Remembering Deir Yasin

9.4.08

April 9 marks 60 years since Israeli forces entered the Arab village known as Deir Yassin and brutally massacred between 107 and 120 villagers in 1948. Those killed were mostly unarmed women, children, and old people.


It mattered little to the Israeli forces that Deir Yasin had declared itselt neutral in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. What mattered was the genocidal intent to eradicate Deir Yasin which was located five and a half miles west of Jerusalem.

Commandos of the Irgun, under the command of Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang carried out the massacre.

Though Deir Yassin was not ceded to the Israeli state by the United Nations, a year later the Jewish settlement of Givat Shaul Beth was erected in its place.

By 1980 the state of Israel destroyed most of the remaining buildings of Deir Yasin to make way for another Jewish settlement. Even the village cemetery was flattened to make way for an Israeli-only highway.

Today, what is left of the Deir Yasin buildings is used as part of an Israeli psychiatric hospital known as Kfar Shaul.

To add insult to this cruel and inhumane eradication of Deir Yasin, Israel has named streets in the Jewish settlements that are taken from the commando units that carried out massacre.

Deir Yasin is a significant struggle marker in the racist resettlement of Palestinian territory by Israel because it marked the beginning of a systematic program to forcefully resettle Jews onto Palestinean land.

Settlements continue even as I write here. See Al Nakba or "the catastrophe" for more discussion.

As the madness of deciding between which American candidate will be most supportive of Israel and its policies not a word is spared for the intense suffering of Palestineans.

Nontheless, as an anti-racist revolutionary, among many others, I cannot forget Deir Yasin and the ongoing struggle to liberate Palestine.

Deir Yasin Remembered, and the Israeli organization known as Zochrot, will read the names of those massacred in what is now Givat Shaul. The reading will take place on Thursday, April 10th, from 4:00pm until 6:00pm.

Ridwan Laher