Israel was built on lies. They'll stoop to anything to help spread their fascist occupation, you can't believe anything they come out with.

non-israelis lie to. this linked article is also pure propaganda. There are no objective facts in this aricle, just the conclusion of some palestinian spokesman. But hey, you will believe everything blaming the israelis to be children-eating monsters.

There is no side to chose in this conflict except the one of civillians on both sides. Support grassroot groups on both sides and stop this childish game of israel-bashing. Corrupt palestinean authorities and groups like hamas stink as well.

Stop the occupation- freedom for all.
no borders, no nations.

which lies was israel built on, sarah?

and I suppose this is complete bollocks too:

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3567791.stm

With the lie that 'god' ordained every step of the colonisation of Palestine?

With the lie that the jews where a homogenous ethnic tribe returning to their homeland?

With the lie that israel was to be home to all the jews (except the ones they turned away during and after ww2)?

With the lie that the Palestinians didn't exist - "a people for a land for a land without people"?

With the lie that the great exedous of middle eastern jews occured as the result of arab hatred, rather than in response to the ethnic cleaning of hundres of palestinian villages and hundreds of thousands of people (plus of course, more than a few well aimed grenades curtesy of the ever deceptive mossad)?

Thousands of lies - some big, some petty - all adding up to a monsterous injustice played out on the minds and bodies of two peoples.

Conditioned to believe in nonsense, the jews of israel find themselves turning ever inwards.

Conditioned to believe in nonsense, the muslims of Palestine find themselves turning ever inwards.

What a vicious cycle ... and for what?

Just palin old stupidity - or is there a cunning plan?

If you imagine that the folks who run israels PR campaign are much the same as any other PR outfit
only difference is they are selling stories and not some useless corporate product .
The Story is that the Israeli's are the good guys and the palestinians are the bad guys.
The israeli's are defending themselves , with F16's and Apache helicopters, which they use mostly to take
out civilian targets, against an a people who have no army and no weapons to speak of.
At the same time they are taking over the attackers country .
This little episode fits perfectly even if it is proved to be false at a latter date the message has hit
the spot . 14 year old stopped with explosives belt ... blah blah ... such is the power of the media.
Their good but it's not so hard to sus their line, most sheeple will never notice and if they do
what will the Nuke powered rougue state do then...

"the lie that 'god' ordained every step of the colonisation of Palestine"
-well actually Zionism is a secular movement. It is a break from traditional religious belief that the messiah would lead the Jews to return to the land of Israel.

"the lie that the jews where a homogenous ethnic tribe returning to their homeland"
-Zionism did not argue that jews were an ethnic tribe, but rather that Jews are a nation, a nation without a homeland. Indeed Jews do have the charactoristics of a nation ie having a distinct language and culture. Zionism has never focused on ethnicity.

"the lie that israel was to be home to all the jews (except the ones they turned away during and after ww2"
-Israel is the potential home to ALL jews regardless. Israel did not turn away jews before and during ww2. In fact Zionists desperatly wanted Jews to come to Palestine during the time which you mentioned.

"the lie that the great exedous of middle eastern jews occured as the result of arab hatred, rather than in response to the ethnic cleaning of hundres of palestinian villages and hundreds of thousands of people"
-I'll tell you what. I will write an article about this and post it in the next few days. But in short, in Arab countries anti-Jewish legislation and state sponsored mob violence occured decades before the 1948 war and before the Mossad even existed. For example, in Algeria anti Jewish violence started as early as 1897 when a Jewish synagogue was destroyed in Mostaganem. And in Iraq rather than concern for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs that occured in 1947-9, it was Pro Nazi propaganda that was responsible for anti Semitic sentiment that found its way into Iraq during WW2, before the Palestinian exodus.

Simon,
I admire your attempt to provide a rational and true argument against the lies
posted here but I'm afraid you are wasting your time. The depth of anti-Jewish feeling on Indymedia is little short of filth. They mostly try to dress it up with talk of "concern for the Palestinians" or "being anti-Israeli not anti-Jewish" but the truth is there for all to see.
If most of the comments were placed on a BNP or Nazi website they would fit right in.

Well done Simon for taking the time to expose their ignorance

Al-Jihadzeera, the Al-Qaeda propaganda channel, provides no evidence to back its claims, simply repeating the hollow lies of the war criminal Palestinians who nearly had this child killed.

More to the point, THEY know Palestinians sent this child to die, YOU know it, we ALL know it. Al-Jazeera has zero credibility as a news agency - it's a fascist mouthpiece.

Both recent child bomber stories are entirely true - Palestinian attempts to turn black into white, as usual, are taking it a step too far in the credibility stakes.

The incident has sparked widespread contempt for the intifada that the ridiculous denials have only made worse - to treat a child like a piece of meat (common in Palestinian society, but the world rarely gets a chance to see the truth) is bad enough - but to humiliate yourself by denying the obvious facts and claiming it was 'some Israeli plot'? If it wasn't so repugnant it would be preposterously funny.

The pictures of the mentally handicapped child, with a suicide bomb strapped to him, were taken by a bomb defusal robot - NOT TV cameras as the islamofascist channel claims.

p.s. If it's not true, someone needs to tell the boy, who has given a full account of how he was recruited - by Palestinians - his parents, and the majority of Palestinian sources, including human rights groups, who have verified the story.

 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1049442,00.html
 http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=123&art_id=qw1080228061227B253&set_id=1
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1052056,00.html
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1179307,00.html
et al, ad nauseam

I don't think 'Indymedia' is anti-jewish. As indymedia is made up of volunteers and random people such as everyone commenting on this article.

Personally, i am anti-religion and anti-patriotism/nationalism. But then again, if their wasn't religion and borders to fight about then what would people do in their spare time? They would just find something else just as rediculous to fight about.

The Israeli leaders are sly 2 faced killers and the Palestineans are killers also. It is a lose lose situation. The result of which is a stupid great wall and many deaths.

If people spent a few hours really thinking about what religion is doing to them then maybe we wouldn't have these problems.

"well actually Zionism is a secular movement. It is a break from traditional religious
belief that the messiah would lead the Jews to return to the land of Israel."

A secular movement that only applies to one religion?

That sets it's goals the same as the 'traditionalists' - but without the messiah? Oh thats all right then!

... the end result being the same - colonisation.

"Zionism did not argue that jews were an ethnic tribe, but rather that Jews are a nation, a nation without a homeland"

Nation???

So, just steal someone elses land - back to the big lie that Palestines indigenous populations (existant and unbroken for thousands of years) didn't exist - or weren't accorded the same rights to live in their homeland!

"Israel is the potential home to ALL jews regardless" - oh, back to that 'secular' business!!!

Except those refused entry attempting to escape the nazi horror (the Petra for example -bombed by the emerging israeli terror gangs. The wrong kind of jew?) and those consigned to the death camps by their fellow jews in Romania, Urkrain and under stalins soviet nightmare?

