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The Battle of Deir Yassin

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       Deir Yassin was a village west of Jerusalem that sat along the main highway connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. On April 9th in the midst of the 1948 war, Deir Yassin was assaulted by paramilitary groups IZL and LEHI with support from the Haganah. The fighting left approximately 110 dead. Various estimates range from as low as 46 (from an Arab source) to as high as 250 though both extremes are equally unlikely, most concluding around 110. Nothing about a battle resulting in 110 casualties in a full-fledged war is in and of itself particularly noteworthy. Relative to other wartime casualty statistics, it is a rather low number. The controversy swirling around the battle at Deir Yassin is the claim that the 110 casualties were innocent civilians murdered in cold blood by the Jewish forces.

       Deir Yassin "was an integral, inseparable episode in the battle for Jerusalem... [Arab forces] were attempting to cut the only highway linking Jerusalem with Tel Aviv and the outside world. It had cut the pipeline upon which the defenders depended for water. Palestinian Arab contingents, stiffened by men of the regular Iraqi army, had seized vantage points overlooking the Jerusalem road and from them were firing on trucks that tried to reach the beleaguered city with vital food-stuffs and supplies. Dir Yassin, like the strategic hill and village of Kastel, was one of these vantage points. In fact, the two villages were interconnected militarily, reinforcements passing from Dir Yassin to Kastel during the fierce engagement for that hill."¹

       Critics of Israel have done all they can to portray the assault on Deir Yassin as a textbook case of massacre without dispute. Anti-Israeli authors will have you believe the Jews stormed into a peaceful, civilian village, lined up the inhabitants, and began systematically executing unarmed men, women, and children with machine guns. At the same time, most accounts of Deir Yassin admit there is a degree of confusion about what actually happened that day. With so much acknowledged uncertainty there is little justification for the massacre dogma that has stigmatized the assault against Deir Yassin. Massacre is defined as "individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents that would qualify as war crimes or atrocities."² So there is a distinct connotation when labeling an event as a massacre, implying a ruthless and unnecessary murder of many otherwise innocent or defenseless people. The next logical question would obviously then be, was Deir Yassin a village of innocent or defenseless people?

An Unpeaceful Past

       To be thorough, the answer to this question should not only consider the immediate circumstances on 9 April 1948, but what behavior characterized this village prior to the assault as well. As you will see, Arabs from Deir Yassin were notoriously aggressive in the recent past, as well as the immediate timeframe leading up to the attack.

• Deir Yassin participated in arms trafficking in the 1920s during the violent Arab riots of the 1920s³



• "Deir Yassin residents had carried out violent attacks on the Jews of Givat Shaul in October 1928"⁴



• "During the August 1929 Arab riots throughout Palestine, the villagers of Deir Yassin had again assaulted their Jewish neighbors in Givat Shaul as well as Jews in the Beit Hakerem neighborhood and the Montefiore Quarter"⁵



• ..."we continually faced attempted forays into our homes from Deir Yassin. We dug out our 'illegal' weapons every night and waited, while the Jewish supplementary police repulsed the infiltrators again and again. Months later, we had a defense position in nearby Motza [and the commander] often asked my help to transport men to their night duties in Motza. Driving back and forth to Motza from Jerusalem, I spent many hours lying in roadside ditches after ambushes out of Deir Yassin."⁶

       A factor in the controversy surrounding Deir Yassin is that it had signed peace agreements with the nearby Jewish villages. In fact, evidence is put forward that the residents of Deir Yassin prevented Syrian and Iraqi troops from using their village as a staging ground for attacks against the Jews. However, a peace agreement that is honored for only some of the time is not worth having; it is worse than no agreement at all since it exposes the opposing side to greater potential harm as they lower their guard. Deir Yassin, at best, only partially adhered to this peace agreement while its belligerent violations rendered meaningless so much as a reference to it.

