WHEN CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST, ISRAEL SHIVERS

WAR CRIMINAL LEAK STRIKES 

AT THE HEART OF ISRAELI SOCIETY

  

 "Instead of asking why some groups or individuals in Israeli society are willing to take great risks to hold that society accountable for its actions, Israel prefers to blame the problem on treacherous, self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews, and to instill fear and hatred as the means for preventing Israelis from examining their consciences."

November 27, 2010

By Paul Larudee

Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz

When unknown elements in Israel leaked the name, rank, identification number and other information (and photographs!) about two hundred Israeli military personnel who reportedly participated in the 2008-09 invasion of Gaza, the effect was sudden and profound, according to sources in Israel.

Although the first site on which the leaked information appeared was taken down by the host, it has continued to circulate via email, and has appeared on a number of other sites. The Israeli military and other Israeli agencies are reportedly doing all they can to shut down every site on which it appears, and to prevent it from "going viral". At least one popular blog that links to the site has received a record number of death threats.

You can run, but you cannot hide from the truth for much longer, Israel. 

 

What is so special about the list? As several critics have pointed out, it doesn't even state the crimes that the listed individuals are alleged to have committed.

The root of the problem, according to the sources in Israel, is a poorly kept secret ~ namely, that it is hard to serve in the Israeli military without committing war crimes, because such crimes are a matter of policy. 

What Israeli soldier has not ordered a Palestinian civilian to open the door to a building that might house armed militants or be booby-trapped? Who has not denied access to ambulances or otherwise prevented a Palestinian from getting to medical care, education or employment?

Some, of course, have gone much farther, and deliberately targeted unarmed civilians (as in the "buffer zones" along the border of the Gaza Strip), tortured detainees, and have either ordered or participated in massive death, injury and destruction at one time or another. 

These acts have all been heavily documented by numerous credible agencies, such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the Goldstone Commission, Human Rights Watch, and B'tselem.

What has been missing in large measure is accountability. To be sure, isolated victories have been won, usually with great effort. Within Israel, token trials and punishment, such as the conviction of the shooter of British human rights volunteer Tom Hurndall, continue to provide a thin cloak of respectability to the Israeli justice system. 

Beyond Israel's control, however, senior Israeli officials have been forced to avoid travel to an increasing number of countries for fear of law-enforcement action. Nevertheless, ordinary Israelis had not yet been made to feel directly subject to such pressures.

Then it is time they learned and understood what the world, on the whole, thinks of the things they do, did, plan to do, to Palestine and Lebanon.  

 

The publication of the list of 200 changes everything. The list contains the names of a few high-ranking officers, but many of those named are in the lower ranks, all the way down to sergeant. The effect is to make ordinary Israelis concerned that they, too, may be subject to arrest abroad, and without the protection that well-connected higher officials might enjoy. 

They know what they have done, or been ordered to do, or have ordered others to do, and they suspect that they may be held accountable by foreign laws, over which their government has little control.

Many Israelis already fear that an anti-Semitic world is looking for an excuse to shut down the Zionist experiment. It is therefore not a great leap to believe that they could become pawns ~ or scapegoats ~ in the rising chorus of voices speaking out for Palestinian rights and against Israeli abuses.

Coupled with this is the Israeli addiction to vacationing abroad, which is a national obsession and almost a right, in the mind of many. The result is that suddenly, with the release of the list of 200, the prospect of being held accountable outside Israel is no longer an abstraction, to be dealt with at the level of diplomats, government policy and the news stories. It hits home.

So sad when a Palestinian is not allowed to leave their miserable prison for medical, educational, or any other reason. Stuck at home in Israel. If it is so beautiful, they should be thrilled to vacation in their own back yard. 

This has serious consequences for Israeli society. It potentially increases the number of youths who will try to avoid the military, the rates of emigration and immigration, and other patterns of commitment to Israel and its military. 

Wonderful news! No soldiers, no bombing, no more shooting goat boys for sport.

Most of all, according to the sources, it may cause soldiers to begin to question policy and orders far more than in the past, because of the way it may affect them personally. The debate is already taking place around the question, "Can I be held responsible?"

If old men who cooked in Nazi camps can be held responsible for millions of deaths, why not you?

The answer to that question could potentially determine whether it will be possible to mount a massive offensive against a population that has no effective military forces, as in Gaza, or where saturation bombing, cluster munitions and depleted uranium might be used, as in Lebanon. (and Gaza)

This is potentially a daunting prospect for Israeli military commanders, and some sources in Israel believe that the publication of the 200 has already had that effect.

More likely, however, it is premature to make such a call. It seems unlikely that Israel will succeed in putting the genie back in the bottle with regard to the list of 200. It is already leaping from one place to another in cyberspace, via website and email (although Israel seems to have been temporarily successful in banning it from Facebook).

However, will it generate further research and release of information on the potential offences committed by the named individuals, and will it lead to further publication of such lists?

Thank you from the heart of millions to the one who leaked this first lot. Unlike the faux Wikileaks, this stuff is real and of great import to humanity.

According to the sources in Israel, the military and perhaps other agencies have gone into high gear to track down the source of the leaks. This is a typical Israeli response to the problem. 

Instead of asking why some groups or individuals in Israeli society are willing to take great risks to hold that society accountable for its actions, Israel prefers to blame the problem on treacherous, self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews, and to instill fear and hatred as the means for preventing Israelis from examining their consciences.

* Paul Larudee is co-founder of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

TRISTAN ANDERSON~AN AMERICAN HERO, DAMAGED BUT NOT DOWN FOR THE COUNT

Tristan waving from his parents' home in September 2010

Sometimes I am way late on things, but eventually I find them and put them up. Often stories disappear and one never hears of the outcome, especially if the topic is controversial. When I cover something I try not to leave people hanging, not knowing how things eventually turned out. 

Last year I did several reports and posts on the shooting of Tristan Anderson as he stood to the side of the road after a Bil'in peace march turned bloody by the Israelis. Tristan had not been involved in much more than taking some photos and was  off to the side away from any action, busying himself with his camera, when an IDF soldier put him in his sights and shot a cannister at his head.

Tristan has been through hell since then and chances are that hell will be part of his life till the day he dies. 

