(Author: Kenneth D Penkin, Vol. 69, No. 3, Chanukah 2014)
Winston Churchill once quipped that, “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”.
One of the worst and oft-told calumnies against the State of Israel is that the battle for the village of Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948, fought in the course of relieving the blockade of Jerusalem, was a ‘massacre’. Whenever anti-Zionists wish to attack Israel, they invariably refer to Deir Yassin to blacken the name of the Jewish State. It is important, therefore, to show that, in fact, the battle which took place at Deir Yassin was not a massacre, and that its depiction as such constitutes a massive international propaganda fraud against the Jewish people.
On 29 November 1947, the UN voted in favor of partitioning the former British Mandate territory of Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted that partition plan, and the following year Israel came into being as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Arab acts of hostility reached their peak in March 1948; moreover, Arabs now controlled all the inter-urban routes. The road to Jerusalem was blocked, settlements in the Galilee and the Negev were likewise cut off and convoys were subjected to daily attacks. In the four months since the UN resolution, some 850 Jews had been killed, most of them in Jerusalem or on the road to the city.
In this context, the Israeli high command launched Operation Nachshon on 6 April, 1948, with the aim of opening up the road to Jerusalem. The village of Deir Yassin was included on the list of Arab villages to be occupied as part of that operation. The Israeli forces were represented by both the Hagana (operated by the Jewish Agency) and the Irgun/Lehi forces, who undertook the attack with the written consent of the Hagana. The Hagana commander in Jerusalem, David Shaltiel, asked that the timing of the operation be so coordinated as to coincide with the scheduled renewed assault on Castel. He despatched identical letters to Mordecai Raanan and Yehoshua Zetler, respectively the Irgun and Lehi commanders in Jerusalem, in which he gave the operation his approval: “I have no objection to your carrying out the operation on condition that you are capable of holding on to it”.
It is significant that until this operation, the Israelis had generally been reactive, responding to Arab attacks rather than taking the initiative. Now, they were taking the offensive. The Jewish people and the world at large needed to be shown that the Jews of the Yishuv were not going to give up Jerusalem, which the UN intended should become an international city.
Deir Yassin is today a suburb of modern Jerusalem. Thus, in 1948 it was not some outlying, faraway village, but was in the very centre of military operations. It was next to the only road into besieged Jerusalem from the coast, and blocked the entry road into the city, thus halting supplies and other access.
Was the battle for Deir Yassin a massacre? To answer that question, the following must be taken into account.
Firstly, strict orders were given in advance to the Irgun/Lehi fighters not to harm the elderly, women and children. It was also stated explicitly that any Arab who surrendered was to be taken prisoner (and not harmed). That instruction is not consistent with a massacre. The officer in charge of the Israeli forces, Yehuda Lapidot, was present during the entire attack. Much of what follows is directly reported by Lapidot. It also features in an interview conducted with him by Yehuda Avner, who quotes from it in his book The Prime Ministers.1
Secondly, an unprecedented action took place at Deir Yassin – a loudspeaker was installed on an armoured car to inform the population that the road to Ein Karem was open and safe, that the attackers had left clear the western exit from Deir Yassin and that whoever left the village would not be harmed. Lapidot told Avner that his force announced in Arabic on the loudspeakers: “You are being attacked by superior forces. The exit from Deir Yassin leading to Ein Karem is open. Run immediately – don’t hesitate – our forces are advancing.” The announcer was an Iraqi-born Jew, fluent in Arabic. It is thus most unusual and surprising that the Jewish strike force was actually prepared to forfeit the surprise element of battle; they placed themselves at risk in order to issue these instructions and thus to prevent Arab civilian casualties. The Arabs themselves do not deny the use of a loudspeaker; indeed, an Arab League report entitled ‘Israeli Aggression’ states, “On the night of April 9, 1948, the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin was surprised by a loudspeaker, which called on the population to evacuate it immediately”.
Thirdly, it is universally agreed that there was bitter fighting at Deir Yassin. There were more than a hundred Arab fighters, well equipped and with large amounts of ammunition and occupying fortified positions in stone buildings. In response to the intense gunfire directed at them, the attackers were forced to charge, throw grenades and, in several cases, to blow up houses. As a consequence (and despite the loudspeaker warnings) women and children were unavoidably among the dead. Where houses were blasted during the fighting, some collapsed, with soldiers and civilians inside being killed. During the battle, Arab women ran from houses under fire, collected weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters and brought them back into the houses. Several Arab women were found dead with guns in their hands, indicating they had taken part in the battle. One dead Arab soldier was found to be a Yugoslavian Muslim officer whose identification papers indicated he had been with the all- Muslim units of the Nazi SS organised by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Palestinian leader and Nazi collaborator in World War II.
According to all the documents and testimonies, it is clear today that fewer than one hundred Arabs were killed at Deir Yassin, and not the 240 as published. The Irgun and Lehi forces suffered a casualty rate of 35%, with five dead and 35 wounded. This was the first instance in the War of Independence where a battle had taken place in a built-up area.
It must be stressed that all the Arab casualties were sustained in the course of the fighting.Villagers who surrendered – men, women and children – were taken prisoner and came to no harm. Lapidot told Avner, “…So I say to you again ABSOLUTELY NO – there was no massacre. When the firing ceased, they were transported by truck to East Jerusalem and handed over to their Arab brethren. They were not shot!” This is first hand evidence from someone who was personally present throughout the attack. Yunes Ahmed Assad, a Deir Yassin survivor, later told the Jordanian newspaper Al Urdun (9 April, 1953), “The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander.”2
‘Massacre’ means the premeditated slaughter of defenseless human beings. The Thesaurus consulted by this author provides the following similes: “Annihilation, blood bath, butchery, carnage, killing, mass slaughter, murder, slaughter, exterminate, cut to pieces, slay, wipe out.”