• Haganah driver Arnold Shper testified in a 1952 judicial proceeding that during his posting in Givat Shaul in February and March 1948, he spoke with Haganah intelligence agents who mentioned "that foreign Arabs had been detected in Deir Yassin, [including] Iraqis." ⁷



• Jerusalem Haganah intelligence officer Mordechai Gihon led two reconnaissance sorties into Ein Kerem, adjacent to Deir Yassin, and returned with documents revealing regular contacts between Deir Yassin and the bases of Syrian and Iraqi volunteer soldiers in Ein Kerem. On March 30, Gihon reported to his superiors that "150 men, mostly Iraqis, entered Deir Yassin." ⁸



• On Saturday night Jerusalem's western neighborhoods Beit Hakerem and Bayit Vagan were attacked for the first time. The attack came from Deir Yassin and Ein Kerem and also from Colonia. The defenders returned fire; the shots continued the whole [night].⁹



• On Sunday, April 4, commander Shaltiel received an urgent message from the intelligence officer of the Haganah's Etzioni division: "There's a gathering in Deir Yassin. Armed men left [from Deir Yassin] in the direction of [the nearby town of] lower Motza, northwest of Givat Shaul. They are shooting at passing cars." ¹⁰



• That same day, the deputy commander of the Haganah's Beit Horon brigade, Michael Hapt reported to Shaltiel: "A [Jewish] passenger car from Motza was attacked near the flour mill, below Deir Yassin, and is stopped there. There is rifle fire upon it. You too send an armoured vehicle with weapons. There is concern that the road is cut off." ¹¹



• An armoured vehicle carrying Lehi fighters was also attacked at the same spot that day. A Haganah intelligence officer who described the incident to his superiors reported that according to Lehi officer David Gottlieb, those of his men who disembarked from their vehicle to return fire said that the attackers appeared to be Arab soldiers rather than local villagers.¹²



• Shortly before the battle of Deir Yassin, there was additional troubling news: Mordechai Gihon's lookouts reported that numerous armed men were moving between Ein Kerem and Deir Yassin. Some of the soldiers were wearing Iraqi uniforms, and while many of them had entered Deir Yassin, only a few had returned to Ein Kerem.¹³



• And just hours before the IZL-Lehi action against Deir Yassin began, Shaltiel cabled his colleague Shimon Avidan: "The Arabs in Deir Yassin have trained a mortar on the highway in order to shell the convoy [bringing supplies to besieged Jewish portions of Jerusalem]."¹⁴

       The Jews were able to get their accurate intelligence from a contact on the inside. "Some of the Haganah's information about developments in Deir Yassin was coming directly from inside the village itself. A Haganah agent code-named 'Ovadia,' working in the Jerusalem area for the Haganah's Arabic Department, met regularly with Deir Yassin residents as well as their mukhtar, or village chief, who was a paid Haganah informant."¹⁵

The Instigation

       As already mentioned, Deir Yassin sat along the road connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. During the first phase of the 1948 war, the battle for Jerusalem was raging and this road was the only lifeline to its 100,000 civilian Jewish residents besieged by Arab armies, making safe passage a vital war objective. Villagers from Deir Yassin exploited its inherent strategic value to frequently attack these vulnerable Jewish convoys. As there was no other road and no sign of relenting hostility, the Jews decided to attack and neutralize the threat in order to get supplies through. In fact, "A telegram from Michael Hapt, of the Haganah's Beit Horon brigade, to the Haganah command, at 5:00 p.m. that day, urged: "In order to prevent [an attack] on lower Motza, cutting off of road to Jerusalem, and capture of position south of Tzova, Deir Yassin must be captured."¹⁶

The Loudspeaker

       Forfeiting sound military tactics, the Jewish attackers began their assault on Deir Yassin with a loudspeaker announcing the attack was coming and completely destroying the element of surprise. The loudspeaker was attached to an armored vehicle and in native Arabic by an Iraqi-born Jew, instructions were given that anyone who wished to remove themselves from the imminent battle zone could do so via the road to Ein Karem. Much debate over whether this armored vehicle with loudspeaker made it to the village exists. Some say it never made it while others say Arab gunfire forced it into a ditch (which means the Arabs were attacking before they knew what was happening). The Arabs themselves admit, however, the loudspeaker did its job,