The American government never even really acknowledged this incident. It was not in the news. His parents were unsupported. It is as if it never happened. America never likes to admit their own people are injured and/or shot with impunity by their Zionist buddies. Even the huge Mavri Marmara incident was more or less ignored. As for the USS Liberty, they still ignore questions, despite the fact most of the truth is now a matter of public record. So what chance would a lone activist have of being part of a ruckus in which America sought for justice for an American citizen? Nil.

Tristan lost the use of one eye and damage to the front of the brain is bound to have extremely serious repercussions. However, as of early September, he has been home with his family. So here is a little more about the man who has become a reluctant hero in the move to support Palestine.

AMERICA ~ CALLING ALL REBELS

US CITIZEN CRITICALLY HURT AT WEST BANK PROTEST

TRISTAN ANDERSON, PALESTINE ~ FOREVER INTERTWINED

Tristan is back home now. Here are a few updates from the SOLIDARITY WITH TRISTAN ANDERSON page,  When you are dead, you are dead, kaput, for this go round of life. Tristan is not dead, but he will never be as he was, meanwhile the soldier who purposeful shot him, got out of his guilt without consequences and told he was justified in  his actions.

Berkeley-After more than a year in a Tel Aviv hospital, Bay Area activist and photo-journalist Tristan Anderson has returned home to California. Tristan was critically injured when he was shot in the head at close range with a metal high-velocity tear gas canister at the Israeli Separation Wall on March 13, 2009, while taking photos following a demonstration against the apartheid wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. 

The shooting caused severe traumatic brain injury and blindness in his right eye. Tristan, 39 years old, has not yet regained the use of the left side of his body and faces a long period of cognitive and physical rehabilitation and remains in a wheelchair. 

However, in the last several months he has made significant strides forward, including regaining his ability to speak. He is currently staying at his family’s home in the Sierra foothills, and looking forward to reuniting with his extensive community in the Bay Area.

Tristan and Gabrielle in better days

Tristan’s partner Gabrielle Silverman said, “After a very long period of hospitalization, Tristan is ready to finally re-enter the world. His injury has profoundly affected our community and changed our lives. In the winter of 2009, Tristan and I traveled to the Occupied Territories because we had an understanding of the role the U.S. government plays in the Israel/Palestine conflict and power dynamics there. We both support a free Palestine and a just peace and stability in the Middle East and see it as a defining struggle of our generation.

Just prior to the one-year mark of the shooting, Israel released its official report of the incident, calling it “an act of war”, with no concomitant liability, bringing no charges, and then closed the case. An appeal to reopen the investigation has been filed, since the report was inconsistent with the injuries Tristan sustained and with eyewitness testimony. In addition, his parents have brought a civil case against the Israeli military, in part to deal with the lifetime of medical expenses, lost wages and continuing care that Tristan will need as a result of the military action.

Emily Henochowicz: artist turned pro-Palestinian activist. They took her sight but not her vision.

On May 31, 21-year-old New York art student Emily Henochowicz lost an eye in a similar act of aggression by Israeli military when she was shot in the face with a tear gas canister at a demonstration in the West Bank. She was protesting the Israeli commando raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla during which nine Flotilla human rights activists were killed.

Tristan Anderson has participated as a photo-journalist and as a dedicated activist in a variety of local and international campaigns over the years, including Latin American solidarity work, anti-war activism, involvement in forest campaigns including Headwaters Forest and the 2-year long Save the Oaks tree-sit campaign on UC Berkeley campus, as well as serving food to the homeless with Food Not Bombs for years, and riding with Critical Mass bicycle activists.

FAQ’s ABOUT TRISTAN

(as of May 1, 2010, written by Gabby, his partner)

1- Can he talk?

Yes, Tristan started talking in early December (shortly after he ripped out his tracheotomy tube).

2- What does he say? Does he know who he is?

Tristan knows who he is and he remembers his pre-injury life. He’s maintained a lot of specialized knowledge, he tells stories, he recognizes people in pictures, he sings his favorite songs, etc. His long term memory for life before the injury is generally excellent.

3- What does his voice sound like? Is there heavy slurring? Does he have trouble formulating language?

Tristan speaks clearly but softly. We have very good communication from him, but it can be difficult to hear what he’s saying if there’s competing noise. While other cognitive functions have been impacted, Tristan’s language abilities are more or less intact. He’s maintained adult grammar and vocabulary and has not needed therapy to re-learn language.

4- How did Tristan communicate during the months before he was talking?

Before he was talking, Tristan communicated primarily with gestures and pantomime, and also by writing and spelling words out on a communication board. (Although it’s very difficult to read his handwriting, and it used to be much worse.)

In earlier days (and for a long time) Tristan had very limited and sometimes inconsistent communication, primarily with yes/no hand signals.  Besides hand signals, communication was also achieved by presenting objects or writing choices on a board and asking Tristan to point to the correct or desired one. In the bad old days, Tristan could really only handle two options at a time.

5- I hear he was in a coma.

Tristan was never in a coma, but he lingered in a   “minimally responsive” state for his first six to seven months post-injury. During this time, life was almost completely dominated by medical complications and Tristan could only maintain wakefulness for a few minutes at a time. It was a horrible period with a lot of uncertainty about whether or not life would ever get better, but he pulled through it and it has.

6- What changed?

In August Tristan had two surgeries, a Cranioplasty (a reconstructive surgery on his skull) followed by a VP Shunt (to regulate the flow of Cerebrospinal Fluid in his body). Tristan started noticeably “waking up” more following the shunt surgery, then experienced a very serious infection and went septic. He was put on high doses of intravenous anti-biotics for an extremely long time. Weeks later he emerged from the fevers and started making the slow climb out of the abyss.

7- Has his personality changed? How has Tristan been most affected cognitively by the injury?

Tristan has maintained a lot of his values and knowledge base as an activist and as the person we knew, but he has been profoundly affected by the injury to his brain. Among other things, he suffers from difficulties with impulse control and short term memory retrieval that impacts everything he does all the time.

I’m afraid in answering this question that I’ll give an overly optimistic or an overly pessimistic view to the people who are reading it. At various times talking to friends, I feel that I have done both.  The fact is, it’s complicated.

