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Planning overview

Until Operation Nachshon, both the IZL and Lehi had only conducted low intensity warfare against British targets and Arab irregulars. While the Haganah was engaged in the battle for Qastel, the Irgun and Lehi commanders, Mordechai Ra'naan and Yehoshua Zettler met to plan a joint IZL-Lehi offensive to help lift the siege of Jerusalem. Zettler suggested attacking the village of Sheikh Jerakh and Shaufat to revenge the attack on Atarot on 25 March and and thus link Mt. Scopus and Ne'ev Yaakov to Jerusalem. After IZL scouts confirmed heavily entrenched British and Arab positions in the villages that would result in heavy losses and defeat, both jointly decided that Deir Yassin was a strategic objective the organizations should take, and requested the Haganah to coordinate with their first major planned offensive. Template:Fn

Irgun and Lehi meet

After Zettler and Rana'an had decided together to attack Deir Yassin, the representatives of the two organizations met. The men listed at the meeting were operations officer Yehoshua Gal and Ben-Zion Cohen, who commanded the Irgun attack force, and IZL platoon commander Yehuda Lapidot. On the Lehi side was Operations officer Mordehai Ben-Uzia, commander of the Lehi attack force, and officers Petachia ("Yoed") Zelivansky and David Zamir. Their plan was was to attack at dawn, with Lehi attacking the village from the north and IZL attacking from the east. Deciding against the element of surprise, the IZL force was to be led by an armored car with a loud speaker to the outskirts of the town before the attack, to call on the inhabitants to surrender and tell them that the road to Ein Kerem was open. A third IZL force would take up positions on present day Mount Herzl and would block the road of Arab reinforcements that were liable to come from Ein Kerem and Malcha. At the meeting, Yehuda Lapidot said that some Lehi people suggested killing the inhabitants who did not run away after being warned, in order to scare the Arabs all over the Mandate, and to raise the morale of the Jews in Jerusalem, who had been attacked in Atarot and killed in Gush Etzion; The IZL commanders opposed the suggestion of the Lehi people, and the commanders decided against it. Finally, it was decided that the IZL would supply most of the weapons, which included, thirty rifles, thirty five home-made IZL Sten guns, and three machine guns, while Lehi would supply the explosives and pistols. Template:Fn.

Coordination with Haganah

After the plan was set, they contacted David Shaltiel, the Haganah regional commander and asked for his approval. Shaltiel first wrote that because the immediate danger came from other villages, the Irgun and Lehi should set up operations "in Bayit Vagan, and from there.. to take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel."Template:Fn.

Both Irgun and Lehi disagreed. Mordechai Rana'an, explained that "...Deir Yassin controlled the last segment of the road at the entrance to Jerusalem. Conquering the Qastel would not have solved the problem, since the Arabs could block the road near Deir Yassin." Template:Fn Next day, Shaltiel sent a letter of approval noting that "the capture of Deir Yassin and its holding are one stage in our general plan." and that he had "no objection to your carrying out the operation" providing that the village is held intact and with its inhabitants, so that Arab forces could not occupy the abandoned and destroyed houses and ruin the general plan for establishing an airfield in the area.Template:Fn

Disagreement

Shaltiel's approval was met with internal resistance from junior Palmach officers, such as Meir Pa'il and Yitzhak Levi, head of the Jerusalem branch of Haganah Intelligence. Meir Pa'il objected to ending the agreement, and Yitzchak Levi proposed that the inhabitants should be notified that the truce was over, but Shaltiel refused to endanger the operation by warning them.Template:Fn Due to the ideological differences between the Labor Zionist Palmach and the Revisionist Zionist Irgun and Lehi, there was considerable rivalry between the two groups, and Meir Pa'il, an ardent Palmachist, detested them and had previously been assigned to units responsible for combatting both groups. According to his account, he requested to join the attack to spy on the capabilities of the Irgun and Lehi to "know what is their real military performance." and contacted Haganah Intelligence to be attached to the unit, although by his own account, no one in the battle remembers seeing him Template:Fn.

The original date for the attack was set at 7 April, to coincide with the battle for al-Qastal, but due to delays, the Deir Yassin was attacked two days later.

