on the Sabra and Shatila events. Begin told me that before the previous evening's cabinet meeting, Yosef Burg, the Minister of the Interior, had asked why he, Burg, was being held responsible when he had known nothing of what was going on in the refugee camps. Begin replied that the government bore collective responsibility, and that ministers bore responsibility for actions of which they might have been ignorant. As an example, he cited the Deir Yassin affair: although he had not been cognizant of the plan to occupy the village, as Irgun commander he took full responsibility for the outcome of the battle. 

Begin's admission was a revelation to me. Only then did I realize that during the War of Independence, Raanan had been given authority to act without requesting permission from HQ for every operation. There was radio contact between the Irgun District Command in Jerusalem and HQ in Tel Aviv, but Raanan feared that the broadcasts were monitored, and refrained from radioing details of the attack or naming the village. The planning was carried out in Jerusalem, and it was Raanan who decided to use the loudspeaker to prevent unnecessary loss of life. The press conference after the battle, and the exaggerated report of the number of Arab casualties, were also Raanan's initiative. Begin had complete confidence in the Irgun fighters, and his reactions after the operation were based on reports he had received from Jerusalem. As Irgun commander, he accepted full responsibility for all operations and never used the excuse that he had not known about to attack Dier Yassin. 

COMMENTS 

1. IDF Archives, Deir Yassin, File 3/281 

2. Akiva Azuly a Man of Jerusalem, p. 70 

3. Knaana Sharif, The Palestinian Villages Destroyed in 1948 - Deir Yassin, Bir-Zeit University, 1987. 

4. David Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948, p. 141 

5. Public Records, London, CO 733 477/5 

6. Menachem Begin, in the Underground, 4, p. 247 

7. Interview with Mordechai Raanan 

8. Dan Kurzman, GENESIS 1948, p. 148 

9. IDF Archives, 500/48-54 

10. Yoshua Ofir, On The Walls, p. 63-64 

11. Menachem Begin, in the Underground, 4, p. 276 

12. Central Zionist Archives, S 25/1704. English Translation S 25/4150 

13. Deir Yassin, Publication by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, March 1969. 

14. State of Israel, Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, Dec. 1947 - May 1948, p. 559. 

15. http://www.metimes.com/issue98-16/reg/deir.htm 

http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/history/lapidot/24.htm

__________

The Birth of a Palestinian Nation: The Myth of the Deir Yassin Massacre

Uri Milstein - Gefen, 2012 - Political Science - 264 pages

In the pre-dawn hours of April 9, 1948, men of the nascent Israeli state s underground defense organizations Etzel and Lehi converged on the Arab village of Deir Yassin. 

By the end of the day, many were dead, Deir Yassin was in Jewish hands, and the epic lies about the so-called massacre that happened there had begun. Deir Yassin is the most infamous episode of Israel s War of Independence. A basic founding myth in Palestinian culture, it serves as grounds for the claim that the Jews undertook genocide and mass deportation against the Palestinians in 1948. 

The continued Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel stems in no small measure from the place that Deir Yassin holds in contemporary Palestinian consciousness. The Deir Yassin affair is also a founding myth of the new Israeli left, which casts doubt on the justification for the establishment and continued existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish national state. It is therefore not only a historic episode, but a very contemporary one. This meticulously researched book, based on archives and abundant eyewitness interviews, shows that there never was any massacre in Deir Yassin, explains the motivations of the various parties for the blood libel that sprang up around this affair, and probes its consequences. 

Uri Milstein brings to his exposition of the facts a lifetime of experience in Israeli military history and a keen eye for the truth.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Birth_of_a_Palestinian_Nation.html?id=RebowAEACAAJ

MainOpEds 

Book Review: The Myth of the Deir Yassin Massacre

The roots of the mythical Palestinian nation were planted in the fabrications that followed the battle at Dier Yassin in 1948. A must read for those who want to know the truth, written by one of Israel's most eminent military historians.

Yonatan Silverman

OpEds

For 64 years, since 1948, the recollection of the so-called "massacre" of the Arab village of Deir Yassin has been a crucible and a formative experience in Arab Jewish relations, in Israel in particular, but also throughout the whole Arab world.

The massacre story has been an important factor in establishing the idea of a Palestinian nation.

The so-called massacre has also been exploited by Israel’s left to undermine acceptance of and confidence in the Zionist state.

Now, Dr. Uri Milstein, one of Israel’s most pre-eminent historians, has published a book that appears in English, "The Birth of a Palestinian Nation - The Myth of the Deir Yassin Massacre"  by Gefen Publishers, which marshals the facts to prove that there was no massacre in Deir Yassin after all.

The Story

The Arab village of Deir Yassin no longer exists, but in 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, Deir Yassin was situated on the western edge of Jerusalem near the Givat Shaul neighborhood.

Although according to what became the accepted version, Deir Yassin was a peaceful Arab village, Dr. Milstein explains that this was really not so. Among other things Arab attacks against Jewish transportation in western Jerusalem emanated from Deir Yassin in 1948 and it was therefore necessary to take measures to take over the village.