Brain injury can make a person a bit of an enigma.

For instance, Tristan can legitimately play adult trivia games at a higher level than I can, but he can’t play Connect Four or other simple children’s board games because he gets too caught up in putting all the pieces in and he can’t wait his turn.

Tristan oscillates constantly between being knowledgeable and insightful to being unreasonable and child-like. There is never a time that I am unaware of his injury.

8-  What parts of his body and brain were injured on March 13, 2009?

Tristan was shot in the forehead above his right eye and was primarily injured in the right frontal lobe of his brain. He also suffered injury due to hemorrhaging and swelling during his first week in the ICU which very nearly took his life and did more damage. These secondary injuries caused significant harm to the right temporal lobe and to other areas of his brain.

Tristan was also blinded in the right eye and the orbit (the bone surrounding this eye) was smashed to pieces. He is classified as having had a “severe” traumatic brain injury.

9- How has he been affected physically?

Tristan is hemiplegic. He is not completely paralyzed but has almost no movement at all in his left arm and left leg. This is particularly difficult for him because he was left handed.

Tristan is also still recovering from the extensive damage done to his body by the months of being mostly bed-ridden and immobilized.

10- Will he walk again?

Tristan is in a wheelchair. Recently we’ve been seeing some movement come back in his left hip, and his physical therapist feels optimistic that given proper therapy, he will be able to regain some ability to walk. However, she has warned that this may take years of work.

11- What is daily life like for you guys at the Rehabilitation Center?

On a good busy day, the mornings are a flurry of activity as Tristan moves between physical, speech and occupational therapy appointments.  We squeeze in two meals and hopefully have time leftover for exercises and practice on a Standing Frame (a supported structure in the physical therapy room that lets Tristan’s body get used to standing again.)  Sometimes we also use a recumbent style stationary exercise bike that Tristan can peddle actively using his right leg and passively with his left.

In the early afternoon Tristan goes back to bed and rests for about two hours.  He typically gets up about 4:00 or 4:30 and goes on a long walk with his father, then comes back and eats dinner. He eats a lot of variations on rice and beans and vegetables and a lot of different kinds of soups.

After dinner we figure out what to do with the rest of the evening.  Sometimes Tristan works with a computer.  Other times we play card games, board games, stuff like that.  We try to get him used to operating his wheel chair for himself. Sometimes we work him pretty hard, other times we just hang out.  We read to each other a lot, including some of Tristan’s old writings.

We try to keep him company here and do something in between “work” and “play” in the free time we have. Mike, Nancy, and I have no lives at all. We’re here at the hospital pretty much all the time.

12- Does he ever get out of the hospital?

Not very often, but sometimes. We try to get out on the weekends.

13- How is he handling this emotionally?

For better or worse, Tristan has never heavily grieved over his injury. He is very aware of ways that the injury has affected him physically, but less aware or accepting of the cognitive repercussions.

In the last several months we’ve seen him slowly start to get more in touch with his feelings, and I believe this will continue to develop with time.

14- Are you still seeing improvement in his abilities?

Yes.

15- Is he still in critical condition?

No, at this point, Tristan is in the post-acute stage of his injury. He’s living in a hospital because he gets rehabilitation there.

16- Is he pretty much independent now or does he need a lot of help?

He needs a lot of help.

17- What’s happening with the court cases?

There are two court cases, a criminal case and a civil case.

As of now, the Israeli Police who investigated Tristan’s shooting have closed the case without bringing criminal charges against anyone involved. The investigation has been widely criticized as a sham, and we are appealing this decision.

(There was a misleading article published by Ha’aretz entitled “State to Re-investigate Wounding of U.S. Activist”, which was spread all over the internet and gave the false impression that the Israeli state was re-opening Tristan’s case. In fact all that happened is that our lawyers submitted an appeal and the other side is legally obliged to accept our paperwork, so they did. That’s it.)

Besides the criminal case, there is also a civil case which Tristan’s family is bringing against the Israeli military to help cover the lifetime of medical expenses, lost wages, and continuing care that Tristan will need. We have been warned that the civil case is likely to take years before coming to fruition. (Rachel Corries’ civil case, filed in 2005, first made it in to court here about a month and a half ago, which is appalling.)

18- What is the basis of your appeal to re-open the criminal case?

The investigation into Tristan’s shooting is a perfect illustration of why the police and the army can not be trusted to investigate themselves.

The investigators, for instance, never even bothered to go to the scene where the shooting took place. No physical evidence was ever collected.

Additionally, eye witnesses uniformly testified that the shots were fired from a nearby hill. Even though the military has confirmed that indeed there were Border Police armed with high velocity tear gas positioned on that hill, the entire investigation into Tristan’s shooting relates instead to the irrelevant conduct of an irrelevant squad of Border Police positioned on the other side of town.

To date, the Border Police on the hill where the shots were fired have never been questioned.

19- Is there anything we can do to help demand justice for Tristan?

We are demanding that the criminal case against the Border Police involved in Tristan’s shooting be re-opened immediately and a meaningful investigation begun.

Friends are urged to contact Barbara Lee, Tristan’s representative in Congress (202-225-2661) or to picket their local Israeli Consulate,

(http://www.israelemb.org/israeli-consulate-in-usa.htm) demanding that Israel take full responsibility for Tristan’s shooting.

We also recognize that during the time that we’ve been here in the hospital with Tristan, two other activists have died at demonstrations against the Wall. Their names were Basem Abu Rahme and Yousef ‘Akil’ Tsadik Srour. 


Basem was killed while calling to soldiers that this was a non-violent demonstration and telling them to stop shooting at an Israeli woman protester who’d been injured. Akil died coming to the aid of a sixteen year old boy who’d been shot in the spine.

To date, Israel has killed 23 people to build their Wall, and seriously wounded many more, including Ehab Fadel Barghouthi (age 14), shot in the head at a demonstration several weeks ago.

Putting finishing touches on this document, I learn that Ahmad Sliman Salem Dib, age 19, was shot to death just days ago on the 28th of April, at a demonstration against land seizure in Gaza.

Demanding Justice for Tristan is also demanding justice for them, and recognizing the role of the United States government in war and occupation around the world.