The battle

First advance

The attack force consisted of about 132 men, 72 from Irgun and 65 from Lehi, as well as some civilians for support. The first of the Jewish fighting units to reach Deir Yassin was, as planned, led by a truck armed with a loudspeaker, with an "Iraqi-born Jew, who spoke fluent Arabic, called out to the residents to leave via the western exit from Deir Yassin, which the attackers had left clear for that purpose." Template:Fn

From Givat Shaul a Lehi unit, with an attached photographer and allegedly accompanied by Meir Pa'il approached Deir Yassin. One Irgun unit moved towards Deir Yassin from the east, while a second approached it from the south. At 4:45 a.m. the fighting started when concealed Irgunists encountered an armed villager.Template:Fn

A few minutes before 5:00AM, the loud speaker truck was hit by Arab gunfire and careened into a ditch 30 metres away from the village Template:Fn. Throughout the fight individual soldiers, and those from the truck who joined the battle, called out in Arabic through personal loudspeakers for the inhabitants to flee Template:Fn, and many did, although the loudspeaker truck had minimum effect. Template:Fn

While both Irgun and Lehi commanders had anticipated many residents would flee, and those remaining would surrender after token resistance, both groups of Jewish fighters, entering the town from different sides, immediately encountered fierce volleys of Arab rifle fire. Rifle and machine gun fire from the village inflicted heavy casualties and drove off some of the Irgunists.

Irgun deputy commander Michael Harif, one of the first to enter Deir Yassin, later recalled how, early in the battle, "I saw a man in khaki run ahead. I thought he was one of us, I ran after him and told him, 'Move ahead to that house!' Suddenly he turned, pointed his weapon at me and fired. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg". Template:Fn

Haganah support

On the nearby Sharafa ridge, the Haganah's Mordechai Gihon watched as a stream of Arab fighters and civilians fled from Deir Yassin, and as Arab reinforcements from Ein Kerem and Malcha began advancing toward the town from the south. "We fired bursts from the Spandau machine-gun onto the road," Gihon reported to his superiors. "We hit Arabs fleeing from Deir Yassin and we blocked their way. We prevented the advance of the reinforcements, and we also might have hit some IZL men who entered our line of fire. At about 8:30 a.m. we returned to Givat Shaul." Haganah men in adjoining areas also sprayed gunfire in the same direction, to prevent the reinforcements from advancing.Template:Fn

Resistance and close quarter combat

Intense Arab firepower caused the fighters' advance into Deir Yassin to be very slow. Reuven Greenberg reported later that "the Arabs fought like lions and excelled at accurate sniping". He added that " women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses". Template:Fn

In certain cases, after storming a house, dead Arab women were found with guns in their hands, a sign they had taken part in the battle. Template:Fn

Ezra Yachin recalled, "To take a house, you had either to throw a grenade or shoot your way into it. If you were foolish enough to open doors, you got shot down -- sometimes by men dressed up as women, shooting out at you in a second of surprise".Template:Fn

Briefings before the battle had stated that most of the houses in Deir Yassin had wooden doors, so, while trying to storm them, the fighters were surprised to discover the doors were made of iron, leaving no recourse but to blow them open with powerful explosives, in the process inadvertently killing or wounding some inhabitants. The Lehi forces slowly advanced house by house.Template:Fn

Patchiah Zalivensky, the Lehi commander of the southern force, recalled that among the Arab soldiers killed by his unit was a Yugoslavian Muslim officer who deserted the Trans-Jordanian Arab Legion.

The villagers sniper fire from higher positions in the west contained effectively the attack, especially from the mukhtar's (mayor's) house. Some Lehi units went for help from the Haganah's Camp Schneller in Jerusalem.Template:Fn

Moshe Nachum Mizrachi, An IZL fighter, recounts that as he advanced he heard a shout "Andak!" (Halt) and then "we lay down. One shot was fired at us. We advanced, and then a round of automatic fire was fired at us. We started storming the village. They (the Arabs) had positions in the houses and on the roofs. We heard rounds of fire...Arabs moved between the positions. We heard a rustle and saw a group of seven soldiers dress in khaki with Kaffiyeh’s with white and red dots on their heads, belonging to the gangs of marauders. We shot at them and they spread out. And then we were shot at from the windows and we were afraid to move. I was wounded. Each minute seemed to me like an hour. When we gathered I saw many wounded, and the commander of the operation was wounded in his foot. I saw an Arab boy crying, and I gave him over to an Arab woman." Template:Fn

Final advance

Meanwhile, the Irgun soldiers on the other side of the village, were having a very difficult time. By 7:00 a.m., discouraged by the Arab resistance and their own increasing casualties, Irgun commanders relayed a message to the Lehi camp that they were seriously considering retreating from the town.

