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From: bdm@cs.rit.edu (Brendan D McKay)
Subject: Re: Dir Yassin
Message-ID: <1993Apr26.225704.28805@cs.rit.edu>
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Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
References: <1r94f9$ge3@morrow.stanford.edu> <martinb.735590895@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> <HM.93Apr24130647@angell.cs.brown.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 22:57:04 GMT
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In article <HM.93Apr24130647@angell.cs.brown.edu> hm@cs.brown.edu (Harry Mamaysky) writes:

>From _Myths and Facts_, by Leonard J. Davis, Near East Research Inc.,
>1989:

>[pp. 108-109]
>
>    "Unlike the PLO's almost exclusive focus on civilian targets, the
>100 troups from the Irgun and Stern group that struck at Deir Yassin
>on April 10, 1948, targeted the village for its military importance.
>Deir Yassin was on the road to Jerusalem, which the Arabs had

Since Facts and Myths doesn't even know where Deir Yassin was,
why should we pay any attention to the rest of what it says?

>blockaded, and it housed Iraqi troups and Palestinian irregulars.
>Snipers based in Deir Yassin were a constant threat to Jewish citizens
>in Jerusalem.
>
>    "Arab civilians were killed at Deir Yassin, but that attack does
>not conform to the propaganda picture that the Arabs have tried to
>paint. The number of Arabs killed was generally reported to be about
>250. In 1983, however, Eric Silver of _The Guardian_ (Britain)
>interviewed a survivor, Mophammed Sammour, who testified that 116 out
>of a population of 800-1000 were killed. 'About three days after the
>massacre,' Sammour explained, 'representatives of each of the five
>clans in Deir Yassin met at the Moslem offices in Jerusalem and made a
>list of the people who had not been found (alive). We went through the
>names.  Nothing has happend since 1948 to make me think this figure
>was wrong.'

This account from Eric Silver is the only valid point that M&F makes.
You can find it together with other evidence and analysis in 
Silver's biography of Begin.  Also in Silver's book you will find
documentary evidence that nearly everything else in M&F's account
is pure bullshit.

>    "Unlike the PLO's deliberate attacks on civilians, the killing of
>civilians at Deir Yassin was not premeditated. The attackers left open
>an escape corridor from the village and more than 200 residents left
>unharmed. After the remaining Arabs feigned surrender and then fired
>on the Jewish troops, some of the attackers killed Arab soldiers and
>civilians indiscriminately. Independent observers told _The Guardian_
>that among the bodies they found Arab men disguised as women."

This is pretty disgusting.  The Guardian was told of one or two
feeble old men who dressed in women's clothing in a pathetic 
attempt to escape death.  See Silver's book.

Brendan.