20- Will Tristan make a full recovery?  Do the doctors have any kind of long term projection?

There is no long term projection.  As long as he’s still doing better, no one can tell how far he’ll go.  But the fact is, you can’t just shoot somebody in the head and then take it back.  Dead brain tissue stays dead, but the human mind can learn to compensate.

The most common metaphor I’ve heard to describe brain injury rehabilitation is this: You’re traveling down the road and the highway is blocked.  The question is: can you find a way to get to where you’re going using the back roads?  People who are successful at brain injury rehabilitation form new pathways and find them.

21- When do you think he will be ready to come home?

This is also the question that Tristan asks all the time. We expect to fly back in to California some time in the summer of 2010.

Tristan will move in with his parents and live with them in their small rural town. He will continue his rehabilitation on an out-patient basis from there. We plan to also set up a satellite home for him in the Bay Area and move back and forth.

My hope is that friends and family will accept Tristan for his abilities and disabilities, and find ways to welcome him back home.

For anyone inspired, there will be a lot of work to do.

We are accepting monetary donations through this website. Also, we’re starting a Welcome Tristan listserve for logistical coordination of accessibility projects and bright ideas.  To subscribe send a blank email to

GAZA CHILDREN SHELLED BY IDF FLECHETTE BOMBS

“She came in through the front door and it wasn’t clear she was injured. Suddenly a lot of blood came from her nose and she vomited, all of the family saw this ~ her little brothers were very scared. She had just been playing in the front of the house.”

That is how Nihed al-Massry describes what happened to her daughter, nine-year-old Samah Eid al-Massry, after the Israeli army reportedly shelled and fired four bombs into and around a residential area in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, on 21 July.

Samah is now being hospitalized in serious condition, suffering from extensive blood loss and very low haemoglobin. She was hit by shrapnel and flechettes from a nail bomb that landed 100 meters away, causing internal bleeding to the chest and severe head trauma. Nails are now embedded throughout her body.

Shells containing flechettes are illegal under international law if fired into densely-populated civilian areas. Three other children were wounded in the attack.

Two young men were killed; Muhammad al-Kafarneh, 23, suffered severe shrapnel injuries to the back and chest and Kasim al-Shinbary, 19, was wounded by nails embedded in his skull and shrapnel his back. It was unclear earlier whether they were resistance fighters or if they were civilians.

Haitham Thaer Qasem, a four-year-old boy and an only child, was asleep on a hospital bed, occasionally gasping for breath through the apparatus around his nose. He had suffered deep nasal trauma, and flechette darts from the bomb were still embedded in his tiny body, through his back, right elbow and right leg. He was 200 meters from the impact of the bomb.

Haitham’s mother was standing off to the side, quietly crying while one of his aunts at his bedside explained what happened.

Samah Eid al-Massry, after the IDF's brave soldiers "reportedly" (!!!) shelled and fired four bombs wounding and killing four children and two young men.

“We had asked Haitham to get shopping for [his mother] from the market, then we heard the bombings and somebody came to our home and told our family that he was in the hospital and was injured in the bombing. We came quickly to the hospital.”

Meanwhile, Samah’s doctor explained that the girl’s blood loss was a major concern. Her injuries are exacerbated by the fact that she, like three of her brothers, already suffers from the blood condition thalassemia and the drug to treat the condition, Exjade, is scarce because of the Israeli blockade. She was clearly in pain and confused, trying to remove the nasal tubes. Her mother showed us the bandages on her chest.

Her doctor, Muhammad Abu Hassan, described her situation as “semi-critical.”

“She was in very bad condition when she arrived ~ it’s difficult for children and very traumatic to insert a chest tube for small children ~ very painful. Blood was mainly coming from the chest. We will have to perform surgery and we will further explore her abdominal pain,” he explained.

The al-Massry family has been affected by Israeli attacks before. Samah’s four-year-old brother Ryad was injured during Israel’s three weeks of attacks on the Gaza Strip during winter 2008-09 when more than 400 Palestinian children were killed.

Flechette bombs usually have more than a mere 5000 per bomb.

“Our house was hit during the war, a neighbor was killed inside and our son suffered severe head injuries. He wasn’t cared for and because of this his sight is now permanently damaged.”

As we left Samah, she had begun to cry, moaning in serious discomfort and confusion. There were two more injured children in the hospital from the attack, also from the al-Massry family in Beit Hanoun: Azzam Muhammad al-Massry, 11, who suffered a severely fractured left elbow and Ibrahim Wasseem al-Massry, 4, with light injuries to his abdomen.

The previous week in Gaza, Nema Abu Said, a 33-year-old mother of five, was killed by Israeli shelling as she went outside frantically looking for her youngest son after a previous round of shelling. Three more family members were injured by the flechette shells, many of the darts remaining permanently embedded in their bodies.

It is almost painful to watch this child even though she is all cleaned up now. May the devil's brew of international criminals suffer for the things they do to the innocent. What excuse can there be for taking such aim at small children?

Adie Mormech is a human rights advocate based in the Gaza Strip who was previously abducted by the Israeli navy from the eighth Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity. He volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement.

Just children of Gaza,
Palestinians.
Not much to look at here.
Move along.

As always, the international press ignores such attacks on these children.

She is not your daughter?

These are all our children and we should fight

for every child as he or she is truly "flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone".

DEIR YASSIN. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!

For Palestinians, the 1948 massacre by Irgun and allied Stern Gang soldiers of more than 200 residents of Deir Yassin, a tiny village near Jerusalem, resonates sharply as a focal point of history. The victims were almost all women, children and old men. This slaughter of the innocents became irrefutable evidence of the consequences for Palestinians of the creation of the new Jewish state.

The resulting forced exile of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Remembering Deir Yassin brings together Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians, Jewish theologians and Palestinian priests, to reflect on the fifty-year legacy of Deir Yassin.

Sixty years on, the true story of the slaughter of Palestinians at Deir Yassin may finally come out to the world if Ha'aretz is not shackled in some manner. Followed by this first piece you will find two eye-witness accounts of what happened upon that night so that the truth coming out is no more than a verification of what has been hidden.

