Out of sight, out of mind...indeed.

necessary this sort of thing was, why those Arabs were and are an existential threat to Israel's very existence or something

and were eventually condemned at Nuremberg. The wholesale slaughter of a people is genocide or pogrom. No one get a pass, that includes the US (Wounded Knee, My Lei and indiscriminate Hell Fire strikes). Even if one has been badly treated they have no excuse for doing the same to others.

And a couple days later the Arabs murdered 77 Jewish doctors, nurses and patients who were on their way to a hospital.

None of this would have happened if the Arabs had not started a genocidal war against the Zionists.

This is an extremely high casualty rate of almost 50%. It pretty much proves it was not some unarmed peacefull village as some often try to claim. The village was full of Arab troops and armed villagers.

Why was the village attacked?

You obviously read the Wikipedia page dealing with the Deir Yassein massacre - why didnt you read this part, confirming that in fact the village was peaceful, and that in fact they had signed a non-aggression pact with the Jews, which was callously violated?

snip


On April 6, Operation Nachshon was launched to open the road to Jerusalem. The village of Deir Yassin was included on the list of Arab villages to be occupied as part of the operation. The following day Haganah commander David Shaltiel wrote to the leaders of the Lehi and Irgun:

I learn that you plan an attack on Deir Yassin. I wish to point out that the capture of Deir Yassin and its holding are one stage in our general plan. I have no objection to your carrying out the operation provided you are able to hold the village. If you are unable to do so I warn you against blowing up the village which will result in its inhabitants abandoning it and its ruins and deserted houses being occupied by foreign forces....Furthermore, if foreign forces took over, this would upset our general plan for establishing an airfield.2

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 Arabs. Previously, the Irgun and Lehi had concentrated their attacks against the British.

No Easy Battle

According to Irgun leader Menachem Begin, the assault was carried out by 100 members of that organization; other authors say it was as many as 132 men from both groups. Begin stated that 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.3 Most writers say the warning was never issued because the truck with the loudspeaker rolled into a ditch before it could broadcast the warning.4 One of the fighters said, the ditch was filled in and the truck continued on to the village. "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."5

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.6

The battle was ferocious and took several hours. The Irgun suffered 41 casualties, including four dead.

Counting the Dead

Surprisingly, after the “massacre,” the Irgun escorted a representative of the Red Cross through the town and held a press conference. The New York Times' subsequent description of the battle was essentially the same as Begin's. The Times said more than 200 Arabs were killed, 40 captured and 70 women and children were released. No hint of a massacre appeared in the report. “Paradoxically, the Jews say about 250 out of 400 village inhabitants [were killed], while Arab survivors say only 110 of 1,000.”7 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.8 Other Arab sources have subsequently suggested the number may have been even lower.9

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. Starting at 2:00 P.M., residents were taken out of the village. The trucks passed through the Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim after the Sabbath had begun, so the neighborhood people cursed and spit at them, not because they were Arabs, but because the vehicles were desecrating the Sabbath. 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.10 Another source says 70 women and children were taken away and turned over to the British.11 If the intent was to massacre the inhabitants, no one would have been evacuated.

After the remaining Arabs feigned surrender and then fired on the Jewish troops, some Jews killed Arab soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. None of the sources specify how many women and children were killed (the Times report said it was about half the victims; their original casualty figure came from the Irgun source), but there were some among the casualties. Any intentional murder of children or women is completely unjustified. At least some of the women who were killed, however, became targets because of men who tried to disguise themselves as women. The Irgun commander reported, for example, that the attackers "found men dressed as women and therefore they began to shoot at women who did not hasten to go down to the place designated for gathering the prisoners."12 Another story was told by a member of the Haganah who overheard a group of Arabs from Deir Yassin who said "the Jews found out that Arab warriors had disguised themselves as women. The Jews searched the women too. One of the people being checked realized he had been caught, took out a pistol and shot the Jewish commander. His friends, crazed with anger, shot in all directions and killed the Arabs in the area."13

Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. On the contrary, every villager ever interviewed has denied these allegations. Like many of the claims, this was a deliberate propaganda ploy, but one that backfired. Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. 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."14
Reaction

The Jewish Agency, upon learning of the attack, immediately expressed its “horror and disgust.” It also sent a letter expressing the Agency's shock and disapproval to Transjordan's King Abdullah.

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.

The Palestinians knew, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, the Jews were not trying to annihilate them; otherwise, they would not have been allowed to evacuate Tiberias, Haifa or any of the other towns captured by the Jews. Moreover, the Palestinians could find sanctuary in nearby states. The Jews, however, had no place to run had they wanted to. They were willing to fight to the death for their country. It came to that for many, because the Arabs were interested in annihilating the Jews, as Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha made clear in an interview with the Egyptian paper Akhbar al-Yom before the war (October 11, 1947): “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”

References to Deir Yassin have remained a staple of anti-Israel propaganda for decades because the incident was unique.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/deir_yassin.html

What part of "it's ALWAYS wrong to attack people who have already made peace with you" do you not get? What part of "a non-aggression pact ALREADY meant that the road to Jerusalem wasn't going to be cut off" don't you understand?

