Here's the full clip from the BBC's "50 Years War" on Deir Yassin.
It starts on Deir Yassin at 3:35 and the testimony of Hazem Nusseibeh regarding the fake PR copywriting begins at 7:28 and the testimony of the villager about false rape claims is at 8:05.
Of course, Ezra Yachin is quoted out of context as he was referring not to a "massacre" but to their response, as undisciplined as it was and against their original orders, to the firing upon them that caused them unintentionally to kill civilians and as for Meir Pa'il, well, Uri Milshtein doesn't think highly of him as I have posted previously.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
What is still unclear to me is why the village was attacked in the first place. If it was only because the Irgun and the Lehi were eager to kill some Arabs, as Pail claims and which seems to be the plausible explanation, as the village had a pact with Jews and was not a strategic target, then this is also a part of the story that needs to be addressed, not only what happened during the battle/massacre itself
Oh, dear. You don't know? The village was indeed hostile. In early April, despite a so-called truce pact, sniping began. Iraqi irregulars and others took up positions and they joined also the battle of the Kastel. The clipping of the Davar newspaper of April 4 is around somewhere which records the shootings into Bet hakerem and Bayit V'gan.
Yeah, I read about this, I think in a Wikipedia discussion, have to look it up, but I never saw this clipping. A simple search both in English and in Hebrew does not seem to yield anything like that. In fact, there are reasons to believe this is not true:
"The Arab village of Deir Yassin was situated on a hill which overlooked the main highway entering Jerusalem (although a direct line of sight from the village to the highway was blocked by a ridge below). Deir Yassin was also adjacent to a number of Jerusalem's western neighborhoods. The pathway connecting the town to nearby Givat Shaul and the elevation of the hills in the area made control of the town attractive as an airstrip.
Deir Yassin was different from the village of al-Qastal that had recently been attacked by the Haganah, in that it did not participate directly in the conflict. The villagers reportedly wanted to remain neutral in the war and they had repeatedly resisted help and alliances with the Palestinian irregulars. Instead they had made a pact with Haganah to not help the irregulars as long as they were not the target of military operations.
The inhabitants had even remained cooperative while the Haganah took the strategic Sharafa ridge between Deir Yassin and the nearby ALA base Ein Karem. Haganah intelligence confirmed after the village had been captured that it in fact had stayed "faithful allies of the western Jerusalem sector".
Yoma Ben-Sasson, Haganah commander in Givat Shaul, later recalled that "there was not even one incident between Deir Yassin and the Jews"." (emphasis mine)
(source)
But even if so, does it excuse what happened? My criterion is simple: if the roles were switched: it were the Arabs who attacked the Jewish village and the Jewish women would pick up weapons from their fallen husbands and shoot back at the attackers and killed in their houses together with their children and old people - why, we would call it a massacre and use it as an example of the Arab savagery and inhumanity. It's really simple: put yourself in the position of your enemy and you'll learn a lot...
Haganah's Saltiel asked the Irgun to take on Deir Yassin. It overlooked the supply route to Jerusalem from the Mediterranean. He denied this at first until a paper was unearthed showing he advised the Irgun when they volunteered to aid in the war, to take on Deir Yassin.
Salubrius - If you go here, you'll see the document and background of Shaltiel.
Post a Comment