May 10, 2010
The Independent

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem  

More than one unwitting visitor to Jerusalem has fallen prey to the bizarre delusion that they are the Messiah. Usually, they are whisked off to the serene surroundings of Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city, where they are gently nursed back to health. It is an interesting irony that the patients at Kfar Shaul recuperate from such variations on amnesia on the very spot that Israel has sought to erase from its collective memory.  

The place is Deir Yassin. An Arab village cleared out in 1948 by Jewish forces in a brutal battle just weeks before Israel was formed, Deir Yassin has come to symbolize perhaps more than anywhere else the Palestinian sense of dispossession. 

  Sixty-two years on, what really happened at Deir Yassin on 9 April remains obscured by lies, exaggerations and contradictions. Now Ha'aretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, is seeking to crack open the mystery by petitioning Israel's High Court of Justice to release written and photographic evidence buried deep in military archives.

Go! Go! GO! Ha'aretz! I must say, THIS really impresses the heck out of me.

Palestinian survivors of Deir Yassin, a village of around 400 inhabitants, claim the Jews committed a wholesale massacre there, spurring Palestinians to flee in the thousands, and undermining the long-held Israeli narrative that they left of their own accord. Israel's opposing version contends that Deir Yassin was the site of a pitched battle after Jewish forces faced unexpectedly strong resistance from the villagers. All of the casualties, it is argued, died in combat.

In 2006, an Israeli arts student, Neta Shoshani, applied for access to the Deir Yassin archives for a university project, believing a 50-year embargo on the secret documents had expired eight years previously. She was granted limited access to the material, but was informed that there was an extended ban on the more sensitive documents. When a lawyer demanded an explanation, it emerged that a ministerial committee only extended the ban more than a year after Ms Shoshani's first request, exposing the state to a legal challenge. The current embargo runs until 2012.

The events of Dier Yassin are so gruesome and the lies from the Israeli government and military appalling that, should the truth finally emerge, the country could be torn in half by the contents. Certainly Israel would lose even more credibility on the world stage. This was no battle, it was a simple slaughter of innocents.

Defending its right to keep the documents under wraps, the Israeli state has argued that their publication would tarnish the country's image abroad and inflame Arab-Israeli tensions. Ha'aretz and Ms Shoshani have countered that the public have a right to know and confront their past. Judges, who have viewed all the archived evidence held by the Israeli state on Deir Yassin, have yet to make a decision on what, if anything, to release.

Among the documents believed to be in the state's possession is a damning report written by Meir Pa'il, a Jewish officer who condemned his compatriots for bloodthirsty and shameful conduct on that day. Equally incriminating are the many photographs that survive.

"The photos clearly show there was a massacre," says Daniel McGowan, a US retired professor who works with Deir Yassin Remembered. "Those photos show [villagers] lined up against a quarry wall and shot."

In 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition plan that would divide Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, with Jerusalem an international city. The Arabs fiercely opposed the plan and clashes broke out as both sides scrambled for territory before the British mandate expired. In April 1948, the Hagana, the predecessor of the Israeli army, launched a military operation to secure safe passage between Jewish areas by taking Arab villages on high ground above the road to Jerusalem.

Irgun and the Stern Gang, breakaway paramilitary groups, drew up separate plans to take the strategic Deir Yassin in a pre-dawn raid on 9 April 1948, even though the villagers had signed a non-aggression pact with the Jews and had stuck to it. What happened next is still under debate.

In his book The Revolt, Menachim Begin, (featured in the above Wanted poster) a future Israeli prime minister, recounts how the Jewish forces used a loudspeaker to warn all the villagers to leave the village. Those that remained fought.

This fabricating creature Begin would not know the truth from the air he breathed. He was a rabid zionist motivated by hatred and an all-consuming sense of racial superiority and Jewish entitlement. The value of the Nobel Peace Award was thrown into the gutter when he was so honoured.

"Our men were compelled to fight for every house; to overcome the enemy they used large numbers of hand grenades," wrote Mr Begin, who was not present at the battle. "And the civilians who had disregarded our warnings suffered inevitable casualties. I am convinced that our officers and men wished to avoid a single unnecessary casualty."

Mr Begin's account, however, is challenged by the recollections of survivors and eyewitnesses. Abdul-Kader Zidain was 22 years old in 1948, and immediately joined a band of 30 fighters from the village to fend off the surprise Jewish offensive, even though they were clearly outnumbered.

"They went into the houses and they shot the people inside. They killed everybody they saw, women and children," said Mr Zidain, who lost four of his immediate family, including his father and two brothers, in the attack. 

Now a frail 84-year-old living in a West Bank village, he says he remembers everything as if it were yesterday. Survivor testimonies are supported by Mr Pa'il, whose detailed eyewitness account was published in 1998. Awaiting reassignment, he went to observe the attack as part of his remit to keep the Irgun and the Stern Gang in check.  

After the fighting had wound down, Mr Pa'il described how he heard sporadic firing from the houses, and went to investigate. There he saw that the soldiers had stood the villagers in the corners of their homes and shot them dead. A short while later, he saw a group of around 25 prisoners being led to a quarry between Deir Yassin and neighbouring Givat Shaul. From a higher vantage point, he and a companion were able to see everything and take photographs.

"There was a natural wall there, formed by digging. They stood the prisoners against that wall and shot the lot of them," he said. Mr Pa'il described how Jews from neighbouring Givat Shaul finally stepped in to stop the slaughter. In the ensuing confusion and anger over the killings in Deir Yassin, both sides released an inflated Palestinian death toll for very different reasons:

the Palestinians wanted to bolster resistance and attract the attention of the Arab nations they hoped would help them; the Jews wanted to scare the Palestinians into flight.

After the dust had settled, Mr Zidain and the other survivors counted the missing among them, and concluded that 105 Palestinians had died in Deir Yassin, not the 250 often reported. Four Jews were killed.

A total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed including 288 children and 121 women. 239 police officers were also killed. 5,303 were injured in the assault, including 1,606 children and 828 women. Compare this to 17 Israelis, four of whom were killed in "friendly fire" by their mates.