"And in Iraq rather than concern for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs
that occured in 1947-9, it was Pro Nazi propaganda that was responsible for anti Semitic
sentiment that found its way into Iraq during WW2, before the Palestinian exodus."

Now you insult our intelligence - we know what dates follow other dates - it's called chronology, and generally can't be reversed! Blame the victim for their response before it happens and seek retribution anyway?

And for you information, mossad - although subsequently changing it's name - is a lot older than israel. Formally a division of Broffmans and Lanskeys crime mob, it also can trace it's roots back to the B'nai Brith - the Rothschilds personal police and spy network.

It's motto is, and has been always - through deception we wage war.

None of you fanatical supporters of israel - and you are fanatics - have yet addressed the central issues and facts of this story except to claim that it is untrue because you say so.

Why were camara crews alerted hours before the event?

What about the other boy to which a similar thing happened? released without charge, with no physical evidence and a pretty damming account of how he was treated by the israeli forces.

Of course you don't have to answer for your support of the worst facist regeim on earth - why should you? You are above it all - just simply claim that I and others like me are anti-semitic. End of debate.

If that fails, claim that israel is merely defending it's [ill gotten] gains against a ... er ... vastly inferior force?!?

We won't go into the forensic evidence of the IDF's shoot to kill campaign against Palestinian children here - will we?

Unless of course you would like to publicise it by dening it - again.

This dreadful adherence to the 'official' israeli line out of some ancient vestige of tribal/ethnic/religious loyalty (which one is it again guys?) is very damaging to the moral and the standing of jews all over the world - not least those in my own country. People who have contributed to the rise of our society and it's imperfect freedoms and hopes for a peaceful and just world - people who now condemn the actions of this israel occupier that has the nerve to claim it speaks for all jews (ignoring or spitfully attacking those that disagree) and the morons to loudly back them up with the debating equivalents of the full stop and the club!

No justice, no peace.

...is like arguing about theology with Bin Laden.

Your latest comments were riddled with so many inacracies that it is difficult to decide where to begin!

"And for you information, mossad - although subsequently changing it's name - is a lot older than israel. Formally a division of Broffmans and Lanskeys crime mob, it also can trace it's roots back to the B'nai Brith - the Rothschilds personal police and spy network."

-For those of you how dont know who Mayer Lanskey was, he was a Jewish Crime boss in New York, the right hand man of "Lucky" Luchiano. During ww2 he worked for the United States federal government, using his mob troops to disband Nazi meetings across America. Interestingly, he tried to move to Israel and was not permitted to by the Israeli authorities because of his Mob past. For all his schemes and criminal activities, he was not invloved in the foundation of the Mossad. The Mossad was indeed founded before the state of Israel was born. During ww2 the British did not allow jews fleeing from nazi persicution to enter Palestine. A group called the Mossad Aliyah Bet was formed as a means to illigally bring Jews fleeing the nazis to Palestine. After the formation of Israel the organization became Israel's secret service. As for B'nai Brith? jackslucid, dont be stupid!!

"So, just steal someone elses land - back to the big lie that Palestines indigenous populations (existant and unbroken for thousands of years) didn't exist - or weren't accorded the same rights to live in their homeland! AND "Israel is the potential home to ALL jews regardless" - oh, back to that 'secular' business!!!"

-OK, i dont think you understood what i was trying to tell you before. Zionism as a secular movement asserts that Jews are a NATION, Jews as a nation have a right to return to their national home. This premise does not refer to religious identity but NATIONAL identity. Zionists did not steal the land from Palestinians. Zionists bought the land from absantee landlords. Often they were charged over priced amounts for was was essentially a wasteland. Also let us not forget the basics of ownership, property is a product of labour. This means that if one is to work on the land, he is the owner of what comes from it. The Palestinians population of palestine in 1922 was 590,000. This is actually not a large number for many years Palestine was depopulated. Potentially could absorbe many hundreds of thousands. Zionism was seen as benificial to local population. That is why Emir Feisal, a representative of the Arab world at the Paris Peace Conference commented, "We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.... We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home".

As for Jews from Arab countries anti Jewish violence started even before political zionism existed.

Tunisia 1880: Seven Jews were murdered by an Arab mob in Nabel.

Morocco 1875: twenty Jews were murdered by Arabs in Debdou. Between 1864 and 1880 over 500 jews had been murdered.

Egypt 1844 and 1882: In 1844 Jews were accused of using human blood for ritual purposes. In 1882 Jews were attacked in anti-foreigner riots (dont forget Jews had lived in egypt for many centuries. this event shows that the Jews were made to feel foreign).

Libya 1785 to 1860: Under the rule of Ali Gurzi Pasha, hundreds of jews were murdered. In 1860 harsh anti jewish measures made life imporssible for the jews. Jews who fled had to pay a heavy exit fine EXCEPT THOSE WHO WENT TO PALESTINE.

As you said lets not forget that there is something called a chronology.

I think i rest my case

Jewish immigrants brought a SMALL PERCENTAGE of the land belonging to Palestinians, but the vast majority they took by force. Take the example of Deir Yassein, where zionist militias entered the neutral Palestinian village, which had just signed a peace treaty with a neighbouring Jewish settlement, and massacred the men, women and children who lived there. And see how this and other massacres like it triggered the mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes.
Not all zionist immigrants were as bloodthirsty, and I'm sure many, if not the majority, wanted to live in harmony with the arabs who lived there. Many were driven by the beautiful dream of zionism, the horrors of what lay behind them, and the potential to build a new society on empty land, except the land wasn't empty. I remember being in Palestine with a Jewish lady, who had lived in Israel some 30 years ago, and she told me how she had gone out there to build the Jewish state. But then she had seen it become the Nazi state, and could no longer stand to live there. The difference between the beautiful dream, and the harsh reality, was a difficult one for her.

The issue with this suicide bomber boy makes no sense. No militiary organisation, even a fanatical one, would send a mentally retarded boy on a suicide mission, because the chances of him succeeding are almost non-existent. There were TV crews waiting for this boy to turn up, to record the whole situation of his apprehension. He just turned up, got apprehended, and plastered all over the media.
If I hear Hamas or someone claim responsibility for sending this boy, I'll eat my words, but the whole thing looks completely suspect. The suicide bombing operations are planned a great deal more meticulously than this ridiculous charade.

Why did the zionist project get the land of the Palestinians, who did them no harm, rather than compensation from say, the Germans? After all, if its simply a secular project, it doesn't matter where Israel is created. If its a matter of simple nationality, it's as ridiculous as me deciding to set up a Saxon state in Saxony, which my ancestors inhabited closer to the time, in fact, that the Jews inhabited ancient Israel.