The battle of Deir Yassin fits none of these definitions.
The Red Cross Rape Allegations
The charge of rape on the part of the Jewish soldiers involved, while regularly levelled, lacks support. The behaviour of Israeli soldiers in the many wars is in any case completely against sexual assault and is an outrage against Jewish ideals and principles.
One would normally expect to place great import on a report on the affair prepared by the International Red Cross which, in addition to the respected name of that institution, carried references to Sir Henry Gurney from Richard C. Catling, the Assistant Inspector General of the Criminal Investigation Division and a specialist in Jewish matters. Catling, however, was hardly the most objective person to be investigating whether or not atrocities against Arab civilians had been carried out. He only visited the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan five days after the battle, where he interviewed a number of Arab women who claimed to have been present. However, we find that “the women were very shy and reluctant…” and that they “needed great coaxing” – this from British officers whose hostility to the Jewish people pervaded their attitude. The report makes such averments as, “…no doubt sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered….” and, “many infants… a 100 year old woman…..”
The report is notable for its lack of corroboration from other sources. It is not the kind of report one expects from such a body as the IRC. Dr. Engel, who accompanied Jacques de Reynier of the IRC, reported that he “did not see any signs of defilement, mutilation, or rape”. On 12 April two Jewish physicians, Avigdori and A. Droyan, were sent to Deir Yassin at the request of the Jewish Agency by the Histadrut Medical Committee. According to their testimony, their examination of the bodies indicated that “all the bodies were clothed, the limbs were intact, and no sign of mutilation was visible on them.”
The battle for Deir Yassin was nevertheless publicized throughout the world as the ‘Deir Yassin Massacre’, causing great harm to the reputation of the Yishuv. The various Arab propaganda channels widely disseminated the story at the time, and continue to do so to the present day. Their stated intention was to instil in the Israeli Arab population a spirit of religious fervour; what happened instead, however, was that they intimidated and alarmed them, a mistake they themselves now admit to.
Hazem Nusseibeh, editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news in 1948, later admitted in an interview for the BBC television series ‘Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict’ that he fabricated claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin. Describing an encounter with Hussein Khalidi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, he said, “I asked Dr Khalidi how we should cover the story. He said, ‘We must make the most of this’. So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.”3
Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin survivor, said the villagers protested at the time, insisting that there had been no rape. However, Khalidi told them, “We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.”4 For his 1998 article ‘Deir Yassin – a casualty of guns and propaganda’, Reuters journalist Paul Holmes interviewed Mohammed Radwan, who was a resident of Deir Yassin in 1948, and fought for several hours before running out of bullets. Radwan told him that he never believed that more than 110 people had died in the battle, and accused Arab leaders of exaggerating the atrocities.5
For those propagating the ‘massacre’ version, evidence is cited by Catherine Stewart in an article for The Independent.6 Among the documents believed to be in the state’s possession is a damning report written by Meir Pa’il, a Jewish officer who condemned his compatriots for bloodthirsty and shameful conduct on that day. After the fighting had wound down, Mr Pa’il described how he heard sporadic firing from the houses, and went to investigate. There he saw that the soldiers had stood the villagers in the corners of their homes and shot them dead. According to Daniel McGowan, executive director of Deir Yassin Remembered, surviving photographs “clearly show there was a massacre. … Those photos show [villagers] lined up against a quarry wall and shot.”7
What is disconcerting is that such important documents, while frequently quoted, have never been published.
Conclusion
The attack by the Irgun and Lehi on Deir Yassin had important consequences. In the immediate term, it cleared the road to Jerusalem, and allowed for the entry of much-needed supplies and arms. More broadly, it had a disastrous effect on the local Arab population, which commenced fleeing from Israel despite the invitation by Ben Gurion to stay. The Arabs were encouraged by their leaders to ignore Ben Gurion as the Arab countries were confidently expected to forcibly take back Israel on their own terms and without invitations from the Jews.
Avner writes, “Like Scheherazade narrating one of those Arabian night tales, Arabian story tellers continue to weave their grizzly fiction resurrecting the ghosts of Deir Yassin from generation to generation.”
Based on factual evidence it seems overwhelmingly true that there was no massacre at Deir Yassin, but only a substantial amount of misinformation, aka lies. In 2011, speaking in Brooklyn to some 3000 rabbis, the then Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Lord Jonathan Sacks, said, “Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism”.
It is now up to us to go out and earn that respect by telling the truth of Deir Yassin.
Kenneth D Penkin is a retired Chartered Accountant living in Cape Town. He has been active in Jewish communal affairs, including serving on the committees of various shuls, Highlands House, Herzlia High School and the Cape committee of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, He also served as chairman of the United Communal Fund (Cape) for one campaign.
NOTES
- Avner, Y, The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership, 2010.
- http://www.adespicabletruce.org.uk/page111.html
- Klein, M, Deir Yassin – History of a Lie, Zionist Organisation of America, http://zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm
- Ibid.
- http://www.radiobergen.org/history/deir-2.html6‘A massacre of Arabs masked by a state of national amnesia’, 10 May 2010.7 Ibid.
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