Summary
Arab village in Said’s account, site of the April 1948 massacre of 250 women and children for which Menachem Begin, in The Revolt as Said describes it, admits responsibility.
Details
-
Said gives the figure as 250 women and children killed in the April 1948 massacre, admitted by Menachem Begin in his book (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.65 / printed p.44).
-
In Said, Chapter Two II: Deir Yassin is given as a massacre of 350 Arab civilians by Menachem Begin and his Irgun terrorists in April 1948, one of many such massacres beginning in the immediate post-World War I period (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.122 / printed p.101). This figure differs from the 250 women and children figure Said gives at PDF p.65 for Begin’s admission in The Revolt; both are recorded on the source page under Open questions.
-
In Pappe’s account, Deir Yassin was a pastoral, cordial village that had reached a non-aggression pact with the Haganah in Jerusalem, doomed because it lay within the areas Plan Dalet designated to be cleansed; because of the pact the Hagana sent Irgun and Stern Group troops on 9 April 1948, who sprayed the houses with machine-gun fire, gathered the remaining villagers and murdered them in cold blood, abused the bodies, and raped and killed a number of women (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.119-120).
-
Pappe reports recent research bringing the accepted number massacred down from 170 to ninety-three, with dozens of others killed in the fighting not in the official list and thirty babies among the slaughtered — Pappe calls the whole ‘quantitative’ exercise over the numbers “insignificant”; the Jewish leadership at the time, he argues, proudly announced a high number to make Deir Yassin a warning to all Palestinians (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.120). This figure differs from Said’s 250 and 350 (see Details above); each source’s figures are kept as given.
-
Sitta’s register lists Dayr Yassin at S 394: depopulation date 8-04-48 with the note “9,10/4/48,IZL,LEHI”, Exodus Causes M/E, the Massacres mark “M+”, Arab Population 48 of 708 on 2,857 dunums (The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, PDF p.13).
-
In Manna, the day after ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni’s killing at al-Qastal, the Irgun (Etzel) and Lohame Herut Yisrael (LHI/Lehi or Stern) carried out a treacherous attack on the peaceful village of Dayr Yasin, killing and wounding hundreds of men, women and children; news of the mutilation and burning of corpses and the humiliation and torture of hundreds of prisoners spread panic and insecurity, and the two events acquired symbolic significance — the first for sacrifice and martyrdom, the second for the barbarism of the Zionist side and the victimization of the Palestinians (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.60-61).
Related pages
The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, The Question of Palestine, Menachem Begin