The answer is the British, who wanted to set up 'a little Ulster in the Middle-East'. It is classic divide and conquer tactics, and through them the Jews have been divided against the Muslims, who have traditioanlly co-existed far more peacefully than the Europeans and the Jews. Tell me, why do Arabs pay for the persecution carried out by Europeans? The Jews are actually victims yet again. Now they are on the front line of a war the West is carrying out on the middle-east. After all, in the first gulf war, it wasn't the US that the Scud missiles landed on. If Iran ever became armed with nuclear weapons, it isn't the US that is going to fear for its safety. It is the Jews in Israel who will be under threat.

If you don't believe that the Jews are being used in this way, I want you to look up some of the writings of the British ministers who supported the creation of Israel. Also, look up what the Christian Zionists who continue to support Israel actually say about Jewish people, and their role in bringing about Armageddon, and tell me who is anti-semitic. In the same breath as a preacher will say 'God does not hear the prayers of Jews', he will emphasise the need to support Israel, because they are wanting the third temple to be built, so Jesus will return, and the jews, muslims, and other 'infidels' will drown in seas of blood. (In fact, there are now Muslim zionists who believe the same, and want all the Jews to gather in one place in order that they might all be killed on the day of judgement)

I wish you could see that your Jewish national sentiment is being manipulated for cynical political interests? Some of these interests are imperial, the motivations of the British and US, and some are actually crazy, like those of the Christian zionists. How does being flung into the front line of a colonial project in the middle-east serve Jewish interests? Are Jews any more secure now than they were following the end of World War 2?

Zionists bought small percentage of the land in Palestine because 85 percent of the land was owned by the state, the British and before them, the Ottoman Turks.

There has been a continued presence of Jews in Palestine for thousands of years, and the establishment of the national home for the Jews had to be in the land of Israel. Zionism is a secular concept, rooted by Jewish national identity. Before the land was called Palestine, it was called Judea. The word Jew comes from the nation of Judea and not Judaism. The word “Judaism” was never mentioned in the bible. Also the Jewish state was created in Palestine because deep rooted national aspirations before the concept of political Zionism was borne centred on eretz Yisrael.

As for Christian Zionist support of Israel, I don’t mind. Menachem Bagin, the former Prime Minister of Israel commented that if the Christian Zionists want us to be in the land of Israel so that their messiah will come and then convert us is ok. They do us a favour today, and we will return the favour tomorrow when their messiah comes!

About Deir Yassin it is unacceptable to talk about this massacre without mentioning the Arab reprisal attack against a ten vehicle convoy of unarmed nurses and doctors in Jerusalem on the way to the Hadassah hospital that killed over 70 non combatants. Arab militiamen were heard crying “deir yassin” and “deir yassin has been avenged”. This is only one of many Arab massacres of Jews in Palestine.

As for the British’s divide and conquer tactics you mentioned, you implied that Israel was a puppet to British imperialism. Well you are not quite right so let me explain
1. Bevin and the British government were in relentless opposition to Palestine’s partition.
2. unable to avoid partition, British officials wanted to see a weaker Jewish state emerge with LESS territory than what was allocated in the United Nations Partition Resolution. Britain wanted the Jewish state to be so weak that it would ask for protection from the British. As you are well aware, these hopes were eventually dashed.
3. The British wanted and disrupted Jewish immigration to Palestine
4. The 4 week truce during the 1948 War was suggested by Britain in an attempt to help the Arab war effort. During the truce the British Foreign office gave strategic and military advice to the attacking Arab armies.

Much archive material supports these assertions.

“the Jews have been divided against the Muslims, who have traditionally co-existed far more peacefully than the Europeans and the Jews.”

Far more peacefully does not mean peacefully. Under Arab rule Jews fared bad. Is it fare to overlook Arab injustice to Jews because European injustices were worse? I don’t believe so.

I must also comment that the opinions of critics of Israel and anti Zionists on this website are really quite poor. They lack historical depth and political context.

The myth of a 'massacre' at Deir Yassin
from Myths and Facts: A Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0936146036/theamericanisraeA/102-7576894-4313713

The book's not a difficult read, so it should be suitable for misguided pro-Palestinian fantasists, no matter how ill they are.
--

The Irgun decided to attack Deir Yassin on April 9, while the Haganah was still engaged in the battle for Kastel. This was the first major Irgun attack against the Arab occupiers. Previously, the Irgun and Lehi had concentrated their attacks against the British.

A small open truck fitted with a loudspeaker was driven to the entrance of the village before the attack and broadcast a warning to civilians to evacuate the area, which many did. "One of us called out on the loudspeaker in Arabic, telling the inhabitants to put down their weapons and flee. I don't know if they heard, and I know these appeals had no effect."

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:

My unit stormed and passed the first row of houses. I was among the first to enter the village. There were a few other guys with me, each encouraging the other to advance. 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.

More than 200 Arabs were killed, 40 captured and 70 women and children were released. No hint of a massacre appeared in any report.

“Paradoxically, the Jews say about 250 out of 400 village inhabitants [were killed], while Arab survivors say only 110 of 1,000.” A study by Bir Zeit University, based on discussions with each family from the village, 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. Other Arab sources have subsequently suggested the number may have been even lower.

In fact, the attackers left open an escape corridor from the village and more than 200 residents left unharmed. For example, at 9:30 A.M., about five hours after the fighting started, the Lehi evacuated 40 old men, women and children on trucks and took them to a base in Sheikh Bader. Later, the Arabs were taken to East Jerusalem. Seeing the Arabs in the hands of Jews also helped raise the morale of the people of Jerusalem who were despondent from the setbacks in the fighting to that point. Another source says 70 women and children were taken away and turned over to the British. If the intent was to massacre the inhabitants, no one would have been evacuated.

Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. 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."

The Arab Higher Committee 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 stimulate a new Palestinian exodus.

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. Moreover, despite attacks such as this against the Jewish community in Palestine, in which more than 500 Jews were killed in the first four months after the partition decision alone, Jews did not flee.

Thank you for pasting up that revisionist fairytale verbatim from Mitchell Bard's zionist propaganda site:

 http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/deir_yassin.html

Mr. Bard was born and still resides in the USA, a long way away from the troubles in Israel and Palestine.
 http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/mbbio.html

But there are many Israelis who remember Deir Yassin rather differently:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 http://www.jfjfp.org/backgroundX.htm
"On 9 April 1948 the Irgun and the Stern Gang killed 100-130 men, women and children in cold blood in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. The village was repopulated with Jewish immigrants and the name Deir Yassin was wiped off the map.

Deir Yassin was not the only massacre to take place at the time, on either side. But because more then any other single event, Deir Yassin signalled the flight of the Palestinians which was to lead to their eventual dispossession and exile, it has come to occupy a very special place in the Palestinian collective memory.

But Deir Yassin is an important event in Jewish history too. Coming just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Deir Yassin symbolises the Jewish transition from enslavement to empowerment and, in too many cases, from abused to abuser. For many Jews and Israelis the massacre has become a symbol for Jews and Israelis trying to understand and to own their responsibility for the historical and ongoing persecution of the Palestinians."