But the damage was already done. The reports from Deir Yassin led to a total collapse of morale, and many historians regard the incident as the single biggest catalyst for the Palestinians' flight. By UN estimates, 750,000 Palestinians had fled their homes by the end of the 1948 War of Independence, roughly 60 per cent of Palestine's pre-war Arab population.

Mention Deir Yassin these days to most young Israelis and it will fail to register.

Not far from the Kfar Shaul hospital, two teenage boys shake their heads at a question on Deir Yassin. Never heard of it, they say.

"Most Israelis treat the subject with total silence," says Professor McGowan. "They no longer deny it, they just don't talk about it."

Which makes one ask, if an Israeli ignores it, did it ever really happen?

The decision on whether that silence will now be broken remains in the hands of Israel's courts.

"This was a big and important event in our history here. It was the first village we took and has a lot of meaning in the war that came after," says Ms Shoshani. "We have to deal with our past for our own sake."

RED CROSS EYE-WITNESS REPORT ON THE DEIR YASSIN MASSACRE

On the night of April 9, 1948, the Irgun Zvei Leumi surrounded the village of Deir Yassin, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem. After giving the sleeping residents a 15 minute warning to evacuated, Menachem Begin's terrorists attacked the village of 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children and wounding 300 others. Begin's terrorists tossed many of the bodies in the village well, and paraded 150 captured women and children through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.

I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian woman is but a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.” ~ Ariel Sharon, 1956, interview with General Ouze Herham. Whatever happened to these women? Were they freed or enslaved?

The Haganah and the Jewish Agency, which publicly denounced the atrocity after the details had become public several days later, did all they could to prevent the Red Cross from investigating the attack. It wasn't until three days after the attack that the Zionist armies permitted Jacques de Reynier, chief representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, to visit the village by the surrounding Zionist armies.

Ironically, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.

Deir Yassin is described as one of Menachim Begin's finest moments. 

Following is the translation from French of the report de Reynier filed with his office (Published in de Reynier's book "Jerusalem Un Drapeau Flottait Sur La Ligne de Feu", 1950, Geneva). Immediately after de Reynier's account are two public statements made by an Haganah witness to the devastation, Col. Meir Pa'el (retired) and by Zvi Ankori, the Haganah commander who occupied Deir Yassin after the Irgun's evacuation.

De Reynier's statement:

"On Saturday, April 10, in the afternoon, I received a telephone call from the Arabs begging me to go at once to Deir Yassin where the civilian population of the whole village has just been massacred.

"I learned that the Irgun extremists hold this sector, situated near Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah's General Headquarters say that they know nothing about this matter and furthermore it is impossible for anyone to penetrate an Irgun area.

"They advise me that I not become involved in this matter as my mission will run the risk of being permanently cut short if I go there. Not only can they not help me but they also refuse all responsibility for what will certainly happen to me. I answer that I intend to go there at once, that the notorious Jewish Agency exercises its authority over the territory in Jewish hands and that the agency is responsible for my freedom of action within the bounds of my mission.

"In fact, I do not know at all how to do it. Without Jewish support it is impossible to reach that village. After thinking I suddenly remember that a Jewish nurse from a hospital here had made me take her telephone number, saying with a strange look that if I ever were in a difficult situation I could call her. On a chance I call her late in the evening and tell her the situation. She tells me to be in a predetermined location the following day at 7 o'clock and to take in my car the person who will be there.

"The next day on the hour and in the location upon which we agreed, an individual in civilian clothes, but with pistols stuffed in his pockets, jumps into my car and tells me to drive without stopping. At my request, he agrees to show me the road to Deir Yassin, but he admits not being able to do to much more for me. We drive out of Jerusalem, leave the main road and the last regular army post and we turn in on a cross road. Very soon two soldiers stop us. They look alarming with machine guns in full view and larger cutlasses at the belt.

"I recognize the uniform of those I am looking for. I must leave the car and lend myself to bodily search. Then I understand that I am a prisoner. All seems lost when a very big fellow ... jostles his friends, takes my hand ...

He understands neither English nor French, but in German we arrive at a perfect understanding. He tells me his joy at seeing an ICRC delegate, for having been a prisoner in a camp for Jews in Germany he owes his life to nothing else but our intervention and three reprieves. He says that I am more than a brother for him and that he will do anything I ask. ... We go to Deir Yassin.

"Having reached a ridge 500 meters from the village which we see below, we must wait a long time for permission to go ahead. The shooting from the Arab side starts every time somebody tries to cross the road and the Commander of the Irgun detachment does not seem willing to relieve me. Finally he arrives, young, distinguished, perfectly correct, but his eyes have a strange, cruel, cold look. I explain my mission to him which has nothing in common with that of a judge or arbiter. I want to help the wounded and bring back the dead.

"Moreover, the Jews have signed a pledge to respect the Geneva Convention and my mission is therefore an official one. This last statement provokes the anger of this officer who asks me to consider once and for all that here it is the Irgun who are in command and nobody else, not even the Jewish Agency with which they have nothing in common.

"My (guide) hearing the raised voices intervenes ... Suddenly the officer tells me I can act as I see fit but on my own responsibility. He tells me the story of this village populated by about 400 Arabs, disarmed since always and living on good terms with the Jews who encircled them.

According to him, the Irgun arrived 24 hours previously and ordered by loudspeaker the whole population to evacuate all the buildings and surrender. There is a 15 minute delay in the execution of the command. Some of the unhappy people came forward and would have been taken prisoners and then turned loose shortly afterwards toward the Arab lines.

The rest did not obey the order and suffered the fate they deserved. But one must not exaggerate for there are only a few dead who would be buried as soon as the `clean up' of the village is over. If I find a bodies, I can take them with me, but there are certainly no wounded.

"This tale gives me cold chills. "I return to Jerusalem to find an ambulance and a truck that I had alerted through the Red Shield ... I arrive with my convoy in the village and the Arab fire ceases. The (Jewish) troops are in campaign uniforms with helmets

All the young people and even the adolescents, men and women, are armed to their teeth: pistols, machine guns, grenades, and also big cutlasses, most of them still bloody, that they hold in their hands. A young girl with the eyes of a criminal, shows me hers still dripping. She carries it around like a trophy. This is the `clean up' team which certainly has accomplished its job very conscientiously.

