Blood Libel at Deir Yassin

Infobox Book
name = Blood Libel at Deir Yassin: The Black Book
title_orig = _he. עלילת דם בדיר יאסין - הספר השחור
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author = Uri Milstein
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country = Israel
language = Hebrew
series =
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genre = Military history books
publisher = Alim Publisher
release_date = 2007
english_release_date =
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"Blood Libel at Deir Yassin: The Black Book" ( _he. עלילת דם בדיר יאסין - הספר השחור) is a book by Israeli military historian Uri Milstein, where he contends that the raid at Deir Yassin in 1948 should not be described as a massacre. The book, published in Hebrew in 2007, accuses the leadership of the Yishuv of complicity in promulgating false reports of the massacre to discredit political rivals. The book attracted attention in Israel [ [http://www.keshet-tv.com/VideoPage.aspx?MediaID=15042&SourceID=23 A New Book Reveals New Details on War of Independence] , Broadcast on April 4, 2007, Israeli Channel 2.] [http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1090079 Deir Yassin wound reopens] Walla!, April 10, 2007 (Hebrew)] and won an award from the "Order of Jabotinsky", an organization associated with the ideology of the right-wing Likud party in Israel. [ [http://www.global-report.com/um/?l=he&a=38441 Milstein's Speech at Jabotinsky Award Ceremony and Copy of Award Certification] , Global-Report, November 26, 2007 (Hebrew).]

ummary

The account of the 1948 raid in Deir Yassin, a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, that is accepted by most scholars (including Milstein in an earlier work)Kana'ana, Sharif and Zeitawi, Nihad (1987), "The Village of Deir Yassin," Bir Zeit, Bir Zeit University Press.] [cite book | last = Morris | first = Benny | authorlink = Benny Morris | title = The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited | year = 2003 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge, UK; New York |id = ISBN 0-521-81120-1; ISBN 0-521-00967-7 (pbk.): Chapter 4: The second wave: the mass exodus, April—June 1948, Section: Operation Nahshon, page 238] [cite book | last = Milstein | first = Uri | authorlink = Uri Milstein | title = History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision | publisher = University Press of America | origyear = 1987 | year = 1998 | publisher = University Press of America, Inc. |location = Lanhan, Maryland| language = Hebrew, English version translated and edited by Alan Sacks | id = ISBN 0-7618-1489-2: Chapter 16: Deir Yassin, Section 12: The Massacre, page 377] is that more than 100 Arabs — mostly noncombatants — were killed when forces from the Irgun and Lehi invaded the village. Milstein claims that many of the elements of the accepted narrative are false: [Uri Milstein, [http://www.e-mago.co.il/Editor/chapters-1754.htm Deir Yassin - the massacre that never occurred] , E-mago culture online magazine, July 6, 2007 (Hebrew).]

* According to Milstein, the village of Deir Yassin was not peaceful. The village was a center of Arab resistance that was used as a base for units of Arab irregular forces that attacked the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem.
* Milstein writes that an attack on Deir Yassin was included in the orders of Operation Nachshon from the Jewish Agency to the Haganah to open the Jerusalem road, which had been besieged by the Arabs, preventing supply of food and water to Jews living in Jerusalem. According to Milstein, Irgun and Lehi militants who took part in the events in Deir Yassin were not acting on their own initiative.
* Milstein says that it was not the intention of the Irgun and Lehi to kill women and children.
* Milstein writes that according to Arab sources, the death toll was about 100, much lower than the 254 victims that was initially reported by the Jewish Agency and the international press after the raid [Yoav Gelber, "Palestine 1948", Sussex Academic Press, 2006, p.311.] and that is sometimes still given. [Howard Sachar, "A History of Israel", 1976 (1st edition), 2007 (3rd edition), p.333 writes that "more than two hundred Arab men, women, and children were (...) mutilated (...) and thrown into a well."]

"In the Battle of Deir Yassin, forces encountered the difficulties of fighting in a populated area and the harsh results from a human perspective," Milstein writes in an English summary of the book. [http://urimilstein.com/product.sc?categoryId=1&productId=13 Uri Milstein's Official Website] .]

Beyond disputing that there was any massacre, Milstein says that Israeli leaders at the time were complicit in promulgating the massacre "myth". According to Milstein, David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli leader, used the story of the massacre to discredit the Irgun and the Lehi, which were seeking political legitimacy. The book "exposes the methods of David Ben-Gurion in constructing negative, almost unassailable myths against his political antagonists. With the aid of these myths Ben-Gurion and his friends brainwashed the Jews of Eretz Yisrael."

Milstein writes that Ben-Gurion received a detailed report on the events at Deir Yassin from the commander of the Jerusalem region, David Shaltiel, and from Shimon Monita, a Haganah agent in Lehi who took part in the events. According to Milstein, Ben-Gurion knew that there had been no massacre in Deir Yassin but he publicly remained silent for political reasons.

Controversy

The book and its author were the subject of some controversy in Israel. Meir Pail, a rival historian identified with the Israeli left, claims that the book is "completely unfounded" and "cheap propaganda of the Israeli right-wing". He adds that Milstein is selective.

Milstein himself is a controversial figure in Israel and abroad. Considered one of the most knowledgeable people on the 1948 war, [http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/849474.html Ha'aretz] ] Milstein has published the first four volumes of a planned 11-volume history of the war. But his iconoclastic views — especially his claims that Yitzhak Rabin, revered Israeli military leader and former prime minister, suffered a nervous breakdown and fled in the face of battle — have rendered him an outcast in the Israeli academic community. "Uri Milstein is almost entirely outcast by publishers, not to mention the academic establishment," writes Gideon Samett, editor of "Haaretz". "He has not succeeded in establishing himself in a single respectable academic institution."

ee also

* 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
* Operation Nahshon - Deir Yassin massacre
* The Hunting Season
* Neo-Zionism

References

External links

* Yehuda Lapidot, " [http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/history/lapidot/24.htm "Deir Yassin", in Besieged Jerusalem 1948] ", where the author gives a similar analysis to what occurred at Deir Yassin.