Dr. Esti Rimmer is an Israeli living in the U.K. The following piece was written after Esti's return home after attending the DYD2001 commemoration at the Peacock theatre in London. It's a remarkable piece which looks at Deir Yassin through the eyes of an Israeli child:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sun Always Sets on Deir Yassin

by Dr. Esti Rimmer

Esti Rimmer is an Israeli living in the U.K. This piece was written after Esti's return home after attending the DYD2001 commemoration at the Peacock theatre in London. It's a remarkable piece which looks at Deir Yassin through the eyes of an Israeli child.



I may be one of the few Israelis who could never forget Deir Yassin for the simple reason that I could see the ruined village from my bedroom window, all through my childhood and growing up years. Every night before I went to bed I would witness one of those glorious spectacular sunsets over the Jerusalem hills and would see the red fire ball of the sun slowly descend over Deir Yassin. My window was facing west and our apartment block was on the eastern slope of the valley, opposite the village of Deir Yassin.

Our neighbourhood was made up of these new apartment blocks built in the 1950s to house new immigrants and second-generation children of immigrants or refugees of lower-middle class, hard working Israelis. Many teachers, civil servants and nurses lived on those little flats in this new and vibrant community, ironically named Yeffe Nof - "beautiful view". The stunning view from the windows, which made up for the modesty of the flats and the lack of lifts and central heating in the cold and windy Jerusalem winters, was the view of Deir Yassin.

As children we used to roam those hills, jumping between the beautifully stoned terraces of cultivated land were almond trees, olive trees and apple trees would each year blossom and give their fruits freely to us delighted children. Such an idyllic setting our parents thought to bring us up in as a new generation of children who will fear no persecution and would be able to run around in the hot caressing sun, barefoot and carefree.

However, the questions remained unanswered, who planted the trees and cultivated the valley? Certainly not our parents who were busy building a new Jerusalem, civil and urban society. And why was this village left to ruin? And where were the people? There was no one to answer these questions, not a teacher, a parent, a youth leader, not a sign, a mark, a stone to tell the story.

From my window, if you stretched your neck further south, you could see the hills on your left. The lower one Mount Hertzel Military Cemetery, the higher one Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. As children we would visit, every year on Memorial Day - the day before Independence Day, the military cemetery. Dressed in blue and white we would carry flowers and blue and white flags to put on the brave soldiers' graves. We would sing songs and hear prayers recited, we would see the parents of the these soldiers with vacant looks in their eyes, often dry of tears looking at us school children from the same school their sons and daughters went to before they were sent to war. Somehow, I could always spot the bereaved parents from the rest of the adults. The way they held their bodies, their gestures, awkward, stiff, frozen, as if they were there and not there. Later they would be the parents of my friends and classmates.

And on Holocaust Memorial days, our neat little group of blue and white school children carrying more flowers would march higher up the hill to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. There we would come upon that nameless dread, the nightmares after seeing the children's eyes in the photos in the museum, the silence the adults would hush into when someone mentioned the 'camps'. My father's inability to talk about his perished family drove him to an early grave. My mother used to tell me more about her family, her childhood, her parents' house and wine shop, and the vineyards owned by her grandfather from which the wine was manufactured. All lost, never to be retrieved but not forgotten.

Yet, no one mentioned Deir Yassin to me. It was as if the village, so prominent in my view, never existed.

Later as a young psychology student, I would visit the mental hospital set up on the hill of Deir Yassin, Kfar Shaul, the village of Saul. Another naming irony, for which Israel is so famous. Saul the mad, melancholic king who suffered from the bad spirits giving his name to a place set up to heal the tortured souls who survived the camps. I would walk along the small cabins of the hospital which housed the fortunate of unfortunate survivors whose souls had long ago been murdered and make feeble attempts at conversation, at some normality and at some possibility of rehabilitation. And I wondered, did those restless tormented souls know that the safe haven they had come to be healed in and freed from memories of massacres, had seen another massacre, the one that took place in the village around whose destroyed houses their rehabilitation hospital was set up? I have already come to learn of it from the little that slipped through the walls of silence and to mourn even the loss of the beautiful view of the ruined village, which was later covered up by petrol tanks.

So can anybody forget the view of their childhood, the scene outside their bedroom window, which is etched in their mind's eye? My mother's was fertile hills and grapevines of Transylvania, mine the charred and destroyed village of Deir Yassin.

I grew up in a country established by people who are so good at remembering. The Jewish faith is marked by days of remembrance. It is memory that keeps us as human beings superior to other species. Yet, my neighbourhood Yeffe-Noff was built on the denial of memory. "Look at the beautiful view" but don't see and don't accept that the children of the old and sick people in the hospital are the ones responsible for uprooting, expelling, exiling, killing, tormenting and humiliating other people's children.

But can we allow ourselves not to open our eyes and see all there is to see in the valley between Yad Vashem, with its lists of names of victims and acknowledgments of responsibility by torturers, and Deir Yassin's ruined stones with no list of names, no memorial services, no candles, no flowers and no children of survivors coming to see the horrors with their trusting and innocent eyes, and no acknowledgment of responsibility by the perpetrators? If not, the whole of the land of my childhood will be covered with Mount Hertzel like graveyards, the few survivors wondering with their lost souls in the corridors of hospitals. And the olive and almond and apple trees will give fruit to nobody's children.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In Sight of Yad Vashem:
Jews and Deir Yassin Remembrance

by Paul Eisen, London-based director of Deir Yassin Remembered

January 2003

"The central part of Deir Yassin is a cluster of buildings now used as a mental hospital. To the east lies the industrial area of Givat Shaul; to the north lies Har Hamenuchot (the Jewish cemetery), to the west, built into the side of the mountain on which Deir Yassin is located is Har Nof, a new settlement of orthodox Jews. To the south is a steep valley terraced and containing part of the Jerusalem Forest. On the other side of that valley, roughly a mile and a half from Deir Yassin and in clear view of it, are Mount Herzl and Yad Vashem."
- from "Remembering Deir Yassin by Dan McGowan

Deir Yassin is as important a part of Jewish as it is of Palestinian history. Deir Yassin, coming in April 1948, just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, marks a Jewish transition from enslavement to empowerment and from abused to abuser. Can there ever have been such a remarkable shift, over such a short period, in the history of a people?

Deir Yassin also signalled the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians leading to their eventual dispossession and exile and was just one example of a conscious and premeditated plan to destroy the Palestinians as a people in their own homeland. For the fifty-odd years since the establishment of the state of Israel, successive Israeli governments whether Labour or Likud, and whether by force as at Deir Yassin, or by chicanery as at Oslo and Camp David, have followed the same policy of oppressing and dispossessing Palestinians to make way for an exclusively Jewish state. Even now, when Israel could have peace and security for the asking, Israeli governments persist in their original intention of conquering the whole of Palestine for the use of the Jewish people alone. And all this was done, and is still being done, by Jews, for Jews and in the name of Jews.