• "On the night of April 9, 1948, the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin was surprised by a loudspeaker, which called on the population to evacuate it immediately."¹⁷



• A resident of Deir Yassin during the attack says, "Their loudspeakers blared out, 'Lay down your arms, run for your lives!' Then I heard our machine gun."¹⁸

       The Red Cross reported that 200-250 civilians from Deir Yassin were safely escorted into Jerusalem. ¹⁹ This refutes the ridiculous claim that the IZL and LEHI soldiers "killed every Arab man, woman, and child they could find in the village."⁵² Over 200 people in Deir Yassin made the choice to safely leave the village, drastically increasing the ratio of hostile to non-hostile villagers choosing to remain behind and fight.

Welcome to the peaceful village of Deir Yassin

• The Palestinian Arab and Iraqi garrison hung out white flags from houses nearest the village entrance.  When the advance party of the Irgun unit advanced towards the entrance, it was met by a hail of fire.  One of the first to be hit was its commander.²⁰



• Michael Harif, a deputy commander for the Irgun recalls, "I saw a man in khaki run ahead. I thought he was one of us, I ran after him and told him, 'Move ahead to that house!' Suddenly he turned, pointed his weapon at me and fired. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg".²¹



• Patchiah Zalivensky who served with the LEHI reported there being a Yugoslavian Muslim officer among the Arab casualties whose identification papers indicated he had been with the all-Muslim units of the Nazi SS that had been organized in Yugoslavia during World War II by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Palestinian Arab leader and Nazi collaborator.²²



• Some Arabs were disguised as old women who opened fire but were wearing Iraqi military uniforms under their disguises.²³



• "From the windows of their houses, Arabs were shooting at our soldiers, and from a force of 132, we had 42 wounded, and 6 dead."²⁴



• "Dror [Mordechai Ben-Uziahu] had clambered up onto a rooftop from where he was able to spot my assailant who was dressed in the uniform of an Iraqi officer, and shot him."²⁵



• "[Arab] women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses."
²⁶

       Had Deir Yassin truly been a peaceful, civilian village, the white flags would have signaled peace rather than a sneaky tactic for tricking the Jews into letting their guards down so they could be shot more easily, there would have been no Iraqi officers running about dressed as women, the shooting would not have originated so quickly from Deir Yassin, and they never would have been involved with sniping at Jewish convoys in the first place. It is important to note other Arab villages nearby did not join the war efforts against the Jews and were completely left alone.

Not bad ... for "civilians"

• The villagers sniper fire from higher positions in the west contained effectively the attack, especially from the mukhtar's (mayor's) house. Some Lehi units went for help from the Haganah's Camp Schneller in Jerusalem.²⁷



• Intense Arab firepower caused the fighters' advance into Deir Yassin to be very slow. Reuven Greenberg reported later that "the Arabs fought like lions and excelled at accurate sniping". He added that "[Arab] women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses".²⁸



• Ezra Yachin recalled, "To take a house, you had either to throw a grenade or shoot your way into it. If you were foolish enough to open doors, you got shot down -- sometimes by men dressed up as women, shooting out at you in a second of surprise".²⁹



• Villager fire inflicted heavy casualties and drove off the Irgun. The Lehi units advance stopped at the town's center where they were only holding the eastern parts.³⁰



• While both Irgun and Lehi commanders had anticipated many residents would flee, and the remaining would surrender after token resistance, both groups of Jewish fighters, entering the town from different sides, immediately encountered fierce volleys of Arab rifle fire.³¹



• Arab reinforcements were attempting to make their way into Deir Yassin during the attack from Ein Kerem and Malcha, prompting a Haganah unit to spray machine gun fire to prevent them from bolstering the resistance.³²

       Remember that one of the main criteria for determining a massacre has taken place is that the people are defenseless. With civilians like these, who needs armies?

