From: bdm@cs.rit.edu (Brendan D McKay)
Subject: Re: Dir Yassin (was Re: no-Free man propaganda machine: Freeman, with blood greetings from Israel)
Nntp-Posting-Host: virginia
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 123

In article <HM.93Apr17144348@yoda.cs.brown.edu> hm@cs.brown.edu (Harry Mamaysky) writes:
>In article <1993Apr13.141518.13900@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> hasan@McRCIM.McGill.EDU  writes:
>
>   CHECK MENAHEM BEGIN DAIRIES (published book) you'll find accounts of the
>   massacres there including Deir Yassen,
>   though with the numbers of massacred men, children and women are 
>   greatly minimized.

There is no known writing directly attributable to Menachem Begin
which admits a massacre at Deir Yassin.  Thus, Hasan is wrong.

>As per request of Hasan:
>
>From _The Revolt_, by Menachem Begin, Dell Publishing, NY, 1977:
>
>[pp. 225-227]
>
>    "Apart from the military aspect, there is a moral aspect to the
>story of Dir Yassin. At that village, whose name was publicized
>throughout the world, both sides suffered heavy casualties. We had
>four killed and nearly forty wounded. The number of casualties was
>nearly forty percent of the total number of the attackers. The Arab
>troops suffered casualties neraly three times as heavy. The fighting

The word "troops" is unjustified.  There has never been any evidence
that there were any regular or irregular Arab forces in the village
apart from the villagers defending themselves.  According to the
Haganah observer Pa'il, the Irgun/Lehi forces suffered a lot of
casualties because they were incompetent soldiers.  When they ran
into trouble securing the central part of the village, a small group 
of Palmach soldiers came and took it without a single casualty.
Begin's failure to even mention the Palmach is only one of the
major inaccuracies (to use a kind word) in his account.

Incidentally, "three times as heavy" may be correct, as there is
serious evidence that the Arab loss was closer to 120 lives than
to the oft-quoted 250 lives.  However, note that Begin compares
wounded Jews to dead Arabs.  He fails to mention the number of
wounded Arabs.  Guess why.

>was thus very severe. Yet the hostile propaganda, disseminated
>throughout the world, deliberately ignored the fact that the civilian
>population of Dir Yassin was actually given a warning by us before the
>battle began. One of our tenders carrying a loud speaker was stationed
>at the entrance to the village and it exhorted in Arabic all women,
>children and aged to leave their houses and to take shelter on the
>slopes of the hill.  By giving this humane warning our fighters threw
>away the element of complete surprise, and thus increased their own
>risk in the ensuing battle. 

As is thoroughly established by many sources, the loudspeaker truck
got stuck in a ditch too far from the village for it to provide a
usueful warning.

>A substantial number of the inhabitants
>obeyed the warning and they were unhurt. A few did not leave their
>stone houses - perhaps because of the confusion. The fire of the enemy
>was murderous - to which the number of our casualties bears eloquent
>testimony. Our men were compelled to fight for every house; to
>overcome the enemy they used large numbers of hand grenades. And the
>civilians who had disregarded our warnings suffered inevitable
>casualties.
>
>    "The education which we gave our soldiers throughout the years of
>revolt was based on the observance of the traditional laws of war. We
>never broke them unless the enemy first did so and thus forced us, in
>accordance with the accepted custom of war, to apply reprisals. I am
>convinced, too, that our officers and men wished to avoid a single
>unnecessary casualty in the Dir Yassin battle. But those who throw
>stones of denunciation at the conquerors of Dir Yassin [1] would do
>well not to don the cloak of hypocrisy [2].
>
>    "In connection with the capture of Dir Yassin the Jewish Agency
>found it necessary to send a letter of apology to Abdullah, whom Mr.
>Ben Gurion, at a moment of great political emotion, called 'the wise
>ruler who seeks the good of his people and this country.' The 'wise
>ruler,' whose mercenary forces demolished Gush Etzion and flung the
>bodies of its heroic defenders to birds of prey, replied with feudal
>superciliousness. He rejected the apology and replied that the Jews
>were all to blame and that he did not believe in the existence of
>'dissidents.' Throughout the Arab world and the world at large a wave
>of lying propaganda was let loose about 'Jewish attrocities.'
>
>    "The enemy propaganda was designed to besmirch our name. In the
>result it helped us. Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel.
>Kolonia village, which had previously repulsed every attack of the
>Haganah, was evacuated overnight and fell without further fighting.
>Beit-Iksa was also evacuated. These two places overlooked the main
>road; and their fall, together with the capture of Kastel by the
>Haganah, made it possible to keep open the road to Jerusalem. In the
>rest of the country, too, the Arabs began to flee in terror, even
>before they clashed with Jewish forces. Not what happened at Dir
>Yassin, but what was invented about Dir Yassin, helped to carve the
>way to our decisive victories on the battlefield. The legend of Dir
>Yassin helped us in particular in the saving of Tiberias and the
>conquest of Haifa."

It is worth noting how Begin disputes the standard myth that the
Palestinian Arabs fled as part of a calculated plan.

>[1] (A footnote from _The Revolt_, pp.226-7.) "To counteract the loss
>of Dir yassin, a village of strategic importance, Arab headquarters at
>Ramallah broadcast a crude atrocity story, alleging a massacre by
>Irgun troops of women and children in the village. Certain Jewish
>officials, fearing the Irgun men as political rivals, seized upon this
>Arab gruel propaganda to smear the Irgun. An eminent Rabbi was induced
>to reprimand the Irgun before he had time to sift the truth. Out of
>evil, however, good came. This Arab propaganda spread a legend of
>terror amongst Arabs and Arab troops, who were seized with panic at
>the mention of Irgun soldiers. The legend was worth half a dozen
>battalions to the forces of Israel. The `Dir Yassin Massacre' lie
>is still propagated by Jew-haters all over the world."

Apparently 90% of Israeli historians are Jew-haters.

>[2] In reference to denunciation of Dir Yassin by fellow Jews.

I have previously posted quotations by Irgun participants that
totally destroys Begin's whitewash.  I have no particular desire
to post it yet again.

Brendan.
(normally bdm@cs.anu.edu.au)
