The Birth of the Palestinian Nation: The Myth of the Deir Yassin Massacre by Uri Milstein
In the pre-dawn hours of April 9, 1948, men of the nascent Israeli state
s underground defense organizations Etzel and Lehi converged on the
Arab village of Deir Yassin. By the end of the day, many were dead, Deir
Yassin was in Jewish hands, and the epic lies about the so-called
massacre that happened there had begun. Deir Yassin is the most infamous
episode of Israel s War of Independence. A basic founding myth in
Palestinian culture, it serves as grounds for the claim that the Jews
undertook genocide and mass deportation against the Palestinians in
1948. The continued Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel
stems in no small measure from the place that Deir Yassin holds in
contemporary Palestinian consciousness. The Deir Yassin affair is also a
founding myth of the new Israeli left, which casts doubt on the
justification for the establishment and continued existence of the State
of Israel as a Jewish national state. It is therefore not only a
historic episode, but a very contemporary one. This meticulously
researched book, based on archives and abundant eyewitness interviews,
shows that there never was any massacre in Deir Yassin, explains the
motivations of the various parties for the blood libel that sprang up
around this affair, and probes its consequences. Uri Milstein brings to
his exposition of the facts a lifetime of experience in Israeli military
history and a keen eye for the truth.
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