The Jewish effort against Deir Yassin originated as a joint plan of the two underground groups, that existed before the declaration of the Jewish state,, Irgun and LEHI, also known as Revisionists,  The scheduled date was 9 April 1948.

Milstein shows that Jerusalem’s Hagana commander David Shaltiel was informed of the operation and gave his approval. The Hagana also cooperated with Irgun and LEHI in planning the operation. The Palmach also actively participated in the fighting at one stage.

The joint Irgun-LEHI operation at Deir Yassin began at 4:30 AM on 9 April 1948. The Jewish fighters met serious resistance.

Yehoshua Zeitler, one of the fighters, wrote: “From every house and from every window gunfire was directed against us, and we threw grenades. The inhabitants had Sten guns rifles and pistols. Our men stormed forward from house to house while throwing inside explosive devices. We thought either them or us. For us it was a question of life, if he will live, I will die…”

The fighting in Deir Yassin did not conclude until the next day 10 April 1948. One of the outcomes of the battle was the transport of around 700 village residents to neighboring villages.

How Many Were Killed?

Eyewitness claims of the number of Arab casualties in Deir Yassin following the difficult battle were not high, and most were the Arab fighters disguised as residents - some even disguised as women.

But, strangely, there was a simultaneous Jewish effort to cite a larger number. This, the author shows, emanated from both public relations and political motives.

Mordechai Raanan, the Irgun commander in Jerusalem said: “On that day I did not know, and I could not know how many Arabs were killed. No one had counted the corpses. People estimated that a hundred or 150 people were killed I told the journalists that 254 were killed so that they would publish a large number, and so that the Arabs would be shocked not only in the area of Jerusalem but all over the country, and this objective was achieved…”

Amos Kenan, a former LEHI commander who fought at Deir Yassin, said in a 1996 interview: “My comrades told me the matter of a massacre is a complete lie. There was no massacre. There was a lack of organization…

The Consequences

Shimon Monita, a Hagana agent, relates: “After Deir Yassin I returned to the Palmach and took part in attacks on Arab villages. Most of the inhabitants fled before we arrived, and the villages were captured without fighting or after a short battle. Not only peasants fled from their homes but also urban Arabs from Jerusalem and also from other areas. In that same month the Hagana took control over Haifa. The Intelligence Service reported that the fear of a fate similar to that of the inhabitants of Deir Yassin was one of the factors in breaking the Arab inhabitants of Haifa and causing them to flee.”

Yisrael Bar, a senior Hagana commander wrote: “In the short term, Deir Yassin brought advantages and contributed to the flight of masses of Arabs.”

Milstein soberly reflects: “Without the myth of Deir Yassin, it is doubtful whether the Jews would have succeeded in defeating the Arabs of Palestine by the time of the Declaration of Independence Without this defeat, it is doubtful whether the State of Israel would have succeeded in coping with the attacks of standing armies from outside and attacks of irregular armies from within.”

Milstein, however, explains the other reason for the Jewish side's inflating the number killed, showing how the number was used cynically for political purposes by the left, which knowingly exaggerated and used the myth of the Deir Yssin "massacre"  to discredit the two underground movements, Irgun and Lehi,  which if was afraid would undermine its efforts to rule the new state of Israel unopposed. It managed to defame the two groups of brave underground fighters, their leaders including Irgun leader Menachem Begin, but thereby also encouraged the Arab use of the myth to villify the Zionist enterprise and seek revenge.

Monita said: "The dissidents [Revisionists] wanted to brag and scare the Arabs. The Hagana and Jewish Agency wanted to smear the dissidents and scare the Arabs. The Arabs wanted to smear the Jews. The British wanted to smear Jewish terrorists. They all latched on to a number invented by Ra’anan. We loaded 30 bodies onto the truck. That was the main group. There were about another 30; all told - about 60 bodies."

Arab Revenge For No Massacre

Four days after the Jewish occupation of Deir Yassin, there was a devastating Arab ambush on a convoy of buses in which Jewish doctors and nurses were traveling, en route to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, where they treated Arabs.

The convoy had to travel through the Arab Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and this is precisely where the Arabs set their deadly trap.

Yitzhak Levy head of Jerusalem Intelligence wrote:

“The explosions and the gunfire against the convoy in Sheikh Jarrah were like the outbreak of a volcano. I understood that something dreadful had happened…”

There were unmet expectations that British forces stationed in Sheikh Jarrah would come to the rescue of the convoy. Then the Jerusalem based Hagana forces themselves were blocked by the British and  failed to enter the picture and save the Jewish doctors and nurses from imminent destruction.

Milstein concludes the tragic episode: “At 1:00 PM the attackers approached the two busses, assaulted them and set them on fire. Some passengers had fled before then to the two armored cars and the ambulance…Remember Deir Yassin. Avenge Deir Yassin. The Arabs shouted.”

Seventy four civilian Jews were murdered in Sheikh Jarrah that day.