But should we, as Jews, feel ourselves culpable? After all, these are the crimes of Zionists not of Jews committed in a different place and time. Are we, Jews who were not there, who were not even born at the time, to feel responsible for these deeds? And anyway, not all Jews committed these crimes, so surely not all Jews need accept responsibility?

But Zionism and the state of Israel now lie at the very heart of Jewish life and so many Jews have benefited from the associated empowerment. So many Jews, even if unaffiliated officially to Zionism, have still supported it in its aims. Indeed, almost the entire organised Jewish establishments throughout the western world, in Israel, Europe and North America have used their power, influence and, most importantly, their moral prestige to support Israel in its attempts to subjugate the Palestinians. And not only have they offered their support for these crimes. These same groups and individuals are also telling the rest of the world that it's not really happening, that Israel is not the aggressor, that Israel is not trying to destroy the Palestinian people, that black is white. And not only do they deny this reality, anyone who dares say otherwise is branded an anti-Semite and excluded from society.

This militarization and politicisation of Jewish life, this silencing of dissent, this bowing down before the God of the state of Israel, is this the tradition that was handed down to us, and what does this leave us to pass on to our children? If we are really honest with ourselves, should we not, as suggested by Marc Ellis, replace every Torah scroll, in every ark, in every synagogue in the Jewish world, with a helicopter gunship? Because, as Ellis says, "what we do, we worship".

That the relationship with the Palestinian people is fractured is self-evident, but what of the relationships within our own community and the relationship with our own history and tradition? Are these also not affected? And how does one repair a fractured relationship? As with an old friend whom one has offended, but to whom one has never acknowledged the offence, surely only the absolute truth will do.

So, for the sake of the future of Jewish life, there can only be one solution - a complete and full confession that what we Jews have done to the Palestinian people is wrong and what we are doing to the Palestinian people is wrong, and, with that confession, a resolve, as far as is possible, to put the matter right.

And where better to begin than at Deir Yassin - the scene of the crime against the Palestinian people, the place of transition from enslavement to empowerment and from abused to abuser? For Deir Yassin, in clear sight of Yad Vashem, the symbol of our own tragedy, is the symbol of the tragedy visited by us on another people. Where better to begin this process of confession and restitution?

But will they come? Will Jews come to commemorate Deir Yassin? For the overwhelming majority, the answer is a resounding "no". Jews will not come to Deir Yassin. Jews will not confess to the Palestinian people. For most Jews, commemoration of Deir Yassin is tantamount to siding with the enemy, to conspiring to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Buoyed up by their own propaganda and blinded by their sense of innocence and victimhood, most Jews will not join with Palestinians in commemorating Deir Yassin.

But there is a fringe of Jews who do not take this view, Jews who do not share this vision of the Jewish establishments. These Jews, who generally make up what is known as the "Peace Camp," do not wish to see the complete destruction of the Palestinian people but, instead, wish to come to some kind of accommodation with them. These Jews, whilst also uneasy about coming to Deir Yassin, will at least talk about it. What of them?

These Jews will often say, "Yes, we will join Palestinians in commemorating Deir Yassin when Palestinians join us in commemorating Maalot" or "We will remember Deir Yassin when Palestinians remember the more recent Sbarro Pizza Bar bombing", We then point out that we don't commemorate Deir Yassin because it was a massacre. (If we did, we would be commemorating every day of the week, every week of the year since there were plenty of massacres, on both sides) We commemorate because Deir Yassin is a symbol of the Palestinian catastrophe rather as Anne Frank is a symbol of the Holocaust. After all, as Anne Frank was just one child so Deir Yassin was just one village.

So then these Jews say, "Okay, we shall commemorate Deir Yassin when Palestinians commemorate Auschwitz". To this we have to say, "Yes, but Palestinians didn't do Auschwitz to us; we did do Deir Yassin to them". These Jews also don't want to admit that what they have done to the Palestinians is wrong, and what they are doing to the Palestinians is wrong. Nor do these Jews really want to make restitution to the Palestinians. These Jews, just like those who flatly refuse to come to Deir Yassin and make no apologies, these, more moderate Jews, also want to assert their power. But, unlike the others, they want to keep their innocence as well. And this is not easy. At one time they simply told themselves that it had never happened, but now, largely thanks to the new Israeli historians, this is no longer possible. So they dress it up in what Professor Walid Khalidi has called "the sin of moral equivalence". They say, "This is not a case of one people trying to destroy another, of a victim and a perpetrator; this is a conflict, a conflict between two rights and both sides have suffered terribly. If only both sides would understand each other's suffering, all will be well." So these Jews say that they will come to Deir Yassin and, once there, will say to Palestinians, "Okay, we've suffered; you've suffered, let's talk". To which we have to say, "No, it's not we've suffered, you've suffered, let's talk"; it's "We've suffered and we've caused you to suffer; NOW let's talk". Deir Yassin is surely about peace and reconciliation, but the peace cannot be the peace and quiet for the victor to go on robbing the victims, and the reconciliation cannot be the reconciliation of the victims reconciling themselves with their victim-hood.

But for those few Jews of conscience who do make it to our commemorations, for that tiny remnant who do wish to remember and to confess, what will they find? First, they will encounter a people and a narrative that they may never have met or heard before. For most Jews, Palestinians remain stereotyped as biblical shepherds, refugees or terrorists, and their story is largely unknown. To encounter the Palestinian community, as so many Jews did for the first time at our London commemorations, is to encounter a community not only human and diverse, but, most importantly, so very like their own.

They will also be witness to Palestinians remembering their own tragedy. For many Palestinians, particularly those old enough to have been present at the events being remembered, Deir Yassin commemorations can be very emotional. Silently to accompany these people as they remember their tragic history is, for any Jew of conscience, a deeply moving experience.

Thirdly, and so importantly, they will encounter a story of dispossession and exile so reminiscent of their own. For any Jew, the Palestinian father who was dragged out of his home in Deir Yassin, as re-enacted at the London 2001 commemoration, could so easily have been a surrendered ghetto fighter in Warsaw 1941, and that bourgeois Madame, in her now-bedraggled fur coat trudging the road out of Jaffa and into exile, was nothing if not a Berliner boarding a train for Riga in 1942.

Finally, they will have the opportunity and the privilege to say, loud and clear, with no ifs and buts, "what we have done to the Palestinian people is wrong and what we are doing to the Palestinian people is wrong. Let us now work together to put it right."
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Remembering and Resisting: On Deir Yassin and the Jewish Future

by Marc H Ellis

Remembering is a complex act of association, highlighting, forgetting, recalling and most of all reconfiguring a reality that exists within us but no longer outside of us. That is why meeting an old friend or visiting a neighbourhood familiar to our childhood is strange and invigorating. And sometimes disorienting. Memory transports us back to times that were more innocent, when possibility was the reality, and when the world as we know it in adulthood or old age was still far away.

