From Collier's Encyclopedia, 1952, "Israeli-Arab War:"

"Also on April 9 Irgun and Stern elements in an independent operation captured the Arab village of Deir Yassin, near Castel, killing numbers of inhabitants, including women and children, under circumstances of the grossest brutality.

The fall of Castel, the battle of Mishmar Haemek, and the massacre at Deir Yassin, took all the fighting spirit out of the Palestinian Arabs. A wave of terror spread from village to village. Hundreds of thousands of Arab villagers, with their household goods and other movable property, fled into Arab-held areas or across the borders of Palestine into Trans-jordan, Syria, and Lebanon..."

I guess they didn't get the memo that the Palestinian refugees were coldly and calculatingly withdrawing until the Jews were all killed. They were actually running for their lives ahead of the Zionist steamroller.
Montag | 05.03.08 - 5:59 pm | #

Re the quibble over whether it was 110 or 200 people killed, I remember Deir Yassin Remembered, before it became a quasi-religious cult, saying that the higher figure was probably zionists boasting about what they had done and that lower figure was probably correct but to claim it as a legitimate target, well....
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 05.03.08 - 8:59 pm | #

We know that history is perennially appropriated by the victors, but this is ridiculous.
The Zionist creation of its own history and the concomitant appropriation of language is unprecedented (and if course the essential demonisation of those who would prefer to stick to conventional standards of logic and evidence and of language). Breathtaking.
Should be a university subject in its own right, the ultimate in multi-disciplinary studies. Turning Newspaper Editors and Politicians into Pusillanimous Poltroons 101, etc. And, for those not so high-minded, perhaps a game show?
ej | 05.03.08 - 10:17 pm | #

Those are some well-written letters.
It is heartening to see.
mooser42001 | Homepage | 05.03.08 - 11:35 pm | #

The Palestinian diaspora being given access to the letters page in the respectable press! Outrageous.
Here's another Palestinian in the Sydney Morning Herald 30 April:
"Thank you, Peter Manning, ('Redress the balance on Palestine', April 29) for giving voice to the Palestinian narrative and for highlighting the cold, hard facts underlying the creation of Israel 60 years ago.
My Palestinian grandmother, 98 years old, died in Jordan last Thursday. Her lifelong wish was to return to her birthplace and to be buried beside my grandfather and ancestors. Israel denied her this right.
The creation of the state of Israel has resulted in the ongoing dispossession and suffering of the Palestinian people."
Randa Abdel-Fattah, Quakers Hill [Sydney suburb]
The Manning article referred to brought the phenomenon of the Naqba to reader's attention. The newspaper, good on reportorial coverage but craven on the Opinion pages, only published the Manning article after juxtaposing it (aka 'constested history') with the usual robotic mind-sapping zionist catechisms from an arch functionary of the establishment Israel lobby.
ej | 05.04.08 - 8:22 am | #

Nice article. Funny how I mentioned the "balance" in one the posts.
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 05.04.08 - 8:50 am | #