The Last Word - and The Longterm Consequence

From Milstein’s insightful conclusions:

“This book has tried to answer the question of how the Palestinian nation was created during the sixty plus years of Israel’s existence.

“It was by means of the blood libel of Deir Yassin which the Jewish left perpetrated against the Jewish right. Five weeks before Israel proclaimed its independence, the leaders of the Yishuv and the leftist elite gave the Palestinian Arabs their seminal myth – the so-called Deir Yassin massacre, which has become the basis for and the symbol of the Nakba that overtook the Arabs of Palestine in 1948.

“In addition to being the first in a series of such actions attributed to Israel, the Deir Yassin massacre has additional importance – it was the direct cause of the flight of most of the Arabs who were living in the territories that became the State of Israel. The fact that instead of fighting, the Arabs ran away from Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias, even before the State of Israel was established, asserting as they fled that their destiny would be that of Deir Yassin, weakens their claim that they were a nation before 1948.”

Yonatan Silverman

The author is a professional translator from Hebrew to English. He is the author of For the World to See:The Life of Margaret Bourke White. He operates the online newsletter SARTABA.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12304

____

Deir Yassin Massacre Myth Resurfaced

The persistent myth of a 1948 massacre of Arabs by Jews fuels what has become the new face of anti-Semitism

August 31, 2015

A stone thrown into a puddle will cause all sorts of light debris buried in the mud to surface. Jeremy Corbyn’s quest to become the next Labour Party leader has created a similar effect in the puddle of British politics, allowing rotten debris like Holocaust denier Paul Eisen to surface. 

It turns out that in 2013, Corbyn attended Eisner’s annual anti-Israel event titled “Deir Yassin Remembered.” Having surfaced from the sludge, it now needs to be addressed.

But before directly addressing this, I want to draw attention to an article by STV (Scottish Television) journalist Stephen Daisley, who did an outstanding job exposing the danger inherent in the popularity of Corbyn. 

Corbyn, Daisly correctly reasoned, is “just a symptom and a symbol” of the anti-Zionist phenomenon that “has removed much of the need for classical anti-Semitism by recycling the old superstitions as a political critique of the State of Israel.”

It is in the midst of such a phenomenon that people like Eisen can appear as compassionate humanists rather than what they really are. Otherwise, as Daisley had rightly asked, “why is Deir Yassin remembered, but not Safed or Hebron or the Hadassah convoy?” 

Yet, even this comparison is misleading because Daisley, like most people, is still under the impression that there was a massacre of Palestinians by Israelis at Deir Yassin.

In the Palestinian annals, Deir Yassin – a small village west of Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Jewish militias Etzel and Lehi on April 9, 1948 – has become the symbol for the “Nakba,” the “catastrophic” military defeat that in its wake spawned the Palestinian refugee problem. The fate of Deir Yassin has become their remembrance day, held on May 15, and it is of paramount importance to them.

At the risk of being liked to “Holocaust deniers,” I find it necessary to highlight the work of military historian Uri Milstein, who spent 30 years investigating this affair that took place during Israel’s War of Independence. 

In his book The Birth of a Palestinian Nation (2012), Milstein’s scathing criticism is directed not toward Palestinians, but rather toward Jews who, out of narrow political interests and internal rivalry, have perpetuated the massacre myth. 

The battle of Deir Yassin itself came as a result of intelligence that Arab soldiers had infiltrated this otherwise peaceful village in order to block the road to Jerusalem. This led the two right-wing militias, Etzel and Lehi, to propose to the more left-wing Haganah (which later became the IDF) a joint operation against the village as part of a larger operation aimed at clearing the only road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

As everybody well understood, the fate of Jerusalem depended who controlled that road. 

The plan was accepted by all factions, which is why several Haganah men armed with machine guns were placed on Mount Herzl facing the village to provide cover for the Etzel and Lehi assault troops.

During the battle, some 40 Jewish soldiers were wounded and six were killed. There were also 110 dead Palestinians, including women and children. Dreadful as the outcome was, civilians were killed during the heat of battle, and not after it. 

In his book, Milstein willingly accepts Palestinian anthropologist Sharif Kanaana’s definition of massacre, which is “intentional killing of captives – civilians, military men and soldiers – after they have surrendered…” 

Kanaana, who also studied the Deir Yassin affair, seemed to concur with Milstein in that that the label “massacre” in regards to the battle of Deir Yassin was a “lie that originated in disputes between the Haganah on one hand and Etzel and Lehi on the other.” The Palestinians for their part exploited the myth to their own advantage.

This is not to say that Israel’s conduct in times of war is flawless. The War of Independence was ruthless, and both sides did whatever they could to gain the upper hand. 

From this perspective, however, “Deir Yassin Remembered” as enthusiastically endorsed by Corbyn seems like a myth dredged up from the mud for the benefit of malevolent forces interested not in peace and justice, but in the vilification and destruct.