After the fighting

       The villagers who made the wise choice to leave as well as all of the prisoners of war were promptly turned over to Arab forces once Deir Yassin was secured. An Irgun commander led a member of the Red Cross through the village immediately after the attack. A press conference was held.³³ Pictures were allowed to be taken. Villagers being warned of the attack, prisoners of war being taken and given back, humanitarian groups being toured around, press conferences given, pictures being taken ... people, this is not typical behavior in the aftermath of an authentic massacre.

Jack, the Beanstalk, and the Atrocity

       Once the Arabs caught wind of the Deir Yassin attack, a significant amount of creative energy was diverted from how to win the war into how to manufacture a lie. A Palestinian named Hussein Khalidi is attributed with starting the lie of massacre and atrocity. Khalidi's accusations were accepted as gospel by New York Times correspondent Dana Schmidt on April 12th, 1948, just a few days after the attack. Schmidt's reporting is often referred to as proof a massacre took place. The problem with this is that Khalidi's claims were contrived propaganda.

• Hazem Nusseibeh with the Palestine Broadcasting Service speaking with a Palestinian leader, Dr. Khalidi recalls, "I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story. He said we must make the most of this. So he wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin, children were murdered, pregnant women were raped, all sorts of atrocities."³⁴



• Arab radio reports of women being raped, children being murdered, and babies being killed were released.

Arab sources, many of whom were living in Deir Yassin at the time of the attack, are surprisingly vocal in exposing the sham of the alleged atrocities at Deir Yassin:

• "We gathered in Jerusalem at the Hebron gate. We checked who was missing and who had survived. Then the Palestinian leaders arrived, including Dr. Khalidi. We said there was no rape. He [Dr. Khalidi] said we have to say this so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews."³⁵



• Another Arab resident of Deir Yassin by the name All Radwan says, "I know when I speak that God is up there and God knows the truth and God will not forgive the liars.  There were no rapes. It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade.  They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin."³⁶



• Ayish Zeidan, another Deir Yassin villager said, "The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true... I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. The Arab leaders committed a big mistake. By exaggerating the atrocities they thought they would encourage people to fight back harder. Instead they created panic and people ran away."³⁷



• Zeidan also recalls, "There had been no rape", he said. 'The Arab radio at the time talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true. I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters."³⁸



• Nusseibeh who was informed of the coming lie of rapes and atrocities by Khalidi above, told the BBC the fables about Deir Yassin that "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror. They ran away from all our villages."³⁹



• This in turn supports Menachem Begin's (an Irgun leader) account of the effects of the lie about Deir Yassin: "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 low 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 in Deir Yassin, but what was invented about Deir Yassin, helped to carve the way to our decisive victories on the battlefield."⁴⁰



• "The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander."⁴¹



• "Moreover, we have information from a famous source, Yassir Arafat himself (his authorized biography, by Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker) that the Deir Yassin lies were spread 'like a red flag in front of a bull' by the Egyptians."⁵¹

       Indeed, "... the Red Cross, which was called in to assist the wounded and civilians, found no evidence of a massacre. In fact, even the most recent review of the evidence (July 1999), by Arab scholars at Beir-Zayyit university in Ramallah, indicates that there was no massacre, but rather a military conflict in which civilians were killed in the crossfire."⁵⁰

       The effects of the Arabs fabricating a lie about the behavior of Jewish forces during their assault on Deir Yassin proved to be counter-productive. Instead of strengthening resolve by uniting Arabs with a sense of outrage and yet more hatred toward the Jews, it caused them to pack up and leave town. Palestinian Arabs fled cities in a panic all over Palestine after hearing of this lie and it could legitimately be viewed as a major factor causing Palestinian Arab refugees.

       The success of an assault against a strategically valuable target can be measured by the improvement in circumstance afterward. It can be validated as having been necessary the same way. The next question is, after Deir Yassin was attacked and neutralized, was there any tangible gain? Remember that prior to the attack, Jewish convoys were being hammered by Arab fire and largely prevented from reaching Jerusalem to alleviate the civilian population. The very next day after the assault, "the situation improved somewhat for the beleaguered Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. A convoy of 131 vehicles carrying five hundred tons of food finally reached the city from Tel Aviv. Two days later, 250 trucks – out of 280 that began the journey – made it through with an additional one thousand tons of supplies, including flour, sugar, milk, fruit, and vegetables.”⁴² Decency would agree that if 100,000 people are at risk of starving to death, something should be done to secure the way to rescue them.