Lehi commanders relayed back that they had already entered the village and expected victory soon.

The large number of wounded was a big problem for the IZL-Lehi because they had to be evacuated but could be fired upon if they tried. Meret called the Magen David Adom station for an ambulance that came to the battle area, and requested a Haganah unit returning from Deir Yassin to Motza to aid the dozens of wounded IZL and Lehi fighters.

"In order to extricate the wounded, we had to eliminate the sources of gunfire," recalled Haganah unit leader Moshe Eren. Kalman Rosenblatt, a member of one of the two Haganah units that entered the village to assist the wounded, said: "We threw hand grenades into the houses before we entered them." The attackers took beds out of the houses, laid the wounded on them and ordered the inhabitants of the village, including women and old people, to carry the beds to the ambulance and to screen them. They believed the Arabs would not shoot their own people; however, they did.Template:Fn

The Irgun quickly arranged to receive a supply of explosives from their base in Givat Shaul, and started blasting their way into house after house. In certain instances, the force of the explosions collapsed whole parts of houses, burying Arab soldiers as well as civilians who were still inside.

Commander Rana'an relates that his men treated each house as a fortified position. "At 11 a.m., we resumed action. We blew up the first house. We blew up another about every quarter hour. We had no idea who was inside. By that method, we reached the house where ‘Yiftah’ (Commander Yehuda Segal) lay. As we got to him, we saw that he'd passed away. A young soldier holding a Bren gun took up a position nearby. We warned the people inside the house that we were about to blow it up. Having seen what had happened to the residents, they came out with their hands up. There were nine people, a woman and a child among them. The guy with the Bren gun suddenly squeezed the trigger. A burst hit the Arabs. "That's for Yiftah!" he yelled. "What have you done?" we shouted at him. "One of them had a rifle and was trying to shoot," he replied. Other men confirmed later that one of the Arabs had stood up." Template:Fn

At about 10:00 a.m. a sizeable Palmach unit from the Haganah arrived. They brought an armored vehicle and a two-inch mortar. The mortar was fired three times at the mukhtar's house which silenced its snipers. The Palmach unit managed to clear the village of serious resistance and Lehi officer David Gottlieb saw the Palmach accomplish "in one hour what we could not accomplish in several hours."Template:Fn The fighting was over at about 11:30 A.M

After the battle, Irgun fighters found a cache of Bren machine guns and ammunition in Deir Yassin. Yehuda Lapidot, deputy commander of the IZL force in Deir Yassin, later recalled: "A cache of ammunition for English rifles which we found in the village saved the day. We filled the clips for the Bren , distributed weapons to the boys and fought on." In another house, IZL fighter Yehoshua Gorodenchik discovered an additional 20 clips of ammunition for the Bren gun. Lehi soldiers David Gottlieb, Moshe Barzili, and Moshe Idelstein found a huge quantity of Czech rifle bullets which did not fit their rifles; they offered to trade 6,000 of them to the Haganah for 3,000 British bullets.

Prisoner accounts

There was an operational agreement during the planning stages on how to deal with the prisoners. Ben-Zion Cohen, the IZL force commander, said that there were differences of opinion regarding the question of what to do with prisoners, while most of those present at the meeting said all the men and all the civilians who would fight, regardless of age, or sex should be killed, but he and Lapidot disagreed with harming civilians. Finally "it was decided to give strict orders regarding prisoners, to avoid harming them, unless they resisted, and to transfer them to Arab villages." Lapidot said that the IZL headquarters in Jerusalem ordered him and his officers to act according to the Geneva convention, and that the IZL members accepted this orderTemplate:Fn.

During the battle, in numerous instances Arabs emerged from the houses and surrendered; over 100 were taken prisoner by day's end. At least two Haganah members on the scene reported the Lehi repeatedly using a loudspeaker to implore the residents to surrender Template:Fn.