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/deir-yassin-massacre-myth-resurfaced/

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Reflections on Deir Yassin, the Nakba, and War Crimes

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 653, November 22, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Two recent books make an important contribution to the study of the Palestinian Nakba. Dr. Adel Manna explores the 1948 fall of the Galilee, based on memories of local Arab inhabitants; while Professor Eliezer Tauber debunks the myth of the Deir Yassin massacre, which became one of the Nakba’s foundational events as early as 1948. These studies pave the road to reassessing the Palestinian tragedy within the conflict’s past, present, and future wider context: Jewish localities were occupied by Arabs in the 1948 war, war crimes were perpetrated against Jews by Arabs, and present-day Palestinian schoolbooks continue to incite the perpetration of war crimes against Jews. 

Two important Hebrew-language books were published recently: Deir Yassin: The End of the Myth by Eliezer Tauber (Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir 2017), and Nakba and Survival: The Story of the Palestinians Who Remained in Haifa and the Galilee, 1948-1956 by Adel Manna (Van Leer Institute Press, Hakibbutz Hameuhad Publishing House 2017). The value of these books emanates from their comprehensive presentation of data and facts hitherto not discussed.

Prof. Tauber, of Bar-Ilan University, gathered all the available testimonies related to the Deir Yassin battle from all involved parties, including both villagers and members of the attacking Etzel and Lehi underground groups. On the basis of these testimonies he provides a minute-by-minute analysis of the battle in the village’s various areas, indicating the death circumstances of each victim.

According to Tauber, Deir Yassin was the first case of house-to-house fighting in the 1948 war, as the defenders did not run away but fought from their houses until the end. The attackers broke into the houses by blowing up their doors, hurling hand grenades inside, and storming in while shooting. This resulted in many casualties, including non-combatants. Yet except for one case in which an attacker shot dead non-combatants who had surrendered and stepped out of their house, all the rest were killed during house-to-house fighting.

This conclusion is based on testimonies gathered from both surviving villagers and attackers. The (false) accusations of civilian massacres appeared after the battle had ended, when forces of the Jewish mainstream Hagana underground organization entered the village, saw the many corpses, including women and children, and concluded that they had been murdered by Etzel and Lehi fighters. Due to the bitter enmity between the Hagana and the two groups, the atrocity charges became widespread and hugely inflated.

Another group interested in inflating these charges was the Palestinian Arab leadership, seeking as it did to stir up public opinion in the neighboring Arab states so as to pressure their governments to join the war against the Jews after the end of the British Mandate in mid-May.

Dr. Adel Manna of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem reviews the war events in the northern part of the country from the perspective of the Arab inhabitants, whose testimonies he gathered for years, embedding in the story the personal dimension of his own family. Through these testimonies, which constitute a very important source of information that has not yet found ample expression in the 1948 war historiography, Manna strives to decipher the policies of the victorious Israeli forces.

According to Manna, these policies involved terrorizing the population through executions as well as attempts at deportation, which failed in quite a few cases. One policy line that did succeed was the prevention of those who had fled their villages during the fighting and found shelter in neighboring villages and towns from returning to their homes. Their villages were destroyed, their lands were confiscated by the government, and Jews were made to settle there. (Manna also analyzes the history of the Arab population of Haifa and the Galilee in the years following the war until 1956, but that is not an integral part of the Nakba discussed in this article.)

The name Deir Yassin and the term Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) are basic elements of the Palestinian narrative, which have in turn made their way into the Israeli narrative with an increasing degree of undisputed acceptance. In this context, the two books represent opposite positions. Tauber’s study seeks to debunk the well-entrenched myth of the Deir Yassin massacre, while Manna strives to entrench the Nakba in the Hebrew narrative. Yet a reading of the two books side by side promotes deeper insights into the 1948 events.

The Deir Yassin episode was unique throughout the entire war, not because of the alleged massacre but because its pattern of house-to-house fighting did not recur on a similar scale. According to Arab claims, verified by most scholars, the mere mention of Deir Yassin brought about mass flight or hasty surrender of villagers elsewhere, which made house-to-house fighting largely unnecessary. Consequently, in no other place were women and children killed in similar numbers as in Deir Yassin.

Echoing the standard Arab narrative, Manna in contrast argues that massacres of Arabs by Jews had a role to play as the Jewish leadership had a clear policy of ethnic cleansing of Arabs. According to Manna, this policy was suspended when Nazareth and its vicinity in the Lower Galilee were occupied in the summer, only to be resumed at a later stage in other parts of the Galilee west of Nazareth. In his account, the Arab inhabitants resisted the new deportation attempts or returned to their villages after the soldiers had left the area. This explains why eastern Galilee was almost fully evacuated of its Arab population during the earlier stages of the war, while a considerable Arab population remained in the rest of Galilee that was occupied in late 1948.

In the eyes of Arabs, occupation, massacres, and deportation constitute the essence of the Nakba inflicted by the Jews, who are in turn urged to admit this colossal injustice and perhaps even take upon themselves the responsibility for its redress. Those who make this claim rarely mention that it was the Palestinian Arabs who waged a war of annihilation against their Jewish neighbors in the first place, in an attempt to prevent the creation of a Jewish state in accordance with the UN Partition Resolution of November 1947. Had this assault not taken place, there would have been no Nakba.