       Some claim the battle of Deir Yassin was unnecessary and the Jews only attacked because they were attempting to empty the land of Arabs. Hence, they went out of their way to fight. The evidence presented above already refutes this allegation for the most part, but if any doubt remains, the issue of Latrun must be considered. Latrun had an elevated position above the road connecting Tel Aviv with Jerusalem just as Deir Yassin was. The Arabs were in control of Latrun and were using it to attack Jewish convoys attempting to re-supply Jerusalem just as was happening at Deir Yassin. A plan was in the making to take Latrun from the Arabs. However, a bypass road was discovered that allowed the Jewish convoys to travel to the south of Latrun, out of range of their weapons, which was named “Burma Road”. When Yitzhak Rabin informed Ben-Gurion they would be using this road in place of attacking Latrun, Ben-Gurion was furious. Demanding to know why he wasn’t informed of this change, Rabin replied: “I don’t know. I have been charged with submitting this proposal on behalf of Allon and Stone. Latrun is not sacred. The purpose of taking it is to safeguard our link with Jerusalem. If that purpose can be gained by other means, why must we shed blood over Latrun?”⁴³

       This information is not intended to sweep any unnecessary killings under the rug or suggest that Jews are incapable of killing out of aggravation or anger. There is some testimony by soldiers who participated in the battle of Deir Yassin who claimed such a thing did happen, though there is no idea how many people may have been killed purely out of anger. In fact Hazem Nusseibeh cited above debunking the lie of rape in the village also said the Irgun lined up 14 villagers and shot them after the major fighting died down. Considering the ferocity of the fighting and a total dead of 110, to say these killings were very many would be a giant stab in the dark. More likely, the situation described by a LEHI fighter was closer to the truth as he admits, "It was impossible to attack the enemy without hurting their families, it was difficult. It was painful and I'm sorry we had to do it, but we had no choice."⁴⁴

       Another illustrative account describes how "the Iraqis had disguised themselves as women -- it is easy to hide weapons beneath the flowing robes of the burqa -- and had hidden themselves among women and children in the village. So, when the Irgun fighters entered, they encountered fire from 'women'! ... Then, while they were in a group, still dressed as women, having surrendered and agreed to be taken prisoner, some of the Iraqis opened fire again with weapons concealed beneath their women's clothing. Irgun fighters were caught off guard, more were killed, and others opened fire into the group. Iraqis who had indeed surrendered were killed along with those who had only pretended to surrender and had then opened fire."⁴⁹

       Women or children could have easily been killed considering the only way to stop the gunfire from many houses was to throw in grenades and blow off the doors with explosives. That there were dead women found at Deir Yassin could have been used as evidence of massacre had they not been lying on the ground with guns in their hands; clear evidence they were participating in the attack.⁴⁵

"A total of 170 English-language history books which refer to the battle of Deir Yassin were analyzed for this study. Only 8 of the 170 raised serious doubts as to whether or not there had been a massacre. Of the 162 books which stated definitively that a massacre had occurred, 94 of them --58%-- gave no source whatsoever for their accusation, and an additional 38 -- 23.4%-- cited only secondary sources for the massacre claim. In other words, a total of 81.4% of the authors claiming a massacre did so without undertaking any original research to substantiate their claim."⁴⁸