"I try to enter a building. About 10 soldiers surround me with machine guns aimed at me. An officer forbids me to move from the spot. They are going to bring the dead that are there, he says. I then get as furious as never before in my life and tell these criminals what I think about the way they act, menacing them with the thunder I can muster, then I roughly push aside those who surround me and enter the building.

"The first room is dark, completely in disorder, and empty. In the second, I find among smashed furniture covers and all sorts of debris, some cold bodies. There they have been cleaned up by machine guns then by grenades. They have been finished by knives.

"It is the same thing in the next room, but just as I am leaving, I hear something like a sigh. I search everywhere, move some bodies and finally find a small foot which is still warm. It is a little 10 year old girl, very injured by grenade, but still alive. I want to take her with me but the officer forbids it and blocks the door. I push him aside and leave with my precious cargo protected by the brave (guide).

"The loaded ambulances leaves with orders to return as soon as possible. And because these troops have not dared to attack me directly, it is possible to continue.

"I give orders to load the bodies from this house on the truck. Then I go on to the neighboring house and go on. Everywhere I encounter the same terrible sight. I only find two persons still alive, two women, one of whom is an old grandmother, hidden behind the firewood where she kept immobile for at least 24 hours.

"There were 400 persons in the village. About 50 had fled, three are still alive, but the rest have been massacred on orders, for as I have noticed, this troop is admirably disciplined and acts only on command.

...[De Reynier continues that he returns to Jerusalem where he confronts the Jewish Agency and scolds them for not exercising control over the 150 armed men and women responsible for the massacre.]...

"I then go to see the Arabs. I say nothing about what I have seen, but only that after a first quick visit to the spot there seems to be several dead and I ask what I shall do or where to bring them ... they ask me to see that a suitable burial be given them in a place which will be recognizable later on. I pledge to do so and on my return to Deir Yassin, I find the Irgun people in a very bad mood.

They try to stop me from approaching the village and I understand when I see the number and above all the state of the bodies which have been lined up on the main street. I demand firmly that they proceed with the burial and insist on helping them. After some discussion, they begin actually to scoop out a big grave in a small garden. It is impossible to verify the identity of the dead, for they have no papers, but I wrote accurately their descriptions with approximate ages.

"Two days later, the Irgun had disappeared from the spot and the Haganah had taken possession. We have discovered different places where the bodies have been piled up without either decency or respect in the open air.

"Back in my office I received two gentleman in civilian clothes, very well dressed who had waited for more than one hour. It is the commander of the Irgun detachment and his aide. They have prepared a text they ask me to sign. It is a statement according to which I have been received courteously by them, that I have obtained all the help needed to accomplish my mission and I thank them for the aide they gave me.

"As I hesitate, I begin to discuss the statement, and they tell me that if I care for my life I should sign immediately."

Calling the statement contrary to fact, de Reynier refuses to sign. Several days later in Tel Aviv, de Reynier says he approached by the same two men who ask the ICRC to assist some of their Irgun soldiers.]...

Former Haganah officer, Col. Meir Pa'el, upon his retirement from the Israeli army in 1972, made the following public statement about Deir Yassin that was published by the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot, April 4, 1972:

"In the exchange that followed four [Irgun] men were killed and a dozen were wounded ... by noon time the battle was over and the shooting had ceased. Although there was calm, the village had not yet surrendered.

The Irgun and LEHI men came out of hiding and began to `clean' the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre .... I pleaded with the commander to order his men to cease fire, but to no avail.

In the meantime, 25 Arabs had been loaded on a truck and driven through Mahne Yehuda and Zichron Yousef (like prisoners in a Roman `March of Triumph'). At the end of the drive, they were taken to the quarry between Deir Yassin and Giv'at Shaul, and murdered in cold blood ...

The commanders also declined when asked to take their men and bury the 254 Arab bodies. This unpleasant task was performed by two Gadna units brought to the village from Jerusalem."

Zvi Ankori, who commanded the Haganah unit that occupied Deir Yassin after the massacre, gave this statement in 1982 about the massacre, published by the Israeli paper Davar on April 9, 1982:

"I went into 6 to 7 houses. I saw cut off genitalia and women's crushed stomachs. According to the shooting signs on the bodies, it was direct murder."

TARGETING PALESTINIAN MOTHERS

SIXTY YEARS AFTER DEIR YASSIN

By Ronnie Kasrils

The Electronic Intifada,

8 April 2008 

As a 10-year-old growing up in Johannesburg, I celebrated Israel's birth, 60 years ago. I unquestionably accepted the dramatic accounts of so-called self-defensive actions against Arab violence, to secure the Jewish state. 

The type of indoctrination South African cartoonist Zapiro so bitingly exposes in his work, raising the hackles of scribes such as David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. When I became involved in our liberation struggle, I became aware of the similarities with the Palestinian cause in the dispossession of land and birthright by expansionist settler occupation. 

I came to see that the racial and colonial character of the two conflicts provided greater comparisons than with any other struggle. When Nelson Mandela stated that we know as South Africans "that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians," [1] he was not simply talking to our Muslim community, who can be expected to directly empathize, but to all South Africans precisely because of our experience of racial and colonial subjugation, and because we well understand the value of international solidarity. 

When I came to learn of the fate that befell the Palestinians, I was shaken to the core and most particularly when I read eye-witness accounts of a massacre of Palestinian villagers that occurred a month before Israel's unilateral declaration of independence. 

This was at Deir Yassin, a quiet village just outside Jerusalem, which had the misfortune to lie by the road from Tel Aviv. On 9 April 1948, 254 men, women and children were butchered there by Zionist forces to secure the road. Because this was one of the few such episodes that received media attention in the West, the Zionist leadership did not deny it, but sought to label it an aberration by extremists. 

In fact, however, the atrocity was part of a broader plan designed by the Zionist High Command, led by Ben Gurion himself, which was aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the British mandate territory and the seizure of as much land as possible for the intended Jewish state. 

There are many accounts that corroborate the orgy of death at Deir Yassin, which went far beyond the Sharpville massacre of 1960 that motivated me to join the African National Congress. [2] My reaction was: if Sharpville had appalled me, could I be indifferent to the suffering at Deir Yassin?