This is true if we are lucky. If our world was not filled with violence and atrocity. If protective walls and the comforting arms of mother and father were experienced rather than sounds of war and the reality of dislocation and death at an early age.

Once the cycle of violence and atrocity is forced upon us, it comes inside of us, like a thief who has entered a home and remains. Violence and atrocity are shadows that never leave; even when a person is released from its daily onslaught, the shadow remains, especially if that person has lost a loved one, becomes a refugee, loses her land and place and the smells of the flowers and the countryside that enters into our being and make us who we are.

People have memories that are so intimate, multi-layered and deeply buried that often it takes a trained psychologist to pry them free. What we remember and how we remember is personal, sometimes without rhyme or reason, eclectic, unpredictable, random. Sometimes we remember beauty when all around us was ugliness and sometimes our memories are bitter when, in comparison with others, our lives were blessed.

Bad times can be remembered as good and the best of times can carry a sadness that is unrelenting. Often our memories carry so much feeling and they come to us at the oddest, most inappropriate of times. When the present demands our full attention, memory can leave us unfocused, like a dream in sleep or the feeling of foreboding when we awake.

Memory is not simply individual, for a community, too, carries memory. Like the individual, collective memory is made up of images that are reflective, that beseeches realities that no longer exist or are now in an altered state. Individuals have contours to their lives, landscapes of birth and family and childhood. Communities have contours as well, landscapes that are geography and culture and religion. In certain times and places a communal sense becomes accentuated in intensity and duration, heralding the arrival of a sense of people-hood.

Memory is personal and collective: a people remembers its liberations and its defeats, its time in the land and its exile from the land. In that memory are villages and towns and cities, the lay of the land, the call of religion and even the smells so particular to and varied in different lands.

Especially in exile.

So much of the world is in exile. And yet our own exile is the memory we live with. We may witness other exiles, we may note them as terrible and tragic, but they are someone else's experience; they are not our memory. What does memory mean? For what reason do we recollect? Is our memory only our own? What is the difference between individual and collective memory? What should we do with our memories? Should we speak of them or hide them? Caress or distance ourselves from them? Are they for family or friends? Should they be used publicly for peace or for war? Should memory pacify or militarize us? Is memory a bridge to ourselves and to others?

So often memory becomes a blunt instrument used to avenge a hurt remembered. Can it also be a way of embrace, a way of overcoming, a way of receiving and extending the possibility of hope, even, and especially, when the path forward is clouded with the continuing cycle of violence and atrocity? Can memory become a path of forgiveness, a forgiveness that does not forget, does not excuse and does not bury the memory of hurt and violation, but one which insists on a justice that is compassionate and discerning?

It is here that forgiveness may leave its piety and become revolutionary. Justice is not all of life and it does not eliminate the pain of violation. Justice moves the tainted memory to another level, beyond revenge and hate and beyond a spoken forgiveness that is not lived out in the world. Like memory, the experience of revolutionary forgiveness is personal and collective. It represents a healing of the interior, of the landscape of individuals and a people. It is a calling out that violation is wrong and that a world without violation is possible, and that even with the difficulty of achieving this in a personal and collective way, it is our only hope. As much as language and thought, the possibility of revolutionary forgiveness distinguishes us from the animal kingdom. It is the substructure of beauty and compassion. It is a path that we all recognize. It may be connected to the millennial quest for God.

For without revolutionary forgiveness, how can we make sense of our interior lives, where past and present, love and hurt, despair and hope intermingle as a multi-layered reality that seeks oneness. How can we make sense of our journeys as communities and peoples without this sensibility, somehow reconciling the disparities found in any ancient journey that is at the same time contemporary?

What keeps us from this revolutionary forgiveness? What blocks that longing of the human heart and the collective imagination? Why do we turn our back on the reconciliation that offers healing and peace, the restoration of the ordinary that within the cycle of violence and atrocity is so extraordinary?

A psychologist might say denial, especially when the trauma has been so stark. But denial is not only the trauma as it was then, but as it is remembered now. The trauma then and now is also contextual, depending on what has been done and what is being done with that trauma. As a Jew and part of the first generation raised after the mass slaughter, the generation that helped to name the suffering of European Jewry as the Holocaust, that trauma is obvious. As a child, and even now as an adult, the memory of that suffering is within and around me. But why, then, the difficulty among Jews, a difficulty that has increased over the years, in recognizing the suffering of Palestinians?

Today Palestinian and Israeli scholars alike acknowledge that something terrible happened to the Palestinians in 1948. And more than a few Jews recognize that something terrible is happening to Palestinians today. Why then is this the province of the few rather than a collective awakening? And why does this vanguard of Jews, Jews of conscience, many of them who relate to Palestinians as brothers and sisters in struggle, exist in exile from the Jewish community rather than form its core, its foundational outreach to the world, as a witness to our history of trauma and our own desire to be healed and live in justice and peace?

Why do we as a people not recognize Deir Yassin as foundational to Jewish life? For without this recognition our future will be consigned to the category of empires that once persecuted us as Jews. Why is Jewish leadership in the political, religious and academic worlds so complicit in this cycle of violence and atrocity against the Palestinian people, by silencing Jewish dissent, by lobbying for policies of power and might, and by denigrating those Palestinians who are struggling for freedom and justice? Why is this complicity rewarded in American and British society with status and honors and why is rabbinic employment and career advancement often dependent on the silence of the rabbis on this issue? Is this complicity out of fear or ignorance or simply the desire for power? Does it come from a memory of trauma and the refusal to ever again be vulnerable to the "other"? Is this "other," in this case the Palestinian, now a twin, carrying a trauma that is too similar to our own, one that we are causing? Do we feel that recognizing our twin somehow diminishes or implicates us? Perhaps this non-recognition is a form of protection that has become paradoxically a safe haven for the Jewish people. Our own suffering and innocence, which continues even in empowerment, is a place where accountability is absent, where Jews are above the law and beyond the reach of even our own conscience.

That is the reason for the wall of denial in memory and the wall of separation being built today in Israel. It is a wall that ultimately is self-protection from the haunting images of a suffering which we are causing. It is a spiritual and physical wall that guards us against our own indictment. It is a wall that seeks to partition the memory of Deir Yassin as a memory apart from us, a memory that informs us, at inconvenient times and places, of the trauma we have caused and the need for our confession as we have sought the confession of those who transgressed against us. Would our confession set us free? A confession is a dealing with memory just as the wall is. A memorial at Deir Yassin would be for Palestinians what the Holocaust museum is for Jews. But it would also be for Jews. Would any Jew think that the Holocaust memorials around the world are just for Jews? Are they not also for the perpetrators and bystanders as a permanent memory of injustice and its cost to future generations? A formative event of suffering is not only formative for the victim; it is formative for the perpetrator as well. Deir Yassin is to be remembered by Palestinians in light of Palestinian history and the future. It also needs to be remembered by Jews for Jewish history and a future.

