The massacre of civilian residents of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948 stands in Palestinian memory as an emblem of disproportionate Jewish aggression and forced displacement: It was following the rampant rumors of further massacres such as Deir Yassin’s that thousands of Palestinians, until then less inclined to leave their homes and properties, fled Palestine, never to return.
The massacre, at times denied or covered up by subsequent Israeli histories, is subject to exaggeration on both sides: Israelis have justified it as the collateral result of a strategically necessary conquest of a village on the road to Jerusalem. Palestinians and Arabs beyond Palestine have used Deir Yassin’s memory to paint all Israeli designs on Arab with the same broad, brutal brush, although the massacre itself was mostly the work of two illegal, terrorist Jewish organizations, and the Jewish Agency Executive sent a formal letter of apology to King Abdullah immediately after the massacre.
Yet the more mainstream Haganah assisted in the conquest, too.
Deir Yassin is a lasting example of the power, magnitude and treachery of memory in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Deir Yassin Massacre: Background
Deir Yassin, also known as Dayr Yasin (and today known as Givat Shaul), was a small Palestinian village of about 700 inhabitants some three miles west of Jerusalem. It overlooked a strategic road to Jerusalem, and what’s believed to be the birthplace of John the Baptist.
In the spring of 1948, Palestine was in the throes of a civil war opposing Palestinian and Jewish forces. On March 31, 1948, Jewish forces led by David Ben-Gurion had decided that Jewish Jerusalem, which held one-sixth of the Jewish population in Palestine, could not, for symbolic and strategic reasons, be lost to Palestinian and Arab forces: the loss of Jerusalem might amount to the loss of the Zionist cause in Palestine. Operation Nahshon was launched as a result, entailing the mobilization of some 1,500 troops in an attempt to take control of the road to Jerusalem and neutralize militantly Arab villages along the road. Deir Yassin was not among those militant villages. It was a relatively quiet agrarian community. Its inhabitants had pledged to remain neutral. They’d also agreed, with the Jewish residents of the nearby settlement of Givat Shaul (that would eventually encompass all of Deir Yassin), that neither would attack the other. Deir Yassin had proved its neutrality that March when it had convinced the Arab forces of Amin al-Hussein to leave Givat Shaul alone.
Deir Yassin Massacre: A Target by Default
Deir Yassin wasn’t in the Haganah’s sights. The Haganah was aiming to conquer the more strategically important village of al-Kastal, and was looking for help wherever it could get it—even from rivals it did not particularly respect or consider quite as legitimate, such as members of Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Lehi, or Stern Gang (two Jewish underground organizations that, beginning in the 1930s, engaged in terrorist operations against Palestinians and British Mandate personnel).
But militants from both Irgun and the Stern Gang were uninterested in joining forces at al-Kastal. They wanted to make a statement of their own, for two reasons: by mounting an independent operation against a high-visibility target of their choosing, they’d be entering the war against Arabs in earnest—grabbing a piece of the vistory pie they were betting on—and lifting their own profile in what was then seen as the Jews’ battle for independence. As such, Irgun and the Stern Gang’s agendas would get a lift, too—or so they hoped. (This would be Irgun’s and the Stern Gang’s first joint operation since 1942.)
Their second aim was more sinister, but not a secret, as it fell in line with Irgun’s Revisionist beliefs, which opposed either the partition of Palestine or its sharing with Palestinians: killing residents of the village they’d choose for their target—those residents who did not flee—as a means of terrifying the country’s other Palestinian residents, and inducing them to take flight as well. The Haganah approved—and agreed to provide covering fire during the operation.
The target Irgun and the Stern Gand chose: Deir Yassin.
Deir Yassin: The Massacre
On April 9, 1948, one month before Israel declared itself a nation, a force of about 120 members of Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL) and the Lehi, or Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin and massacred up to 130 Palestinians, most of them women, children and older people.
The village was not undefended. Villagers killed five attackers and wounded 30 others. As Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote, “Deir Yassin is not remembered as a military operation, but rather for the atrocities committed by the IZL and LHI troops during and immediately after the drawn-out battle: Whole families were riddled with bullets and grenade fragments and buried when houses were blown up on top of them; men, women and children were mowed down as they emerged from houses; individuals were taken aside and shot. At the end of the battle, groups of old men, women and children were trucked through West Jerusalem’s streets in a kind of ‘victory parade’ and then dumped in (Arab) East Jerusalem.”
Deir Yassin’s Consequences
It is likely that the stories of the massacre had their desired effect: Palestinian Arabs began fleeing their homes in droves, fearing a repeat. Jewish intelligence services, according to Morrics, called Deir Yassin “a decisive accelerating factor” in the Arab exodus.
It is also one of the contributing factors that led other Arab armies, such as Egypt’s, to join the battle against Jewish forces. And it set a precedent, psychological and literal, in Jewish (and subsequently Israeli) treatment of Arabs, and Arab perceptions of Isral.
Next page: From Deir Yassin to Sabra and Shatila