This week is the anniversary of the events that took place in the Arab
village of Deir Yassin in 1948. In recent years, Deir Yassin has been
converted into a bludgeon by the Far Left, the neo-Nazi Right and Israel-bashers in
general.

Deir Yassin is the ultimate “Man Bites Dog” news story supposedly based on
the inversion of players. It is recited endlessly by the very same people who
have nothing to say against a century of countless massacres of Jewish
civilians by Arabs. The church in St John’s Wood in London is just one of many
examples of outfits “commemorating” the “victims” of Deir Yassin this week.

Deir Yassin was a not-at-all innocent Arab village sitting near the only
road into Jerusalem in 1948. The previous December, the United Nations had voted
to partition what was left of Mandatory Palestine into two states, one a
Jewish state and the other, an Arab state to be named Palestine, of
approximately equal sizes. The Jews of Israel accepted the plan, while the Arab states
and the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected it. Had they accepted it, a
Palestinian state would have arisen peacefully in 1948.

In response to the UN resolution, Arabs launched attacks against Jews
everywhere in the country and in particular, placed the city of Jerusalem under
siege. The Jewish population of Jerusalem was quite literally starving. The
only road into the city passed through the area of Deir Yassin, and the Arab
militiamen in the town were stopping all convoys from passing through.

Since Israel had yet to be formally proclaimed, the only Jews doing the
fighting were members of three poorly-armed militias. The main one was the
Haganah, commanded by David Ben-Gurion and the socialist Zionist party. There were
two smaller ones operating independently under the command of the dissident
“Revisionist Zionist” movement, the Etsel (Irgun) and the Lehi.

Poorly-trained irregulars of the two latter militias were ordered to attack
Deir Yassin to relieve the siege. They did so in ferocious hand-to-hand
fighting, in which some Deir Yassin villagers were killed. The Bash-Israel lobby
has always maintained that the villagers were “massacred” in cold blood.
Their evidence is that they do not like Jews.

Those who participated in the battle claim the villagers were killed when
the Jewish militiamen fired into homes from which fire was directed at them.
The village was successfully taken and the siege of Jerusalem was lifted.
Large numbers of Jewish militiamen had been killed in the house-to-house battle
for the village. Approximately 100 Arabs in the village died, later greatly
inflated by anti-Jewish propagandists to 250.

Part of the problem was that the mainstream socialist Zionist parties
themselves magnified the supposed misbehavior of the two opposition militias in
order to discredit them in the coming political contest for control of the
emerging Jewish state. This trend has been echoed in recent years, and Deir
Yassin has become the “massacre of choice” for anti-Semites trying to prove the
Jews are bloodthirsty barbarians. In part, these have based their claims on a
document by a Haganah officer, one Meir Pa’il, who was not himself present at
the battle, but surveyed the village after the fighting was finished. Pa’il
claimed he thought there had been looting and intentional killing of some
villagers. He was an eyewitness, however, of nothing. The problem is that Pa’il
is also a leftwing radical and not exactly a neutral source. Other _less
politicized sources tell a different tale_
(http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/deiryassin.htm) . Even _some Arab sources_
(http://arabterrorism.tripod.com/FAQ/yassin2.html) confirm that no massacre took place in Deir Yassin.

Meanwhile, a few years back, the Zionist Organization of America issued a
_new study_ (http://www.zoa.org/pressrel1998/19980318a.htm) , Deir Yassin
History of a Lie, a 32-page analysis (with 156 footnotes) by ZOA National
President Morton A. Klein. (For a free copy, please call (212) 481-1500.)

Among other things, the _ZOA study shows_
(http://www.zoa.org/pressrel1998/19980327a.htm) that the original claim of 254 dead was not based on any actual
body count. The number was invented by Mordechai Ra’anan, leader of the
Jewish soldiers who fought in Deir Yassin. He later admitted that the figure was
a deliberate exaggeration in order to undermine the morale of the Arab
forces, which had launched a war against the Jews in Mandatory Palestine to
prevent the establishment of Israel. Other eyewitnesses to the battle estimated
that about 100 Arabs had died. Despite Ra’anan’s admission, the figure 254 was
circulated by Palestinian Arab leader Hussein Khalidi. His claims about Deir
Yassin were the basis for an article in the New York Times claiming a
massacre took place — an article that has been widely reprinted and cited as
“proof” of the massacre throughout the past 57 years.

Meanwhile, there have been numerous _exposes of the lies _
(http://www.freeman.org/m_online/may98/bedein.htm) that have been invented surrounding the
battle for Deir Yassin, and these have largely discredited the Pa’il “eyewitness”
report.

By the way, a massacre did take indeed take place following the events in
Deir Yassin, which had occurred on Friday morning April 9, 1948. On Monday
morning, April 13, 1948, an Arab mob, chanting “Deir Yassin”, massacred a bus
convoy of Jewish doctors and nurses who were headed to Hadassah hospital on
Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. 78 of Hadassah’s medical personnel were murdered in
cold blood. Only recently was it revealed that some of the Hadassah nurses
had found refuge in the nearby compound of the British consul, only to be
turned over to Arabs by the Brits, and the Arabs proceeded to slaughter them in
“revenge” for what they thought had occurred at Deir Yassin.

Both sides used the symbol of “Remember Deir Yassin” in 1948 during the
war. There were Jews who intimidated Arabs with the slogan and there were Arab
commanders who rallied their populace with the same adage. Meanwhile, what has
fanned the flames of Deir Yassin has been the United Nations decision to
confine more than three million Palestinian Arabs to refugee camps, under the
premise and promise of the “right of return” to Arab villages that no longer
exist.

In recent years a group of _pro-Arab propagandists _
(http://www.deiryassin.org/purpose.html) in the US have started holding annual “memorials” for the
“victims” of the “massacre” in Deir Yassin. Edward Said had been a member, and
the group includes such people as neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein,
Saudi-financed ex-congressman Paul Findley and PLO propagandist Hanan Ashrawi.

These are people who have never denounced Arab mass massacres of Jewish
children; massacres committed, not by poorly trained irregulars in the heat of a
crucial battle, but by Islamofascist terrorists awash in money and under the
direct personal command and control of the heads of the PLO.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 15th, 2005 and is filed under history.