For can there be a Jewish future within empire? Can we speak of what it means to be Jewish in the context of conquering another people? Jewish articulation has always contested empire, even in the Biblical period, and contemporary Jewish life is built around struggles for justice and inclusion in so many fields and movements. Even the violence against Palestinians is argued less in terms of empire than self-defense and terror. But as those who are known for critical thought, it is difficult to believe that Jews don't see through this rhetoric.

I have often wondered how Jews justify the memory lapse that equates the Palestinian struggle with Israel and the Nazi assault against the Jewish people. And how Jews, even many in the peace movement, speak of the need for Palestinians to guarantee Jewish security. Have they lost their ability to think or has their memory entered a place of denial that limits thought and compassion? Is this deliberate, like a smoke-screen, or so deeply felt that there seems to be no other way to understand the reality as it is today than in terms of power and aggression? And why can some Jews understand while others cannot?

Recently, several reflections have appeared in the Israeli press that remind us of this complexity. I cite three of these.

First, an article in Ha'aretz described a group of Danish educators who had traveled to Jerusalem for a two-week seminar at Yad Vashem's International School of Holocaust Studies. There they met with the noted Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer, who commented on the possibility that the state of Israel might commit genocide against the Palestinian people. "Am I to understand that you think Israel could commit genocide on the Palestinian people?" asked one young educator, somewhat taken aback. "Yes," answered Bauer. "Just two days ago, extremist settlers passed out flyers to rid Arabs from this land. Ethnic cleansing results in mass killing." Bauer added that Israeli polls showed a high percentage of Palestinians want to get rid of Jews. Bauer concluded: "What we have here between Israelis and Palestinians is an armed conflict - if one side becomes stronger there is a chance of genocide. Fortunately, both sides are very strong and good at killing each other so you realize you can't get rid of each other and must come to some sort of political solution." Second, a reflection by a Jewish peace activist, Gila Svirsky, titled "The Great Wall of Denial," addresses the horrors of the recent Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza in some detail and asks why Israelis do not seem able to understand what is happening to Palestinians. She sites three reasons: the media which reports the facts and figures but does not convey the suffering behind the "iron fist" policies; the Palestinian "violence against Israeli civilians" that provides the cover for Israelis to focus on "our own pain and fear"; and the political and rabbinical leaders who engage in "fear-mongering" and dehumanization of the other. Overall, Svirsky thinks it might be the problem of those who have been abused, abusing others. Svirsky concludes with a lament about the difficulty of breaking through the wall of denial. A new campaign among a coalition of Israeli peace groups has the slogan, "Don't say you didn't know..." in reference to the German claims of ignorance during the Holocaust. "And yet with all this effort, will we be able to break through the Great Wall of Denial?"

Finally, an Op-ed piece by the Israeli politician Shulamit Aloni, a former Knesset member and government minister, is titled "Murder of a Population Under Cover of Righteousness." Aloni is responding to a previous commentary that claims the Israeli government cannot commit genocide against the Palestinians because Israel is a democracy and heir to the tradition of Jewish ethics. The term genocide immediately suggests a comparison with the Holocaust, and Aloni begins her response with a provocative statement: "We do not have gas chambers and crematoria, but there is no fixed method of genocide." After citing the brutal nature of recent Israeli military actions, Aloni writes of Israeli children being indoctrinated in religious schools with the notion that Arabs are Amalek and therefore, as in the Biblical story, need to be destroyed. Aloni cites a rabbi who wrote in the Bar Ilan University newspaper that his research showed that the Palestinians are Amalek, and therefore genocide against them is a command of God.

These teachings are horrendous; they have consequences in the political realm. However, the problem lies at another level. Israel is not planning to commit genocide, Aloni surmises, but Israelis really do not want to know what is happening in the territories: "The nation is following orders given by the legitimate representatives of the regime." Aloni concludes her article with a series of ironic statements: "Of course with our self-righteousness, with our self-adoration in our 'Jewish ethics' we make sure to advertise how beautifully the doctors take care of Palestinian victims in the hospitals. We do not advertise how many of those are executed in cold blood in their own homes. So it's not yet genocide of the terrible and unique style of which we were past victims. And as one of the smart generals told me, we do not have crematoria and gas chambers. Is anything less than that consistent with Jewish ethics? Did he ever hear how an entire people said that it did not know what was done in its name?"

Aloni concludes with a memory that Jews articulate frequently to the world. It is a memory of untold suffering and degradation. It is the Holocaust that books and movies can only begin to describe or visualize. It is a memory that Yehuda Bauer and Gila Svirsky recall in their own writing and which surrounds contemporary Jewish life like the wall - the great wall of denial - now being built to surround the Palestinian wall. It is not the same; it is not completely different. It is not the same; there are too many similarities. We are no longer the victims; we have created victims. The memory of the Holocaust remains; the memory of the Holocaust is tainted by what we are doing to the Palestinian people. The Germans denied knowledge of what was being done. Many Jews in Israel, in the United Kingdom and the United States deny knowledge of what we are doing.

On Deir Yassin Day 2003, in this season of war where memory encourages violence and denial and resists it, the memory that resists is losing, is receding, and is itself tainted. For when memory is invoked with the power of the state, it becomes an assault from which there is no return. Here the victim of the powerful and the resister within the powerful community begin to forge a new way of remembering, crossing political, religious and cultural boundaries until the possibility of a revolutionary forgiveness appears on the horizon. At the heart of this forgiveness are a confession and a justice that seeks anew the memory that heals. For the memory of injustice can only become a path of peace when the possibility of justice is embraced by "enemies" now joined in an enterprise that gives life rather than death.

Today that revolutionary forgiveness for Jews and Palestinians is very far away, almost impossible to envision, becoming even more difficult to articulate, carrying with it an almost ludicrous quality. It is therefore more important than ever to hold out this hope against hope, to cry out for it, to struggle to attain it, to be faithful to this vision for the long haul. At least for this moment, in this theater, on this day of remembrance, let us hold this revolutionary forgiveness close to our heart and extend it toward one another. Perhaps this new memory, a revolutionary forgiveness experienced by Jews and Palestinians, even if just for the moment tonight, may call other memories away from the violence they too often become, toward the peace and justice they are called to be.
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Israelis join Palestinians for somber anniversary

Jonathan Cook International Herald Tribune

April 17, 2003

DEIR YASSIN, Israel Do you believe in the Torah?" a boy no more than 10 years old, dressed in the black trousers and white shirt of the Haredim, was demanding of Eitan Bronstein, four decades his senior. "Do you know what it means to be a Jew? Are you really a Jew?"

In front of the locked gates of the Kfar Saul psychiatric hospital in the sprawling suburbs of West Jerusalem, Bronstein was trying to unfurl the banner of Zochrot, a small Jewish group committed to educating Israelis about the 1948 war that founded their state (the name is Hebrew for "remember"). He was there with 100 demonstrators, drawn from what in Israel is seen as the far left, to commemorate a history most Israelis are never taught in school.