In certain cases, Arabs pretending to surrender revealed hidden weapons and shot at their would-be Jewish captors.Template:Fn An Arab man disguised as a woman was brought to the Lehi headquarters, and one of the people present shot him in the head. Gideon Sarig, who witnessed this incident, related that some Jewish civilians threw the body of the victim into a fire.Template:Fn

Allegations of executions

On 9 April at 12:00 P.M., twenty prisoners were taken on the village trucks to a victory parade in the Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem before they were released in East Jerusalem. They were then loaded on two trucks and driven to a Lehi camp in Jerusalem's Sheikh Bader neighborhood. According to the camp guards, the Arabs were given food and water, held there until the late afternoon, and then transported to a nearby Arab section of the city and released.Harry Levin, a Haganah broadcaster, reported seeing "three trucks driving slowly up and down King George V Avenue bearing men, women, and children, their hand above their heads, guarded by Jews armed with Sten guns and rifles." Template:Fn According to Lehi's Moshe Barzili, the purpose of the prisoner transport was "strictly humanitarian," to bring the survivors to an Arab area. Shimon Monita, the Haganah spy in Lehi, contended that the IZL and Lehi commanders deliberately chose a travel route that would take the truck through central Jerusalem, hoping that the sight of enemy prisoners "would lift the morale of the Jewish public," which had been depressed by the siege that had cut them off from much of the rest of the country.Template:Fn

Mordechai Gihon reported a different account. On 10 April he states that "Their commander says that the order was to capture the adult males and to send the women and children to Motza. In the afternoon (of 9 April) the order was changed and became to kill all the prisoners....The adult males were taken to town in trucks and paraded in the city streets, then taken back to the site and killed with rifle and machine-gun fire. Template:Fn

In 1952 Yona Ben-Sasson, a Haganah officer, testified that several hotheads considered the idea of taking prisoners to the quarry and killing them, but that he personally talked them out of it. Template:Fn

Modern study

In 1987, Birzeit University published a report about Dier Yassin stating that trenches had been dug at the entry to the village, and that more than 100 men had been trained and equipped with rifles and Bren guns. A local guard force had been set up, with 40 inhabitants guarding the village every night. Template:Fn Villagers also testified that trained Deir Yassin men fought at al-Qastal and Motza Template:Fn.

Accounts of battle and aftermath

The battle of Dier Yassin, and the IZL-Lehi's actions has sparked controversies and allegations of mutilation, rape and premeditated mass killing. Historical accounts has specified that both sides inflated and or falsified these allegations for propaganda purposes. The IZL-Lehi claimed that about 250 villagers were killed to scare the Arab population into fleeingTemplate:Fn, and the Arab Liberation Army, decided to use the inflated casualties to their advantage by rallying the Arab population and claimed, depending on what suited them, either that one hundred were killed, or that hundreds were killed and mutilated. For example, The first casualty numbers were said to be about 254. Irgun commander Ra'anan spread this number to reporters and it quickly stuck. Historical accounts now say that Raanan's figure was a deliberate exaggeration, because as he later explained: "I told the reporters that 254 were killed so that a big figure would be published, and so that Arabs would panic." Template:Fn On the other side, Dr. Hussein Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered Hazen Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, to claim that children were "murdered, pregnant women were raped; all sorts of atrocities."Template:Fn

Nonetheless, some historians, such as Benny Morris, and eye witness accounts have claimed that certain of these allegations were carried out after the battle, while other eyewitness accounts claim the contrary. These conflicting accounts are given below.

Allegations of mutilations, rape and theft

One of the most graphic accounts was given by Benny Morris in his book "Righteous Victims":

• ...."Whole families were riddled with bullets and grenade fragments and buried when houses were blown up on top of them.." (Milstein, p. 268, quoted in Template:Fn)
• ...."men, women, and children were mowed down as they emerged from houses; individuals were taken aside and shot" (according to Mordechai Ra´anan, the IZL head of operation, quoted in Milstein p. 276, which is in turn quoted in Template:Fn )
• ...."the conquest of the village was carried out with great cruelty. Whole families -women, old people, children -were killed, and there were piles of dead . Some of the prisoners moved to places of incarceration, including women and children, were murdered viciously by their captors...." (reported by the Jerusalem Shai commander Yitzhak Levy, April 12, IDF Archives 5254/49//372, quoted in Template:Fn )
• ...."Lehi members tells of the barbaric behaviour of the IZL toward the prisoners and the dead. They also relate that the IZL men raped a number of Arab girls and murdered them afterward (we don´t know if this is true)." (Reported by Yitzhak Levy, April 13, IDF Archives 5254/49//372, quoted in Template:Fn )
• Mordechai Gihon, a Haganah intelligence officer who entered the village around 3:00 P.M. April 9., saw bodies lowered into caves and a nearby quarry. Template:Fn He reported: ...."Before they were put on the trucks, the IZL and LHI men searched the women, men and children took from them all the jewelry and stole their money. The behaviour toward them was especially barbaric kicks, shoves with rifle butts, spitting and cursing." (In "Report on Conquest of Deir Yassin", by "Eliezer" (=Gihon), Apr. 10., 1948, IDF Archives 500/48//29, quoted in Template:Fn )