Fahimi Zidan, a Palestinian child who survived by hiding under his parents' bodies, recalled: 

"The Jews ordered [us] ... to line up against the wall ... started shooting ... all ... were killed: my father ... mother ... grandfather and grandmother ... uncles and aunts and some of their children ... Halim Eid saw a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister ... who was ... pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher's knife ... In another house, Naaneh Khalil ... saw a man take a ... sword and slash my neighbor ..." [3]

One of the attacking force, a shocked Jewish soldier named Meir Pa'el, reported to the head of his Haganah command:

"It was noon when the battle ended...Things had become quiet, but the village had not surrendered. The Etzel [Irgun] and Lehi [Stern] irregulars ... started ... cleaning up operations ...

They fired with all the arms they had, and threw explosives into the houses. They also shot everyone they saw ... the commanders made no attempt to check the ... slaughter.

I ... and a number of inhabitants begged the commanders to give orders ... to stop shooting, but our efforts were unsuccessful ... some 25 men had been brought out of the houses: they were loaded into a ... truck and led in a 'victory parade' ... through ... Jerusalem [then] ... taken to a ... quarry ... and shot ... The fighters ... put the women and children who were still alive on a truck and took them to the Mandelbaum Gate." [4]

A British officer, Richard Catling, reported:

"There is ... no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young school girls were raped and later slaughtered ... Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman ... who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts ..." [5]

Jacques de Reynier of the International Committee of the Red Cross met the "cleaning up" team on his arrival at the village:

"The gang ... were young ... men and women, armed to the teeth ... and [had] also cutlasses in their hands, most of them still blood-stained. A beautiful young girl, with criminal eyes, showed me hers still dripping with blood; she displayed it like a trophy. This was the 'cleaning up' team, that was obviously performing its task very conscientiously."

He described the scene he encountered on entering the homes:

"... amid disemboweled furniture ... I found some bodies ... the 'cleaning up' had been done with machine-guns ... hand grenades ... finished off with knives ... I ... turned over ... the bodies, and ... found ... a little girl ... mutilated by a hand grenade ... everywhere it was the same horrible sight ... this gang was admirably disciplined and only acted under orders." [6]

The atrocity at Deir Yassin is reflective of what happened elsewhere. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has meticulously recorded 31 massacres, from December 1947 to January 1949. They attest to a systematic reign of terror, conducted to induce the flight of Palestinians from the land of their birth. As a result, nearly all Palestinian towns were rapidly depopulated and 418 villages were systematically destroyed.

As Israel's first minister of agriculture, Aharon Cizling, stated in a 17 November 1948 Cabinet meeting: 

"I often disagree when the term Nazi was applied to the British ... even though the British committed Nazi crimes. But now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being is shaken." [7] 

Despite these sentiments, Cizling agreed that the crimes should be hidden, creating a lasting precedent. That such barbarism was conducted by Jewish people a mere three years after the Holocaust must have been too ghastly to contemplate, as it would constitute a major embarrassment for the state of Israel, held-up as a "light unto nations;" hence the attempts to bury the truth behind a veil of secrecy and disinformation. What better way to silence enquiry than the all-encompassing alibi of Israel's right of self-defense, condoning the use of disproportionate force and collective punishment against any act of resistance. 

Precisely because Israel was allowed to get away with such crimes, it continued on its bloody path. According to Ilan Pappe, 

"Fifteen minutes by car from Tel-Aviv University lies the village of Kfar Qassim where, on 29 October 1956, Israeli troops massacred 49 villagers returning from their fields. Then there was Qibya in the 1950s, Samoa in the 1960s, the villages of the Galilee in 1976, Sabra and Shatila in 1982, Kfar Qana in 1999, Wadi Ara in 2000 and the Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002. And in addition there are the numerous killings B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, keeps track of. There has never been an end of Israel's killings of Palestinians." [8]  

The slaughter of 1,500 Lebanese civilians in Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of that country in 2006; the daily deaths in the Palestinian territories, the 120 in Gaza in a week ~ including 63 on a single day ~ in March 2008, one third of whom were children, form part of the same bloody thread that links Israel's shameful past with that of today.

Israel will soon mark the 60th anniversary of its establishment. In so doing, Israelis and the Zionist supporters would do well to acknowledge the reasons why, for Palestinians and freedom-loving people throughout the world, there will be no cause to celebrate. Indeed, it will be a period of mourning and protest action; a time to recall the countless victims that lie in Israel's wake, as epitomized by the suffering inflicted on the inhabitants of Deir Yassin, the original site of which is ironically located just a stone's throw away from where the present day Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, was built.

Unless Israel confronts the past, as so many have attempted to do in South Africa, it will continue to be viewed with revulsion and suspicion. Israelis will continue to regard Arab life as worthless and will continue to live by the sword and deceit, feigning surprise when Palestinians violently respond. Without dealing with the agony it has caused there can be no healing and no solution. 

To do so is to create the basis for all life to be cherished and for Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace, with justice. By being aware of the roots of the conflict, and pledging our solidarity, we South Africans can do our bit to help bring about a just solution and the freedom that Nelson Mandela referred to. I believe that South Africans like Zapiro are doing just that.

Ronnie Kasrils is South African Minister of Intelligence.

Endnotes

[1] Nelson Mandela, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Pretoria, 4 December 1997.

[2] See Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel, Pantheon, 1988); David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber and Faber, 2003; Benny Morris, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004); Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006.

[3] David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber and Farber, 2003, p. 249-50.

[4] Yediot Aharonot, April 1972. This letter only came to light with Pa'el's consent in 1972. David Hirst ibid p. 251.

[5] David Hirst, ibid and Report of the Criminal Investigation Division, Palestine Government, No. 179/110/17/GS, 13, 15, 16 April 1948. Cited in David Hirst, p. 250.

[6] David Hirst ibid and Jacques de Reynier, A Jèrusalem un Drapeau flottait sur la Ligne de Feu, Editions de la Baconnière, Neuchâtel, 150, p. 71-6 and Hirst ibid p. 252.

[7] Tom Segev, The First Israelis, Owl Books, 1998, p. 26.

[8] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006, p. 258.