Deir+Yassin

The attack on the Palestinian Arab village of Deir Yassin occured in April of 1948. The attack was brought on by provisions of Plan D, the defensive Haganah strategy to protect Jewish land from invading Arab powers. Haganah claimed that the village of Deir Yassin was hostile and participated in the obstruction of the supply route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Haganah and the Jewish Agency denied any part in the events at Deir Yassin.

The attack was not originally planned to be of the magnitude that it was. In planning the attack, the Irgun and Stern Gang agreed to avoid the killing of "women, children, and POW's" and "a proposal to kill all captured villagers or all captured males was rejected" (Morris). Allegedly, before the attack, a van announced to the inhabitants of the town to flee for their own safety. However, this van mysteriously tipped into a ditch.

What ensued was an attack on the civilians of the village, brought on by reported "strong fire from the village's stone houses" (Morris). Homes were subsequently fired on by machine guns and bombed using grenades. Many militiamen were captured and shot on the spot, execution style. Whole families, including women, children, and the elderly, were murdered. 100 civilians lost their lives in the fray (Karsh). Several Irgun participants were charged with the rape and murder of "a number of girls," something that instilled panic in the rest of the Arab population of Palestine when the news was broadcasted on national radio.

The media's depiction of the massacre sparked fear and further panic in other Palestine villages and towns. Innumerable Palestinian families fled the country in fear for thieir lives. The media's exaggerations fanned outrage and caused Arab governments to later invade Palestine within weeks. The Jewish handling of Deir Yassin helped spark the 1948 War.

Works Cited: Morris, Benny. __1948: A History of the First Arab-Isreali War__. New Haven: Yale, 2008. Karsh, Efraim. __The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948__. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002.

Dier Yassin is an example of Jewish attack on Palestinian-Arab land and homes. This attack was a terrorist tactic of the Jewish because they believed terrorism would give them more power, as it had given to the Arabs earlier. The village of Dier Yassin was captured, and although the people who lived there had been warned that the attack was coming, “as many as 254 men, women, and children were murdered.” The village had remained unaggressive and uninvolved in the fighting up until this point. The area was attacked, destroyed, and evacuated. This brutal attack was in cooperation between the Irgun, the Haganah, and the Palmach. The Zionists justify their actions primarily because of their warning to the Arabs. Also, the incident took place in the midst of great violence that was occurring on both the Arab and the Jewish sides. Now supposedly false reports of the rapes of pregnant women and the murders of children were issued by the Arabs when they wanted to make the event seem more extreme, though it was truly a exceptionally bloody occurrence. The Israelis believed that these tactics were the only way they were going to win the war, and that they were at a chance of losing had they not gone through. The Arabs soon retaliated.