And no, it's no excuse that "it would have been too hard" for the Irgun to have attacked the alternate targets. It's not as if the Haganah and the Palmach had only taken on easy battles themselves.

Can't you see how this attack might have affected the degree to which Palestinians would trust the new Israeli government?

I salute those on the Zionist side who did condemn what was done at Deir Yassin, and suggest that Netanyahu, as the leader of the political party that emerged from the Irgun, should apologize for it himself on behalf of the Revisionist tradition.

The other thing to consider is that, had Deir Yassin NOT happened, Jordan would almost certainly have recognized Israel in 1949 or so. Golda Meir had negotiated this with the Jordanian king prior to the attack. When she went back to speak to him later, he told her recognition was no longer possible. Just think how much of a difference it would have made had it been possible for Jordan to recognize Israel at its birth. This would have made it all-but-impossible for the other Arab countries to carry on a hardline rejectionist policy.

And their position was always about land, not religion, ethnicity or culture.

The statement that, prior to Deir Yassin, the Irgun had only fought the British, seems instructive to me. It suggests that the real motivation of the Irgun was to be able to say that THEY had fought the Arabs too, rather than just the Haganah and the Palmach-something that would be important in what was already shaping up to be a bitter battle for control of Israeli politics between Labor Zionism and the Revisionists.

Massacres of Jews by Muslims before 1948








http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.ca/2011/01/massacre-of-jews-by-muslims-before-1948.html

than described by simplistic charges that Palestinians/Arabs "started it". After all, Irgun and Stern Gang, Begin and Shamir, had been operating for a decade+ prior to that and they must have had a complete and extensive interlinking of purpose; and with that long to plan toward such a specific object what they did in the critical 47/48 Nabka years couldn't possibly have been by accident. Likewise what they did had to have been coordinated with what Ben Gurion did, because the operations were coordinated, so any pretense that what happened wasn't planned with the Nakba in mind has to be seen as absurd.

The above map points out massacres of Jews going back 1,000 years. I doubt that it pinpoints all the massacres - just those recorded. I'd really hate to see a map that pinpointed all the massacres of groups of every kind in that large region over the past 1,000 years. 1,000 years accounts for a shitload of wars. I just wouldn't want to see a map that pinpointed the sites of all the massacres, including their size and duration, over the entire Africa and Middle East over that period. And please, please, don't think of extending such a map over the whole world -- and start arguing over who, in all that mess, is the greatest victim.

Last edited Mon Apr 22, 2013, 07:54 AM - Edit history (1)

So many massacres in the 1900s

I am not understanding its repeated usage.

I don't mind "Delphinia". After all, 'delrem' isn't my real name ...

It's childish and immature of you to continue after I specifically have told you not to.

( not Dave nor David , as a Gay Jew I specifically chose my name on here as King David has specific meaning and significance ,and I believe you know this. I believe this is what is behind your and another posters childish and immature behavior)

Bullying did not used to be allowed on DU2 when moderators had wide powers.

It was years ago that I heard a particularly poignant segment of the Hebrew Scripture chanted in the synagogue—the story, in the Book of Samuel—of the powerful boyhood friendship between Jonathan and David. Jonathan was the emotional son of King Saul; David, the future king, was his companion and fast friend. Their bond, described without restraint in the Bible, was robust: Jonathan declares to David: “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.”

It’s hard to let pass the unfolding passionate relationship between these two young scriptural heroes. The romantic tension they shared was reinforced by the fierce and jealous hostility felt by King Saul against David; the paranoid monarch once even threw a spear at the lad. Jonathan so adored David that he eschewed his role as prince and gave his heart freely to his friend. His father’s disapproval did not repress his loyalty and devotion to his amour.

http://www.examiner.com/article/sorry-right-wingers-but-king-david-was-gay

Might be helpful for some.

was just a false flag or something, unless some here equate being Bi-Sexual with being Gay

But what a fascinating tale. Now that no religious connotations attach to the account it's still kind of crazy and grand.

"Nathan also noted that David's house would be cursed with turmoil because of this murder. This came to pass years later when one of David's much-loved sons, Absalom, led an insurrection that plunged the kingdom into civil war. Moreover, to manifest his claim to be the new king, Absalom had sexual intercourse in public with ten of his father's concubines, which could be considered a direct, tenfold divine retribution for David's taking the woman of another man."