Manna fails to mention the legitimacy of the UN partition resolution as representing the will of the international community, nor does he criticize the war against the Jews as such. Rather, he restricts his criticism to the Arabs’ failure to adequately prepare for the war they were bent on starting. His main criticism is thus reserved for the attacked party – the Jews – whom he claims perpetrated war crimes against the Arabs that cannot be justified under any circumstances, including the Arab culpability for starting the war.

Leaving aside Manna’s factual and interpretational errors (notably the misrepresentation of Plan D as an expulsion program), he should have applied his criticism to all the war’s events, as well as to subsequent violent outbursts between the two parties. A notable case in point is the fate of the 17 Jewish localities occupied by the Arabs in 1948, which is generally excluded from the Nakba narrative. Examining them one by one quickly reveals that all the alleged phenomena noted by Manna regarding Galilee were present there too, though on a limited scale due to their far smaller numbers.

The surviving inhabitants of Kfar Etzion, for example, were massacred after their surrender. Likewise, an injured soldier and two civilians accompanying him were executed after having been caught on their way out of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai following the collapse of local defenses. The other surviving defenders managed to flee (“evacuate themselves” in Israeli parlance).

A total deportation of the Jewish population took place in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City following its occupation. In addition, some of the occupied Jewish villages were evacuated before the battle started, mirroring the evacuation of Arab villages before the beginning of fighting.

There was a major difference between the two parties as far as expulsions were concerned. The Jews let tens of thousands of Arabs stay in their homes under Israeli rule. The Arabs, by contrast, did no such thing, destroying entire localities and expelling their populations to the last person. Not a single Jew was left in Gezer, Revadim, Ein Tzurim, Masuot Yitzhak, Mishmar Hayarden, or Nitzanim after their surrenders. The inhabitants of the first four villages were taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Jordan. In Mishmar Hayarden and Nitzanim, too few inhabitants survived the battle to justify the construction of such camps. The survivors – men and women – were imprisoned in Syria and Egypt, respectively, and returned to Israel after the war alongside prisoners of war who had been held in Jordan. The Jewish presence in the areas occupied by the Arabs during the war was totally eradicated. All Jewish lands were taken over by the Arab authorities, leaving them completely Judenrein.

The prevention of war crimes should be a leading principle among all nations in times of war, rather than a tool for mutual recrimination. No pretext – self-defense, prevention of terrorism, liberation from occupation, fighting against imperialism, jihad, liquidation of racism and apartheid, class struggle, etc. – should be used to justify war crimes. This principle should apply to all – Jews, Arabs, and everyone else. Even those who are no friends of Israel or the Jews should adopt this principle and apply it to their own actions, side by side with their criticism of Israel on the same grounds. The murder of a Jewish family in the West Bank is a war crime even if it is claimed to be residing on “occupied” land. A suicide terror attack on a bus or a restaurant is a war crime regardless of its ideological justification. So are rocket attacks on population centers.

Allowing war crimes under one pretext or another is itself a war crime, especially if it is done by state-controlled media and/or an educational system, as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has done over the past two decades. In 2016, for example, the PA launched a new project of schoolbook publishing. Its new books accuse Israel of (largely nonexistent) war crimes while giving countenance to the perpetrating of such crimes by Palestinians. The following are three examples:

A poetical verse details what should be done with the 6 million “foreign” Jews living in Israel after the “liberation” and removal of the “usurper” (code name for Israel) from Palestine: “I swear! I shall sacrifice my blood in order to water the noble ones’ land, and I shall remove the usurper from my country and shall exterminate the foreigners’ scattered remnants” (Our Beautiful Language, Grade 3, Part 2, 2016, p. 64).

A Molotov-cocktail attack on a bus near the Psagot locality in the West Bank is described in one of the stories as a “barbecue party” (Arabic Language, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 61). In other words, the human beings perishing inside the burning bus are barbecued meat around which a party is taking place.

Dalal Mughrabi, who led the March 1978 terrorist attack on an Israeli civilian bus on the coastal highway, in which over 30 men, women, and children were murdered, is described in two PA schoolbooks as a heroine (Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 1, 2017, p. 14; Social Studies, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 74).

Anyone expressing an aversion to war crimes should be expected to do so with regard to all parties to a conflict. Accusations of war crimes directed at one side only, without the slightest sign of self-criticism regarding one’s own atrocities, indicate a fundamental lack of integrity. Moreover, alongside denunciation of past cases, one should emphatically act against incitement to future war crimes, such as those spelled out or implied in the new Palestinian schoolbooks. Anyone who fails to do so is actually encouraging war crimes.