On 11 April, Jacques de Reynier, a French-Swiss representative of the International Red Cross reported that "One body was a woman who must have been eight months pregnant, hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she'd been shot point-blank." Template:Fn Reynier's account is confirmed by Fahimi Zeidan, a villager who reports that "They then called my brother Mahmoud and shot him in our presence, and when my mother screamed and bent over my brother (she was carrying my little sister Khadra who was still being breast fed) they shot my mother too."Template:Fn Another villager, Haleem Eid, a woman, saw "a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant."Template:Fn Mohammed Aref Samir, another villager testified that a pregnant woman, who was coming back with her son from the bakery, was "murdered and her belly was smashed". Template:Fn

Counter claims

On the other hand, Dr. Alfred Engel, who accompanied Jacques de Reynier of the Red Cross, and numerous reports by every villager who was interviewed years later, denied reports of both mutilations and rapes.

Dr. Engel reported that he "did not see any signs of defilement, mutilation, or rape."Template:Fn Daniel Spicehandler, a member of a Haganah unit sent to assist the IZL, said later: "So far as I saw, there was no rape or looting." Template:Fn An Arab survivor of the Deir Yassin battle, Muhammad Arif Sammour, in an interview with the author told that there were no sexual attacks. Silver wrote: "Sammour, who has no reason to minimize the atrocities, is convinced that there were no sexual assault: 'I didn't hear or see anything of rape or attacks on pregnant women. None of the other survivors ever talked to me about that kind of thing. If anybody told you that, I don't believe it.'" Template:Fn Sammour's statement is corroborated by the testimony of two physicians, Drs. Z. Avigdori and A. Droyan. At the request of the Jewish Agency, on Monday, 12 April Avigdori and Droyan were sent by the Histadrut Medical Committee , in Jerusalem, to Deir Yassin. They examined the bodies and reported that "all the bodies were clothed, the limbs were intact, and no sign of mutilation was visible on them."Template:Fn

On 1 April a BBC/WGBH documentary on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, interviewing Hazam Nusseibeh of the Palestine Broadcasting Service news in 1948, admitted that he was told by Hussein Khalidi to fabricate the atrocity claims, and that Dier Yassin villagers protested against those claims. For example, Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948, said "We said, 'there was no rape." He goes on to say that Khalidi replied "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Template:Fn Another villager, Mohammed Radwan, who fought and survived the Deir Yassin battle, said that "I know when I speak that God is up there and God knows the truth and God will not forgive the liars, It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade. They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin." Template:Fn

Accounts of dead and wounded

From 1948 to the present, there has been much controversy associated with the deaths of civilians in Deir Yassin and this is incarnated in the large discrepencies dealing with the casualties and the manner and context in which they were killed. Several factors contribute to the controversy. The fog of war accounts for some of the discrepancies, for example the attackers did not have radios to coordinate between themselves, contained many poorly equipped and ill-disciplined troops, and third party observers did not get to the scene until at least a day after the battle, which contributed to rumors of exaggerated numbers and descriptions. Participants on both sides did nothing to disprove such rumors. All the parties had an interest in publicizing a high Arab casualty figure: the Haganah, to tarnish the Irgun and Lehi, their main ideological rivals; the Arabs and the British to blacken the reputation of the Jews; the Irgun and Lehi to provoke and frighten Arabs into fleeing the Mandate. Numbers have been quoted as low as 93 and, keeping with propaganda purposes, as high as 1,500. The first account of the dead, 254, quickly spread as an official number by the BBC, various journalists' pieces, British CID reports, and even into Meir Pa'il's report to Haganah command.Template:Fn Mohammed Radwan, during his interview with Paul Holmes of the Middle East Times, stated only 93 people were killed, while representatives of each of the five clans in Deir Yassin, during a meeting a little bit after the battle put the number of dead or missing to 116.Template:Fn Yisrael Natach, member of the Shai Arab department, explained how the battle was used for propaganda purposes. During the battle, he and his partner were sitting in a cafe in Ein Kerem, dressed as Arabs:

