International recognition of this atrocious war crime is long overdue. Let them learn the truth about what was done to these people. The link provided at the bottom will speak to these horrible truths. Not for the faint of heart.
On April 23 in London,
Deir Yassin Remembered and The General Union of Palestinian Students will be
commemorating Deir Yassin Day 2012.
Deir Yassin Day
commemorates the Deir Yassin massacre of April 9th 1948.
Not the only massacre at
that time and by no means the worst, Deir Yassin signaled and has come to symbolize, the dispossession of the Palestinian people and their continuing
exile.
April 23 is also the
birthday of Miguel Cervantes creator of Don Quixote and of Roy Orbison creator
of “Only the Lonely” ~ and a man who, just when you thought he could go no
higher ~ up an octave he’d go.
It’s also the birth- and death day of William
Shakespeare ~ highly appropriate for a man known for his immaculate dramatic
structure and pleasing endings.
But in England April 23rd
is above all, St. George’s Day. St George is the patron Saint of England and
strangely, St George was a Palestinian.
George hailed from the
Palestinian town of Lydda, turned into an airport in 1948 and named Lod, and
named again after the great ethnic-cleanser David Ben Gurion. Like Deir Yassin
itself, the story of Lydda could serve as a template for all the expulsions and
massacres of 1948.
At Deir Yassin the
perpetrators massacred over a hundred villagers and burned their bodies.
Others were loaded onto
trucks and paraded through the streets of Jewish Jerusalem, then taken to a
nearby quarry and shot. Orphaned children of Deir Yassin, dragged from under
the bodies of their dead and dying relatives were taken and dumped, dazed and
bleeding, in a Jerusalem alley.
At Lydda the Israelis
massacred 426 men, women, and children; 176 slaughtered in the town’s main
mosque and the remainder driven into exile. Forced to walk in the summer heat,
they left behind them a trail of bodies ~ men, women and children. It was the
Palestinians’ very own ‘Trail of Tears’.
And, just like at Deir
Yassin, the town of Lydda was repopulated with Jewish immigrants, the name
Hebraised to Lod and, like the name Deir Yassin, the name Lydda was wiped off
the map.
At our commemoration DYR
and GUPS will be joined by the Palestinian Delegation, the Palestinian
community of the U.K. and many British and other supporters. We will also be
joined by Abu Ashraf, now of Azaria but once of Deir Yassin ~ because in April
1948 Abu Ashraf lived in Deir Yassin and, on April 9th at the time of the
massacre, was a few days short of his eighth birthday.
So, it’s fitting that our
commemoration be held on April 23rd, St. George’s Day; in London, the capital
of England, and led by Abu Ashraf of Deir Yassin.
For more information on Deir Yassin, please go here:
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