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/deir-yassin-nakba-war-crimes/

The Deir Yassin Massacre Never Happened

MAY 30 2018

On April 9, 1948, when the first Arab-Israeli war was just beginning, the Irgun and Leḥi—two right-wing Jewish military groups fighting in coordination with the Haganah—attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin, then held by Arab League forces. Shortly after the battle, rumors circulated among Arabs that Jewish fighters had slaughtered civilians, raped women, and committed other acts of sexual violence. Westerners and mainstream Zionist leaders soon accepted the story of the Deir Yassin massacre, which remains in history books to this day. But Eliezer Tauber, who has made an exhaustive study of the evidence, argues that it never happened:

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2018/05/the-deir-yassin-massacre-never-happened/

FEATURED POST

Deir Yassin: There was no massacre

A founding myth of the Palestinian narrative was a fabrication that drove thousands of Arabs to panic and flee

MAY 28, 2018, 2:23 PM

In this 1948 photo from the UNRWA archive, Palestinian refugees stand outside their tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. (photo credit: AP/UNRWA Photo Archives)

Deir Yassin is one of the founding myths of the Palestinian narrative, according to which Israelis murdered 254 people, committed rapes, and other gender-oriented atrocities in a peaceful 1948 Palestinian village. For the past five years, I have carried out an in-depth research into the affair, learned to know the village, who lived there and where, their names, and above all, the exact circumstances of death of each of the people killed there. The results were astounding, but clear. There was no massacre in Deir Yassin. No rapes. Lots of unfounded Palestinian propaganda.

On 9 April 1948, combined forces of the Jewish Etzel and Lehi underground organizations attacked Deir Yassin, an Arab village west of Jerusalem. It was four months after the eruption of hostilities between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and about a month before the termination of the British mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel. The nature of this attack became one of the most controversial issues in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, serving the Palestinians as a proof for Israeli inhumanity. For almost seven decades, an anti-Israeli biased literature described it as an intentional and deliberate massacre of defenseless Arab villagers, accompanied by rapes and other atrocities.

What really happened in Deir Yassin? Contrary to what one could expect, I found that the testimonies of the Jewish attackers on the one hand, and the Arab survivors on the other hand, were surprisingly similar, at times almost identical. My methodology, therefore, was to integrate the testimonies of both parties involved, Jews and Arabs, into one story. I relied on a vast number of testimonies and records from 21 archives (including Israeli, Palestinian, British, American, UN and Red Cross), many of them yet unreleased to the public, and hundreds of other sources. My findings were basically two: no massacre took place in Deir Yassin, but on the other hand, the false rumors spread by the Palestinian leadership about a massacre, rapes and other atrocities, drove the Palestinian population to leave their homes and run away, becoming a major incentive for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.

No Massacre

Deir Yassin was not the peaceful village many later claimed it to be, but a fortified village with scores of armed combatants. Its relations with the adjacent Jewish neighborhoods were troubled for decades and the Jews believed it to endanger the only road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, thus constituting part of the Arab siege of Jewish Jerusalem. Therefore, although later denying it for political reasons, the Jewish main militia in 1948, the Haganah, sanctioned the attack and later took part in it by means of its striking force, the Palmach.

A ten-hour fierce battle, in the presence of a civilian population, ended in the victory of Etzel and Lehi. No massacre took place. When the battle ended, the killing stopped. “I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters,” one of the Arab survivors was later to testify. Furthermore, the Arab villagers got an advance warning to evacuate the village, which 700 of them followed. The attackers took an additional 200 villagers prisoner and safely released them in Arab Jerusalem. Only 101 Arabs were killed, a quarter of them active combatants and most of the rest in combat conditions. The Jewish assailants also suffered casualties.

The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem

For psychological warfare considerations, Etzel reported 200 Arabs killed, twice more than the actual number, enthusiastically adopted by the Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem, which increased it to 254 and added rapes and other gender-oriented atrocities. Hussein Khalidi, the senior Arab authority in 1948 Jerusalem, was of the opinion that, “We must make the most of this.” As his assistant Hazim Nusayba reported in a 1998 interview, Khalidi said “we should give this the utmost propaganda possible because the Arab countries apparently are not interested in assisting us and we are facing a catastrophe….So we are forced to give a picture – not what is actually happening – but we had to exaggerate.” Khalidi’s distortion of the facts failed to prevent catastrophe. Instead, it helped created one.

“Dr. Khalidi was the one who caused the catastrophe,” one of the Arab survivors ruled. “Instead of working in our favor, the propaganda worked in favor of the Jews. Whole villages and towns fled because of what they heard had happened in Deir Yassin.” The Palestinian leadership intended to exploit the affair to lay pressure on the Arab states to send their armies to Palestine to fight the Jews. The plan boomeranged. Following the rule that women’s honor comes before land, the moment the Palestinians heard about rapes they started to leave.

Israelis and Palestinians believe in two myths about the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The Israelis claim that the Palestinians followed their leaders’ exhortations to evacuate their homes temporarily and then return with the victorious Arab armies, but that is not what spurred Palestinians to leave. The Palestinians claim that the Israelis expelled them in 1948, but this was not what drove the departure. The true story of the 1948 Palestinian exodus was a flight mainly motivated by panic over a massacre that never happened.