"Refugees arrive from Deir Yassin and relate that the Jews found out that Arab warriors had disguised themselves as women. The Jews searched the women too. One of the people being checked noticed that he had been caught, took out a pistol and shot the Jewish commander. His friends, crazy with anger, shot in all directions and killed the Arabs in the area. I drew a picture of a Jewish soldier stabbing an Arab woman with a bayoneted rifle. I didn’t explain that he did not stab, and that the woman was a man. I submitted this drawing for publication in the newspapers, through the Arab headquarters in Jerusalem, with the addition of information, according to which in Deir Yassin 600 women, 500 men and 400 children were slaughtered. I exaggerated on purpose, to scare the Arabs. My cartoon was published in one of the Arab newspapers."Template:Fn

It is now widely believed by historians that the graphic journalistic coverage of the battle and the exaggerated way the casualties were reported, unified and invigorated Arab anger against the Jews, indirectly contributing to the Hadassah medical convoy massacre, in which 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and patients were killed and was a contributing factor for the Kfar Etzion massacre later on.

The most comprehensive study was commissioned by Birzeit University, whose researchers tracked down the surviving Arab eyewitnesses to the attack and interviewed them. Their findings report that "for the most part, we have gathered the information in this monograph during the months of February-May 1985 from Deir Yassin natives living in the Ramallah region, who were extremely cooperative," listing by name twelve former Deir Yassin residents whom they had interviewed concerning the battle. The study continued: "The sources which discuss the Deir Yassin massacre unanimously agree that number of victims ranges between 250-254; however, when we examined the names which appear in the various sources, we became absolutely convinced that the number of those killed does not exceed 120, and that the exaggerated the numbers in order to frighten Palestinian residents into leaving their villages and cities without resistance.". A list of 107 people killed and twelve wounded was given.Template:Fn

Manner of death

Historical accounts have indicated that "most of the Arabs in Deir Yassin were killed not after the conquest, but during the battle." Template:Fn For example, Ayish Zeidan, a resident of the village and a survivor of the fighting there, stated: "The Arab radio 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. " Template:Fn Most of the accounts of third party observers and their testimony come either days after the fighting or after the battle. Based on third party accounts, bodies of dead villagers lay in houses, many were shot at close range, consistent with door-to-door fighting. Template:Fn

Modern debate

Contemporary reports of the Deir Yassin incident had considerable impact on the developments and outcome of the larger war and on the regional conflict of which it was a part. It is widely credited with greatly stimulating Palestinian Arab refugee flight (see Palestinian Exodus).

Deir Yassin very quickly became an ideological bait in the propaganda war between Israel and the Arab states, and between the competing Haganah and Irgun-Lehi factions.

In 1969, the Israeli Foreign Ministry published a pamphlet "Background Notes on Current Themes: Deir Yassin" in English denying that there had been a massacre at Deir Yassin, and calling the story "part of a package of fairy tales, for export and home consumption".

The pamphlet led to a series of derivative articles giving the same message, especially in America. Menachem Begin's Herut party disseminated a Hebrew translation in Israel, causing a widespread but largely non-public debate within the Israeli establishment.

Literature

• Milstein, Uri (1998) . "Chapter 16: Deir Yassin". History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision (in Hebrew and English version translated and edited by Alan Sacks). Lanhan, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc. pp. 343–396. ISBN 0761814892.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Morris, Benny (1989). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521330289.
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521811201; ISBN 0521009677 (pbk.).
• Morris, Benny (2005). "The Historiography of Deir Yassin". Journal of Israeli History. 24 (1): 79–107.

External links

• Irgun - Essay by Prof. Yehuda Lapidot from the IZL (Irgun) site
• Deir Yassin Remembered - a non-profit organisation with the stated goal to "do justice to the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre"
• www.us-israel.org - Essay by Mitchell Bard.
• - Essay by Paul Holmes
• Zionist Organisation of America - Essay by Sid Zion.
• PEACE Middle East Dialog Group
• Webpage opposing the massacre theses
• Compilation of sources and essays (PDF, 188 pages)