Wow. That's artistic license. However a person interprets it biblically, if they can actually *believe*, that's certainly a good way to end a chapter and lead into the next.
I have a soft spot for the king Solomon. Mostly because of the poetry.

if memory serves that one had the meanings of all various chapters at their respective beginnings and according to that one the Song of Solomon was an ode to the coming church which I guess had 'rounded thighs' and a nice navel or something

Moreover because my intro to this lore was totally involved (rosary every day before bed!) I have to say that it *is not* a history that I can be objective about. I've studied western philosophy, and something (but hardly got my feet wet) about eastern philosophy, but because of my background the abrahamic religions leave me nonplussed. There's something very similar about Hinduism.

That portion of Western or Eastern philosophy that I can understand is all about personal growth. Whether it's learning to reason or learning to meditate and experience the spiritual, it is about personal growth. It isn't about politics. Not at all.

my mom was a very backsliden Catholic and my dad was not a Catholic however I did have various opportunities to compare the Douay Bible, the Jewish Bible , and the Qur'an, the surprise was the similarities

that said I've never found much as to personal growth in any of the Abrahamic religions, not at least anywhere near the extent that one does in Eastern religions especially Buddhism

Like you, my dad wasn't a Catholic. But he was an orphan at a young (12) year and attached himself to my mother's family, which was very traditional Catholic and had personal connections with priests and the lot. That didn't stop him from explaining the thing to me, esp. how it it related to how he brought up his children!

My mother, still alive at 93, is a total Catholic but is quite spunky and disagrees with the Pope and the Church hierarchy w.r.t. just about everything to do with sex and marriage. I have no idea how she balances the equation

All I'm hoping is that it's not homophobic ?

to what is happening in Palestine and Israel now, as what some sort of .........?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40113

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40117

It seems to be part of something ongoing, still unclear what it is.

addressed by it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40113

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40117

when it is used to address them?

Seriously...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40113

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=40117

I'm sorry but that's simply not how history works at all. Aside from the obvious fact that you are cherry picking events while excluding all others to suggest that they imply a direct cause-effect relationship, and a planned one at that, everything you take to be obvious realities is lacking any supporting evidence to back it up. Now this is simply not how history is pieced together or analyzed but even if it was, you possess nothing remotely approaching the qualifications to do so.

Why do you suppose this theory hasn't been suggested before, by one of the revisionists like Benny Morris perhaps? (I know how much you respect him as a historian.) Regardless, why didn't we ever hear something like this from him? Do you think you may have scooped him on this one perhaps?

You misunderstood my post. I wasn't saying that you were crazy. I was talking about the person who authored the link I included in the post. And she is quite insane. Also wrong about a ton of stuff. Also she recommends a revolution in Israel take place as a means of creating a free and fair society. I was planning on responding to your post, I haven't gotten to it yet.

That said, while was already well aware of the semantic distinction that Israel draws between "nationality" and "citizenship" and was not disagreeing with your initial assertion, as usual you have taken what's essentially a small kernel of truth and extrapolated extreme falsehoods from it, building it into an entire ideology comprised entirely of your own absurd ideas about Israel.

Your original fact was true. Everything else was embarrassing to read.

Don't worry. I'll get around to killing it.

I certainly don't respect him as a person, nor would I respect anyone who proposed 100% ethnic cleansing of the entire population of the indigenous people from an area the size of a country in order to found an ethnically pure state containing only his select kind of people. The idea is sick and only a person who had a pathological way of thinking could entertain it and propose it publicly as Benny Morris has.

In my opinion such a pathological point of view must necessarily have biased his historical researches into and findings with respect those events that he holds such strong feelings about. I doubt a good history will be written by either a Palestinian or Israeli partisan.

For the rest of it... If it's your opinion that Irgun and Stern Gang, Begin and Shamir weren't operating for 10+ years because "They (Stern Gang) weren't active since '37 because until 1940 they were just members of Irgun", as if by splitting off they erased their past operations.... Come on, dude, think what you're saying! Think what your argument amounts to! It splits a hair that doesn't even exist.

Also I find it rather hard to believe that "The taking of the town was planned and Haganah aided there, just not with the subsequent killing.", as if there could possibly be such a clean abstraction. You're entertaining an extreme degree of compartmentalization when abstracting from the fact that they all worked *together* in the *same military operations*, for the *identical purpose*. And no, someone can't just walk in a few days later after all the bodies have been bulldozed under and say "cool, I wasn't part of the dirty deeds that created this situation, so I'm morally absolved of any responsibility or care now when I take full advantage of it." And piss on the graves of the non-persons who once lived there.

Glad to see you're finally coming clean regarding your comfort with judging according to your preconceptions.

But first...