Horror Propaganda

The horror propaganda about the affair has continued apace from 1948 to the present. The following is just a typical story, repeatedly cited, lately by the exiled Egyptian Muslim preacher, Yusuf Qaradawi: “As a climax of cruelty certain Jewish terrorists laid wagers on the sex of the unborn babies of expectant mothers. The wretched women were cruelly disemboweled alive, their wombs drawn out and searched for the evidence which would determine the winner.”

However, Palestinians and Muslim preachers are not the only ones who promote the massacre narrative, Westerners do as well. “Deir Yassin Remembered” is an organization founded in the United States, interested in building a memorial to commemorate the affair in a location overlooking the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, apparently in order to draw an analogy between the two. The equation recurs in their writings, which argue that describing the massacre as “false, exaggerated, or in dispute” is tantamount to Holocaust revisionism. My research of the affair puts to rest any serious questioning of whether there was or was not a massacre at Deir Yassin. There was not.

_

Professor Eliezer Tauber, a former dean in Bar-Ilan University, Israel, is an expert on the emergence of Arab nationalism, the formation of the Arab states, and the early phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has published extensively on these topics. Professor Tauber is now looking for a publisher for his newest book, “The Massacre That Never Was: The Myth of Deir Yassin and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Eliezer Tauber, a former dean in Bar-Ilan University, Israel, is an expert on the emergence of Arab nationalism, the formation of the Arab states, and the early phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has published extensively on these topics.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/deir-yassin-the-end-of-a-myth/

___________________

REMEMBERING THE MASSACRE OF THE HADASSAH CONVOY APRIL 13, 1948

by Dr. Alex Grobman

During World War II, the staff of Hadassah Hospital played a significant role in helping Allied military forces throughout the Middle East. They offered weekly lectures and meetings to British medical personnel that acquainted them with regional medical issues including blood diseases, jaundice, dysentery, anemia and high blood pressure. Courses were also given on how to deal with infestations of sand-flies, worms, poisonous snakes, mosquitoes and other disease carrying insects.

The Hebrew University's Department of Bacteriology and Hygiene provided anti-typhus and anti-dysentery vaccines. The Zoology Department's research on relapsing cave fever taught the British army to avoid encampments near caves.

Malaria was a major debilitating threat to Allied forces. As a result, the British Army established ten anti-malaria units that were sent to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, India, Burma, Greece and Italy in advance of their troops. Four of these units were under the command of Jewish malaria experts, who pioneered the use of aerial use of pesticides to kill nests of mosquitoes. Medical expertise was provided by the Parasitology Department.

While Hadassah and Hebrew University were assisting the British, Arabs led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, were fighting a guerrilla war against the British and Jews. In late 1941, as a refugee in Berlin, the Mufti used radio broadcasts to urge Arabs to become fifth columns in the lands where they lived and to commit sabotage and to murder Allied troops and Jews.

His spies provided the Nazis with information about British troop movements. His reports also described successful acts of sabotage in the Middle East by many of his agents. They cut water pipes and fuel and telephone lines, and destroyed bridges and blew up railroads. He organized an Axis-Arab Legion, the Arabisches Freiheitskorps, who wore German uniforms with "Free Arabia," patches. They were part of the German army, and were responsible for protecting the Nazi communication system in Macedonia and for hunting down American and British paratroopers who landed in Yugoslavia.

Once the partition of Palestine was approved by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, the violence against the Jews intensified. The equivalent of a Red Cross medical convoy comprised of non-combatants including doctors, nurses and university faculty and students was ambushed by Arabs in the Sheikh Jarrah section of Jerusalem. Although The British High Commissioner and the British Secretary of State personally gave their assurances that these convoys would be protected by British troops and police, seventy-eight Jews were murdered.

The attack, which lasted seven hours, began at 9:30 a.m. and took place less than 600 feet from the British military post. The British watched from the sidelines. Jewish appeals for help were ignored until mid-afternoon. But by then the Jews had either been burned alive in buses or shot. There were 28 survivors, only eight had no injuries.

Among the dead were the founders of the new faculty of medicine, a physicist, a philologist, a cancer researcher, the head of the university's department of psychology, and an authority on Jewish law. A doctor who waited four years to marry the nurse he loved was killed when he went to say good bye to his patients before leaving on his honeymoon.

One victim, a doctor, treated the Arab peasants in the village of Isawiye on Mount Scopus two weeks prior to the attack. Yet Arabs claimed that the ambush was a heroic act, and the British had no business intervening even at the last minute. They did not want a single Jewish passenger to remain alive.

Thousands of furious Jews attended the funeral and lined the streets of the procession. British indifference was responsible for this loss of life. The British Army dismissed the ambush as retaliation for an Irgun attack on the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Official Arab response was that they had heard that Jewish gangs were assembled near Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University. R.M.Graves, the British appointed Chairman of the Jerusalem Municipal Commission, said "...the Arabs do not realize that the killing of doctors, nurses and university teachers was a dastardly outrage."

Despite this sad and bloody piece of history, Hadassah has endured through hundreds of terrorist attacks and always has been there for the health of Jews and Arabs in the region.