References

• Template:Fnb Yitzak Levi, "Nine Measures", p. 341).
• Template:Fnb Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970), p. 141.
• Template:Fnb Pa'il and Isseroff, "Meir Pa'il's Eyewitness Account"; Levi, Nine Measures, p. 341
• Template:Fnb Davar Front page, April 4 1948
• Template:Fnb Milstein The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision, Zmora - Bitan, Tel-Aviv 1991, p. 256.
• Template:Fnb "Dayr Yasin," Bir Zeit University
• Template:Fnb Uri Milstein, "Deir Yassin"
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 265
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 257
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, "Nine Measures" op. cit. p. 340.
• Template:Fnb Eban, Abba, "Background Notes on Current Themes" - No.6: Dir Yassin
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 262.
• Template:Fnb"The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 263
• Template:Fnb"Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262-265, Milstein
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.263, interview with Uri Brenner
• Template:FnbLynne Reid Banks, "A Torn Country" "An Oral History of the Israeli War of Independence", New York: Franklin Watts, 1982, p. 62.)
• Template:Fnb Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ
• Template:Fnb Information from "Edge of the Sword", p.450, Lorch
• Template:Fnb Information from Testimony of Reuven Greenberg.
• Template:Fnb Statement of Ben-Zion Cohen, file 1/10 4-K, Jabotinsky Archives; "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.276, Milstein; "Deir Yassin", Monograph No. 4, p.56, Kanani and Zitawi; "Jerusalem Embattled", p.5 Levin.)
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 267.
• Template:Fnb Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Sa'ar," 4 April 1948, 10:00 a.m.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948, 10:00 a.m.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p. 258, citing "Operations Log - Arza," 4 April 1948, 17:00 hours, Broadcast #562, Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 88/17.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.258 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.258, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 228/3, Operation Log, 9 April 1948, 2:40 a.m.
• Template:Fnb "Paradoxically, the Jews say about 250 out of 400 village inhabitants , while Arab survivors say only 110 of 1,000." Kurzman, Dan, "Genesis" 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970)
• Template:Fnb Information from Out of Crisis Comes Decision, p.269, Milstein)
• Template:Fnb 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."
• Template:Fnb From "Righteous Victims, p. 208" by Benny Morris
• Template:Fnb Information from Jacques de Reynier, "A Jerusalem un drapeau flottait sur la ligne de feu" p. 74, Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem! p. 278
• Template:FnbInformation from Fahimi Zeidan, quoted by Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.
• Template:FnbInformation from Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.)
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri op. cit. p. 272
• Template:FnbMilstein, pp.269-270 (interview with Alfred Engel, 7 December 1987).
• Template:FnbSpicehandler testimony in Martin, op.cit.
• Template:FnbDavid Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948, p.140; Aryeh Yitzhaki, "Deir Yassin--Not Through a Warped Mirror," Yediot Ahronot, 14 April 1972, p.17.
• Template:FnbBBC/WGBH documentary "Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict."
• Template:Fnb Excerpts from Mohammed Radwan interview, reported by Paul Holmes, Middle East Times, April 20 1998
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision pages 90-92, Section 3
• Template:Fnb Jabotinsky Institute, From the testimony of Yehuda Lapidot and Ben Zion Cohen
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision p. 50
• Template:Fnb Milstein, The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" English translation: p. 380-381
• Template:FnbMuhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 269
• Template:Fnb Information from Beit Zit University Study p.57
• Template:Fnb Excerpt from Interview with Ayish Zeidan, the Daily Telegraph, April 8 1998
• Template:Fnb Information from Uri Milstein, Out of Crisis came Decision, p. 279
• Template:Fnb Yitzhak Levi, Nine Measures, p. 343
• Template:Fnb Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 12 January Paragraph 9;IDF Archives 2504/49/16 15
• Template:Fnb Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 28 January Paragraph 10; IDF Archives 446/48/20 66;
• Template:Fnb Information from Yitzhak Levi, "Nine Measures", p.340)
• Template:Fnb Information from IDF Archives 4944/49/520 42; 446/48/22 60,65;500/48/29 409; 446/48/18 57;
• Template:Fnb Testimony of David Gottlieb, MZ; Milstein, pp.257-258, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 21/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948.
• Template:Fnb Muhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver
• Template:Fnb Knaana Sherif, The Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 - Deir Yassin. Bir Zeit University, Documentation and Research Department 1987
• Template:Fnb Milstein, p.264, (interview with Mordechai Gihon and "Report of Etzioni intelligence officer").
• Template:Fnb Milstein, p.275 (interview with Yona Ben-Sasson.