Here is what I don't understand Shusha - it seems, when I read your replies, you call it a "complicated nuanced conflict" when it comes to the actions of the Israeli's - but that seems to disappear when it comes to the actions of the Palestinians.
I agree, it is often complicated and nuanced - but not every individual situation is.
But you are the one reducing this particular combat down to "terrorists went house to house killing old men, women and children" and removing all of the nuances and complications. That is a false narrative -- a narrative leaving out important facets of the engagement as though they did not exist or are not relevant.
Once it came down to making the decision to go house to house and shoot the inhabitants, including children - then the context changes. It changes from being a battle to being a slaughter of non-combatants. A massacre. That is not a false narrative. The false narrative I'm seeing is the one denying this took place.
On the other hand, slitting the throats of the Fogel family has no context of battle. Its pure and simple murder.
Agree - that is not a good comparison. Maybe a better comparison would be in the Serbian-Bosnian conflict and the attack on Srebrenica and subsequent massacres.
When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, set's off a bomb in a civilian market place....what is it?
Terrorism. Pure and simple. A crime to be condemned by anyone with any sense or morality. I condemn it loudly and clearly, no matter who commits it.
When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, goes house to house killing inhabitants, including children...what is it?
A false narrative. Let's reframe it accurately. When a para-military group, known for its extremism, joins the regular forces in a military operation,
with permission and instruction, to attack a
valid military objective, gives up the element of surprise by
warning the villagers to flee and instructing them as to where to flee to and which road is open and safe, leaves a corridor open to allow that escape, encounters
fierce resistance from well-armed and prepared fighters, evacuates civilians from the center of the action hours after the fighting has begun and leads them to safety, then clears the houses of remaining resistance, including women and children who did not flee, then encounters armed fighters dressed as women who attack while being evacuated to safety ...
what is it?
A false narrative.
Permission and instruction? Permission was eventually given, with reluctance.
The commanders of the underground groups came to Shaltiel and asked his approval for the operation. Shaltiel was surprised at their choice and asked, “Why go to Deir Yassin? It is a quiet village. There is a non-aggression pact between Givat Shaul and the Mukhtar of Deir Yassin. The village is not a security problem in any way. Our problem is in the battle for the Qastel. I suggest you participate in the operations in that area. I will give you a base in Bayit Vagan, and from there you will take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel.” The commanders of the underground groups rejected this suggestion as too complicated. Shaltiel said, “I will give you an easier mission. Take Motza as a base and attack Qolonia, where the gangs attacking Motza have their base. You can do whatever you please there.” 34
Eliahu Arbel (‘Nimrod’), who was for a time one of the liaisons between the Haganah and the dissidents, said that he had met with dissident officers and worked out a plan to attack Malchah with Haganah support. The plan fell through because the dissidents insisted that the Haganah give them a machine gun and crew to be placed wherever the Irgun wanted and under their command. Arbel also noted that they asked him what he thought about Deir Yassin, and he replied that it was a quiet village, though not from love of the Jews, but rather because of its poor topographic position, and that attacking it was a waste of resources. 35
The author concludes:
Clearly, Deir Yassin was to be taken and held, according to the Hagannah in the same way as the friendly village of Abu Ghosh was made part of Israel, without expelling anyone and without hurting civilians. In the light of the above warning against demolishing the village with explosives, it is also difficult to understand how Irgun apologists can contend at one and the same time that the action was part of the Haganah plan and sanctioned by Shaltiel, and also that the numerous dead were due to demolition of houses, which was forbidden by Shaltiel.
Were they warned?
The truck never reached the village. Even if it had reached the village at it's designated time of 5am - the battle
had already started.
And does it matter?
The whole question is beside the point. It was either a humanitarian gesture that failed, or a device to scare the defenders into leaving. But if the village was peaceful, and had a pact like Abu Ghosh, it could have been taken peacefully like Abu Ghosh, as the Haganah apparently planned. The importance of the truck is that Menachem Begin said, in a radio broadcast soon after the event, that the truck was a great humanitarian gesture, and he repeated that that villagers had been warned by the truck in his book “In the Underground,” 53 though by that time he certainly knew it was not true.
Your narrative leaves out important facts - that village could have been taken peacefully, per Haganah, that they represented no thread at the time, that they had signed and not violated a peace pact, and that non-resisting civilians were systematically killed. It was an utterly unnecessary massacre from start to finish.
Some prisoners were led through Jerusalum and released in the Arab quarter. A large group of them
were taken back and shot. You could make the argument that a man dressed as a woman could lead to the fighters shooting women but that doesn't account for the large number women brutally shot and it certainly can't account for the shooting of children.
Most of all - that narrative seems to deny that there was a massacre, or at best it marginalizes it.
There can be no doubt at all that large numbers of civilians were killed unjustifiably at Deir Yassin. Mordehai Gihon, intelligence officer of the Haganah Etzioni Brigade, wrote in his report, submitted April 10 1948:The murder of falachim and innocent citizens, faithful allies of the western sector, who kept faith despite pressure from the gangs, even during the conquest of Sharfa, {Mt Herzl} may lose us the trust of all those Arabs who hoped to be saved from destruction by agreements with us. 16
At WORST its a military operation which got out of hand and included some violations of humanitarian warfare. Which I condemn. It was not a massacre, in the meaning of a deliberate, intentional, pre-planned murder of innocents. It was not equivalent to the Fogel family murders.
"Some" violatoins of humanitarian warfare? Seriously? It was a military operation that need not have happened - it was unnecessary and targeted a peaceful village. During discussions, the killing of civilians was repeatedly brought up and rejected (presumably by Haganah) - however, clearly it was on the minds of some of those forces and they also clearly wanted to make an example for Arabs.
What do you call it when they parade captured women and children in West Jeruselum before killing them and dumping their bodies in a quarry?
A lie.
All the women and children evacuated were released to safety. There were 25 male prisoners shot though. Which I would condemn.
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Point taken, it was the male prisoners who were taken back and shot.
Your narrative also ignore's the cold bloodedness of the carnage that was reported afterwards and the fact that information on it is still classified. It is only recently that there is an attempt to insert a new narrative denying that there was a massacre while what is probably the most important information remains under lock and key.
Meir Pail submitted an independent report, along with his films to David Shaltiel on the morning of April 10, 1948. The report was transmitted to Yisrael Galili, head of the Haganah in Tel-Aviv. It began with a passage from Haim Nahman Bialik’s Poem “In the City of Carnage.” Pail related that people were stood in the corners of houses and shot. Afterwards he and the photographer entered the house and took pictures. He related, as noted that about 15-25 men were taken to the quarry, stood up against a natural wall in the quarry and shot, also recorded on film at the IDF archive. 17 The report and the film are still classified. Even Yisrael Galili could not get to them in 1978. 18 Yitzhak Levi apparently had a copy in his own file, however.
Uri Milstein, who has tried to minimize the massacre and involve the Haganah, wrote “nobody denies: most of the dead in Deir Yassin were old men, women and children, and only a few of them were young men who could be classified as warriors, even though in the Etzel-Lehi meeting before the battle the suggestion (which was raised) of killing civilians had not been accepted, and even though the attackers called upon the villagers to leave the village at the beginning of the attack.” 20