Sources:

"Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter" Number 66. (April 21, 1948), National British Archives;

Philip Graves, Palestine, the Land of Three Faiths (London: Jonathan Cape, 1923);

Rivka Ashbel, As Much As We Could Do (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press of The Hebrew University, 1989).

Dov Joseph, The Faithful City: The Siege of Jerusalem 1948 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960).

Harry Levin, Jerusalem Embattled: A Diary of the City Under Siege (London: Cassell, 1997).

Dr. Grobman is a historian with an MA and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University. His book Nations United: How The UN Undermines Israel and the West. His latest book is on the legitimacy of Israel.

http://www.think-israel.org/grobman.hadassahconvoymassacre.html

HADASSAH MEDICAL CONVOY MASSACRE

CategoriesH Medical Center, Regional History Posted on | April 13, 1948 | 3:05 am

The Hadassah medical convoy massacre took place on April 13, 1948, when a civilian convoy, escorted by Haganah militia, bringing medical and fortification supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arab forces. Seventy-nine Jews, including doctors and nurses, were killed in the attack.

In 1948, following the UN Partition Plan and anticipating Israel’s declaration of independence, access to Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem was blocked by the Arabs. The only access was via a narrow road, a mile and a half long.

On April 13, a convoy of two Haganah escort cars, two ambulances and two buses set off for the hospital in the early morning. At approximately 9:45, the leading vehicle was hit by a mine and the convoy came under attack by Arab forces spraying machine gun fire. After the buses began to leak gasoline, they were set on fire by Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs).

British forces came to the convoy’s assistance, but had only limited resources. One of the first men on the scene was Major Jack Churchill. Churchill and his 12 men provided what cover fire they could against hundreds of Arabs. Following the massacre, Churchill oversaw the evacuation of 700 patients and staff from the hospital.

Seventy-nine Jews were killed by gunfire during the fighting or were burnt when several vehicles were set alight. Twenty of them were women. Among the dead were Dr. Chaim Yassky, director of the hospital and Dr. Moshe Ben-David, slated to head the new medical school, (which was eventually established by the Hebrew University in the 1950s). Many of the bodies were so badly burned they could not be identified. They were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery in Sanhedria, Jerusalem. For many years the number of casualties was thought to be 78, but recently it was confirmed that there were 79. One British soldier also died in the attack.

 After the attack, no convoys were able to reach the hospital due to continued attacks on the road, and despite British assurances of assistance. The situation in the compound became grim, and the decision was made to evacuate the hospital in early May, leaving a staff of 200 to run at a reduced 50 beds. The hospital was effectively closed by the end of May, as no supplies could reach it, though a small number of doctors and students remained. In July, a deal was worked out where Mount Scopus became a UN area, with 84 Jewish policemen assigned to guard the now shuttered hospital.

1949, the hospital became a demilitarized Israeli enclave, with a small adjacent no-man’s-land (containing a World War I Allied military cemetery under British supervision) and the rest of Mount Scopus and East Jerusalem becoming Jordanian. The Israeli government and Hadassah donors then re-founded the hospital in Israeli West Jerusalem, with the original hospital staff (Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital). The Mt. Scopus hospital only resumed medical services after the Six-Day War. On the sixtieth anniversary of the massacre, the city of Jerusalem named a street in honor of Dr. Chaim Yassky, who led the ill-fated convoy

https://www.isracast.com/the-hadassah-medical-convoy-massacre

Article published next day mentions, Arab rage also over a food convoy that slipped through their hands a day earlier:

DAILY NEWS, "WEDNESDAY 'APRIL,' 14, 1948 Arabs Attack Convoy

By ROBERT CONWAY - .. Jerusalem, April 13. 

Spurred by fanatical fury, a large force of Arab troops hurled themselves on a 10-truck Jewish convoy on the outskirts of Jerusalem today and in a furious battle .. persons were killed and 24 seriously wounded. 

Among the dead was Dr. Haim Yassy, internationally famous director of the American-owned and financed Hadassah Hospital. 

The remainder comprised 34 Jews, seven Arabs and one British soldier. 

Yassy, who died with his wife beside him, was shot three times. She was not injured. ... The battle broke out this morning and raged hotly for seven hours as a large force of khaki-clad Arabs ambushed the Jewish food convoy on King George Road as it approached the Jaffa Road toward Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. Doctors, nurses, patients and medical supplies for the hospital rode with the convoy. 

The Arabs, aroused to fury because a large Jewish convoy carrying food to the beleaguered Holy City had slipped through their lines earlier, charged on the small hospital caravan shouting "Remember Deir Yassin" ... Their first assault down the winding hillside road was under cover of mortar salvos, and was spearheaded by blanket fire from Sten guns and automatic weapons. "With advance and retreat blocked, the Jews fought desperately against constantly reinforced Arab troops. Some Jews hastened to their aid from Jerusalem, from which there is but one road open, the other three being held down under Arab siege. The Jews fought their way into the cover of nearby buildings as their trucks blazed from mortar hits..."

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/445807581/