Footnotes:
¹  Background Notes on Current Themes - No.6: Dir Yassin (Jerusalem: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Information Division, 16 March 1969), pp. 2-3
²  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre
³  Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917-1929, Second Edition, 1991, pg. 69.
⁴  Ibid.
⁵  Ibid.
⁶  Yitshaq Ben-Ami, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory (New York: Shengold, 1983), p.439.
⁷  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm (Internet Archive confirms accuracy of quote as of April 24, 2006)
⁸  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p.257 (interview with Mordechai Gihon). Milstein found the report in the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 83/17, Reports of "Teneh," 9 April 1948.
⁹  Davar, Sunday 4 April 1948, Pg. 2
¹⁰  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948, 10:00 A.M.
¹¹  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Sa'ar," 4 April 1948, 10:00 A.M.
¹²  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Testimony of David Gottlieb, MZ; Milstein, pp.257-258, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 21/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948.
¹³  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p.258 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
¹⁴  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p.258, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 228/3, Operation Log, 9 April 1948, 2:40 a.m.
¹⁵  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein interview with Haganah agent Yona Ben-Sasson, 12 November 1980; also, Milstein, citing the Ben-Nur Report in the David Shaltiel Archives.
¹⁶  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Milstein, p. 258, citing "Operations Log - Arza," 4 April 1948, 17:00 hours, Broadcast #562, Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 88/17.
¹⁷  Arab League publication entitled "Israeli Aggression", page 10.
¹⁸  Quote from Abu Mahmoud, resident of Deir Yassin, 50 Years War, PBS Disc 1 of 2
¹⁹  Jewish Historical Revisionists by Middle East Analyst Emanuel A. Winston
²⁰  The Revolt, Begin, Menachem.
²¹  Jewish Historical Revisionists by Middle East Analyst Emanuel A. Winston
²²  Milstein, interview with Harif, p. 262
²³  Ibid, p. 263
²⁴  Quote from Raid Commander Ben Zion Cohen, 50 Years War, PBS, Disc 1 of 2
²⁵  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm citing Yachin's testimony is quoted at length in Lynne Reid Banks, A Torn Country: An Oral History of the Israeli War of Independence (New York: Franklin Watts, 1982), pp. 58-65.
²⁶  Testimony of Reuven Greenberg.
²⁷  http://www.answers.com/topic/deir-yassin-massacre which cites Out of Crisis Comes Decision, p.262-265, Milstein
²⁸  Testimony of Reuven Greenberg
²⁹  Lynne Reid Banks, A Torn Country and An Oral History of the Israeli War of Independence, New York: Franklin Watts, 1982, p. 62
³⁰  A Jewish Eyewitness: An Interview with Meir Pa'il, McGowan.
³¹  Milstein, interview with Harif, p. 262
³²  Milstein, p.264, (interview with Mordechai Gihon and "Report of Etzioni intelligence officer").
³³  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/deir_yassin.html (Internet Archive confirms citation as of May 18, 2007)
³⁴  50 Years War, PBS, Disc 1 of 2
³⁵  Deir Yassin a casualty of guns and propaganda, by Paul Holmes (Reuters)
³⁶  The Daily Telegraph, April 8, 1998
³⁷  The Revolt, Begin, Menachem.
³⁸  Al Urdun (Jordanian newspaper) April 9th, 1953
³⁹  50 Years War, PBS, Disc 1 of 2
⁴⁰  The Revolt, Begin, Menachem.
⁴¹  War Without End, by Anton La Guardia (Thomas Dunne Books, N.Y. 2000)
⁴²  Jerusalem Besieged, pg. 272
⁴³  The Rabin Memoirs, pg. 33.
⁴⁴  Quote from Ezra Yakhin, a LEHI fighter, 50 Years War, PBS, Disc 1 of 2
⁴⁵  Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchick, MZ.
⁴⁶  [Cites Lorch 1968, 123-24; Syrkin 1974, 63; Herzog 1984, 38-40; Gilbert 1996, 203-5; Wasserstein 2001, 144.] - “Jerusalem Besieged” by Eric H. Cline, pp 270-272.
⁴⁷  The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, pg. 79, cites Morris, p. 214, 205.
⁴⁸  http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm
⁴⁹  "Big Lies: Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel" by David Meir-Levi, Pp. 18-19
⁵⁰  "Big Lies: Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel" by David Meir-Levi, Pg. 19
⁵¹  "Big Lies: Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel" by David Meir-Levi, Pg. 20
⁵²  "Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars, 1947-1974" by Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, Pg. 35