Right, I know. But again, he really never said that. Actually, this assertion is worse than the last few. "In order to found an ethnically pure state?" Wow! I mean, not only did he NEVER propose that he desired such a thing himself, but ethnically pure state? That's a really big fabrication. I mean, I get how you could get confused about the earlier thing. It hinges on the difference between what Morris considers a mistake of Ben-Gurion's (based on his goal and actions up till then), and his personal wishes. But this comment?! Morris never voiced anything remotely like what you're suggesting. His earlier comment was regarding Palestinians which is a nationality not an ethnicity. The Druze fought on Israel's side for chrissake. Why would Morris want them expelled? (Oh right, because he's a Jewish Supremacist I guess.) And no one suggested expelling the Bedouins or anyone else except those who had chosen to identify with and support the enemy side in the war against them. Do you get the difference yet?



So you've decided to make a judgement of the entire body of work of one of Israel's most famous historians based on a small excerpt of a recent interview he gave? And a misinterpreted one at that.

(BTW, you keep using the word pathological. Are you a psychiatrist or psychologist or something?)

Anyway, if you don't know, Morris is one of the key figures among the "New Historians" who essentially altered accepted academic history of the War and the Nakba providing a far more sympathetic view of the Palestinians and critical one of Israel. He's responsible for creating a sea change that brought about widespread support for the peace movement and Palestinian sovereignty which otherwise wouldn't have existed.

Look, you say you *agree* with Morris on this. So quit the BS wordplay - Morris is matter of fact about it. And he's written a shitload more about those views than occur just in that one interview.

Benny Morris talked about expelling the hostile Arab population. He said nothing about expelling the Druze population at all, much less expelling them during a time that they were fighting on Israel's side of a war against the Palestinians.

Nor did Morris ever describe his ideology as being related to a desire for an ethnically pure state. I realize that you really need the Zionists to be racists or supremacists or something really obviously evil so you can easily rail against them without having to do much real research. But the reality is that it just isn't the case. I'm sorry.

By the way, it really is an awful thing to twist someone's words so you can falsely accuse him of racism. You should be ashamed.

Well, he very well might be right. There's simply no way to argue otherwise. We can't argue against the end results of an act that never occurred. I believe he very well may be right about this. Besides, it isn't like he's even definitive about it. He used the word "might" to describe the outcome he predicted.

BTW, I'm still waiting for your alternate actions that ben-gurion should have taken.

does that man that you reject Morris' historical findings? Or refuse to consider them?
If you think he's a bad historian, what does that imply towards the historical findings he's published?

But if you're interested in a policy lesson you may want to wait til after I pull apart your nationality/citizenship post.

Well yeah, I'm sure it is hard for you to believe. But you have to admit that you really don't know all that much about the actual history of this event, which would explain that.



Except they really didn't work together in any kind of integrated way or on the same operations really and they really didn't have an identical purpose at all.

Which might explain why the Palmach blew up a ship full of weapons the Irgun was bringing in later on. And why they were hunting and arresting members earlier.

There were a few Palmach soldiers involved in Deir Yassin who brought in a mortar to end the 4 day standoff and helped evacuate the wounded. They were there during the massacre. Difference being they were appalled instead of helping.

Just because the Haganah OK'd the taking of the town doesn't mean they were part of the same military organization. But if you bothered to read even the basic history of this event you'd probably know about that.

Seriously, how are you so at ease with posting history that you're just making up on the fly?

This is a great example of where you make assumptions that fail the reality test but which you assume without bothering to research. Stern Gang (Lehi) was a few years younger than you suggest. They weren't active since '37 because until 1940 they were just members of Irgun. They split off because of a distinct difference of purpose... one that was denounced by The Jewish Agency, Ben-Gurion, The Yishuv in general and the Haganah, all of whom condemned the massacre at Deir Yassin, (for which extensive evidence exists suggesting that it was unplanned and committed without Haganah help.) The taking of the town was planned and Haganah aided there, just not with the subsequent killing.

In 1940 Lehi was committed to terrorism and to working with the Nazis against the British. (This is prior to knowledge about the Holocaust.) They weren't mainstream in any sense of the word.

In what manner/by what name would you prefer to be addressed?

For future reference in an exchange, it would be nice to know in what manner or by what name you wish to be addressed.

You seem to have taken offense to the manner in which other posters have referred to you, and "The poster who uses the screen name 'King_David'" seems cumbersome at best. Although I have seen a number of your posts, I seem to have missed the one with your explanation of your preferred form of address.

Whilst you and I are likely to emphatically disagree in regards to a number of issues, I have little desire to inadvertently - or deliberately - insult or taunt you, nor to endure the reverse from you.

Except of course Sabra and Shatila wasn't actually perpetrated by Israelis but by Lebanese. The Israelis let it happen, and thus deserve blame for their actions, but they did not massacre anyone themselves.

The massacre at Jenin simply never occurred. Half as many Israeli soldiers died as Palestinians.

And there was no massacre in Gaza either. There was fighting, sure. But a massacre? No.


I don't know about that, but this report is anything but credible.