On that day, according to their narrative, “Zionist forces took control of the village of Deyr Yasin, west of Jerusalem [and] what followed was one of the worst massacres during the Nakba.”
Zochrot’s vision, as it appears on its website is “to promote acknowledgment and accountability for the ongoing injustices of the Nakba... and the reconceptualization of the Return as the imperative redress” of that Nakba. It additionally seeks the “Return of the Palestinian refugees to their country... coupled with a joint Jewish-Palestinian process of restitution.”
The term nakba, interestingly enough, was first used by the Syrian Constantine Zurayk in an August 1948 pamphlet not as much to describe an “expulsion of Palestinians,” but rather why the Arabs failed to prevent the results of the war of aggression they themselves launched. He was critical of Arab society in general, seeing Arab civilization in a weakened state of crisis and sought to transform it into a practical, rational, and scientific society.
Deir Yassin has been elevated to the level of the “poster boy” operation of a satanic Zionist plot to commit planned massacres during the 1948 war. But was it? A second question is of all the instances of loss of life, on both sides, why is Deir Yassin such a high profile symbol?
As to the first question, from a high of 254 victims, even the Wikipedia entry now reads that “around 107 of its residents” were killed, although “massacre” is employed. In 1987, the Research and Documentation Center of Bir Zeit University published a comprehensive study of the history of Deir Yassin and arrived at a figure of 111, later reduced to 107. In other words, it is indeed acceptable to correct the original claims regarding what exactly happened at that village just west of Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood.
Facts, however, cannot be debated if they are simply ignored. The entry’s bibliography does not include the book of Uri Milstein, The Birth of a Palestinian Nation: The Myth of the Deir Yassin Massacre, published by Gefen Publishing House in 2012, nor that of Eliezer Tauber, Deir Yassin: Sof Hamitos [Deir Yassin: The End of the Myth] by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir in 2017. Milstein details the participation of a Palmah mortar unit in the battle.
Both volumes are based on original documents, interviews and years of research. Prof. Yoav Gelber’s review of Tauber asserts he “deserves every kudo for his meticulous work, which is exemplary for this genre of historiography. He left no stone unturned and used all the available sources, written and oral, Arab, Jewish (Haganah, IZl, LHI, and political), British, and Red Cross... His expertise in Arabic and on Palestinian society equipped him with vital tools for conducting such a study... After reviewing all the existing lists and comparing them, Tauber compiled his own list that includes 101 names and is probably the closest to the real number.”
Both historians come to the same conclusion: that in Deir Yassin there was no pre-planned, deliberate massacre as the Arab narrative would have us believe – and has been quite successful in having us believe that. This has been due to the support Israeli and Diaspora Jewish anti-Zionists. Unfortunately, Tauber’s book has been submitted to various academic presses abroad but they declined to publish it.
Another element that worked to the advantage of the Arab narrative was the rivalry between the Jewish Agency’s Hagana forces and the Mapam-sponsored Palmah and the dissident Irgun and Lechi undergrounds. It was convenient for David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok (Sharett) to blame the “right-wing” and “fascist” militias even though, for example, outrages were committed by the Hagana and Palmach during 1948 no less disturbing such as at Sassa (in February 14), Ein al-Zeitun (May 2) and Lydda (July 11-12). Benny Morris described some two dozen such actions.
Of course, mostly overlooked are Arab atrocities as the Ben-Yehudah Street blast (February 22), Hadassah Convoy (April 13) and the Kfar Etzion battle (May 13), which alone resulted in 157 deaths.
Propaganda was the vehicle that drove the Deir Yassin myth of a “massacre.” As long ago as 1998, the BBC broadcast filmed testimony from residents of Deir Yassin and of those who promoted the massacre myth discounting their own claims. In their series, The Arab Israeli Conflict, readily available on YouTube for viewing, Hazem Nuseibeh, in 1948 the news editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, is heard on-screen relating his conversation with Hussayn Khalidi, the deputy chairman of the Higher Arab Executive in Jerusalem, right after the incident. Khalidi instructed him to “make the most of this” and so the press release included made up stories of children pregnant women raped and “all sorts of atrocities.”
The Friday tour is not an exercise in the memorialization of a tragedy, but the attempt to pervert the historical record.
The writer is a research fellow at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.