The complex of buildings behind the hospital gates is all that remains of the village of Deir Yassin, a name that in the Palestinian collective memory still reverberates with chilling significance. Here, 55 years ago, on April 9, 1948, several weeks before the state of Israel was declared, the Irgun and Stern militias stormed the village, home to nearly 600 inhabitants. They killed nearly 100 men, women and children with guns and swords. Several captives were later paraded in Jerusalem before being killed.

The leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, who went on to become a prime minister of Israel, later wrote that the Palestinians, hearing of the massacre, "were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives." Deir Yassin triggered an exodus that soon emptied the new state of 80 percent of its Arab population.

Bronstein is one of a new generation of Jews determined to bring these events out into the open. It was the first time Israeli Jews had come to the site to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre.

As Zochrot's demonstrators began a short procession around the hospital's perimeter fence to a stretch of waste ground, they found themselves swamped by an escort: dozens of police officers and local residents from the ultra-Orthodox community who noisily cursed them. "You bleeding hearts," one old woman called them.

"They have no idea, or interest in, what we are doing here," said Ofer Neiman, one of the demonstrators, a "refusenik," one of several hundred men who have been jailed for refusing to serve in the army in the occupied territories. "We might as well be from Mars."

Bronstein put up a list of 93 names of the dead on the fence as speakers told of what is known as "al nakba" - the catastrophe - that befell the Palestinian people with the loss in 1948 of 78 percent of their homeland - the area of Palestine that became Israel.

A few Palestinians wearing the traditional keffiyah scarf were sprinkled through the audience. Khairieh Abu Shusheh from Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem had braved the checkpoints that divide the city but said many more had not dared. In the previous week, dozens of Palestinians had been killed and injured by the army, mostly out of view of a Western media more preoccupied with events in Iraq.

Abu Shusheh had brought her neighbor, Abdul Barakat, 81, whose mother's family was from Deir Yassin. Seventeen of his relatives were on the list of the dead.

Abdul Barakat recounted the morning when the Irgun and Stern gangs arrived, waking the villagers with the sound of gunfire. "The slaughter began at 4 a.m. in the morning and lasted till 6 p.m.," he said. Those who fled ended up in the refugee camps of the West Bank and Jordan. He concluded: "One day, God willing, Jew and Arab will once again be able to breathe the air together."

After the speeches, Bronstein erected a signpost to the village. "There are more than 400 villages that were destroyed in order to create our state but as a people we refuse to recognize the fact - even to this day," he said. "There are no signposts to any of them, nothing to acknowledge that they ever existed."

Bronstein has held similar ceremonies at 10 other destroyed villages but says the signposts are always taken down by the police or local families within hours. "At the moment, the signposting is just a symbolic act - we know that no one wants to know where these places are or what happened there."

The writer is a free-lance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.

Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune

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Deir Yassin massacre, 55 years on

By Yair Ettinger, Ha'aretz

Dozens of Jews and Arabs yesterday marched around the fence surrounding Jerusalem's Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital, the site of the Deir Yassin massacre, to commemorate its 55th anniversary.

On April 9, 1948, the Lehi and Etzel attacked the village of Deir Yassin as part of the Nahshon Operation, killing an unknown number of residents, including women and children. Yesterday's ceremony included the reading of 93 names of victims.

Residents of the nearby Jerusalem religious neighborhood of Har Nof watched the ceremony, cursing at participants.

Among those attending the ceremony was Abdel Aziz Barakat, 81, who lost 17 members of his family in the massacre and told participants about Arab and Israeli coexistence in Jerusalem until 1939.

Via Paul Eisen
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This is a fairly detailed account of Deir Yassin

 http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2082/2_63/72435149/print.jhtml

Just to deal with a few points in Ian D's somewhat laughable posting

The village of Deir Yassin had signed a non-aggression pact with a neighbouring settlement. They had even fought to stop infiltration by ALA elements because they wanted to keep out of the conflict. But they did fight back when attacked, and I don't think they can be blamed for that.
There was certainly a massacre of many innocent people. It stopped when Jews from the aforementioned settlement actually came down to the village and screamed at the militiamen to stop. But before then the Irgun and Stern Gang killed very many men, women and children

plus

"There is no doubt," a British police investigation concluded, "that many sexual atrocities were committed."(74)

Simon.A Waldman's posting is more scholarly, and I respect that

'Zionism is a secular concept, rooted by Jewish national identity. Before the land was called Palestine, it was called Judea.'

If it is secular, what is the point of this 'national identity'. Surely it is simply a racist idea, then, to have a Jewish state, just as it would be a racist idea for me to go and form the Saxon state. It is about the same, after all, Jewish blood has not been kept so pure over the thousands of years of exile. There was one incident where a whole nation of Turks converted to Judaism and formed a Jewish state.

 http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/07-Jews-As-Nation/section-5.html

Which is a link making the point that the bloodlines are mixed up, like my own Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-Norman mix, and that to be Jewish is simply a case of self definition. If I suddenly define myself as Jewish, and I do have some background which could give me reason to do this, do I then have a right to go and take the land of a people who have been there for hundreds of years, and have far more blood-ties to the land than I do. Many Palestinians have more Jewish blood in their veins than a lot of the European immigrants.

So I then argue, why do you define so strongly to this national identity if you are secular? It is far more understandable if you are religious. I have a secular Israeli friend who said to me 'The idea of Jerusalem means so much to me'. Why? Why does Jerusalem matter if you are not religious? The Jewish state could have been made in any number of places, which did not involve evicting another people. If it was a secular project, then the decision to create it in Palestine was either based on irrational sentimentality, or a coldly rational desire to manipulate Jewish religious feeling into returning 'home'.
After all, would the Jewish state have been such a popular endeavour had it been set up in Argentina? I don't think people could have the same emotion attached to such a project.

I could go on for hours and hours, and I haven't yet addressed the points about British imperial manipulation and the Jews in Arab lands. But I need to go to sleep, so I'll do it tommorow inshallah.
Suffice to say, do you really understand your reasons and motives behind supporting Israel, and what is happening to the Palestinians? If you are secular, you should be able to see beyond such artificial distinctions such as nationality. If you are religious, ironically, your position makes more sense, because at least it is self consistent with your belief.

I find it ironic that the truth about Deir Yassin is labelled 'historical revisionism' when the notion of a Palestinian people is itself the worst kind of historical revisionism. Repeating lies about a 'massacre' in Deir Yassin or Jenin won't make it true, just as the invention of the Palestinian national identity in the late 1960s 'does not a people make'.

Hermes, i dont have the time to keep making these posts, so i can explain it to you in my own time. Send me your email
mine is  shimonkane@hotmail.com
i welcome emails from anyone else who wishes to discuss this further.