The March And Fight For Deir Yassin
“I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.”
These words, taken out of context, seem innocuous enough. They could refer to a litany of relatively harmless enterprises.
However, when one considers, that these are the words of one David Ben-Gurion, zionist, war criminal, founding father of the state of Israel and its very first prime minister, their menace unfolds. When one considers that these words are not the product of war, the zionists’ mythical ‘War of Independence’ waged in 1948, but rather the cold and sober words of a man in 1938, their tyranny grows. When one considers, that these words relate to the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their lands, their moral repugnance reaches crescendo.
These remarks, the words of David Ben-Gurion, were the precursor of Plan Dalet, a plan that facilitated the destruction of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its people. Through a mixture of massacre, mayhem and expulsion, the zionists sought to cleanse Palestine of its peaceful indigenous population in order to pave the way for their own nefarious theocratic ‘state’.
Deir Yassin fell prey to this depravity. A small village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Deir Yassin was primarily populated by stonecutters. Such was the peaceful nature of the villagers, that they had refrained from engaging in any defence of Palestine and had went as far as entering into a non-aggression pact with the zionist forces.
However, if the zionist forces were to clear Palestine of its people, it required that a sufficient terror be generated amongst its population, a terror which would force them to flee for their lives and those of their families. Thus, on the morning of April 9 1948, zionist forces, without warning, stormed the village rounded up its inhabitants, every terrified man, woman and child, and massacred them. Afterwards, the zionist murder gangs’ efforts were extolled by the Irgun Central Command with a celebratory message encouraging “…as in Deir Yassin, so everywhere…”. If anyone had suspected prevarication on behalf of the zionists, their suspicions were quickly allayed when 25 of the village’s survivors were paraded throughout Jerusalem, before being taken to a quarry and themselves executed.
The fear generated from this massacre, amongst others, led to 531 Palestinian villages being depopulated and destroyed and their 750,000 Palestinian inhabitants being assigned the status of refugee. Today, the total number of Palestinian refugees denied the right to return to their lands, of which over 90 per cent remain vacant, stands at over 6 million.
This year, the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba, (Arabic for ‘the catastrophe’), over 6 million Palestinians are refused the right to return to their homes in direct contravention of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which ironically also enjoys its 60th anniversary this year.
Whilst some would prefer events such as Deir Yassin be consigned to a footnote in history, the Palestinian people have and will resist these attempts with a steadfastness for which they are renowned. However, it is incumbent upon all of us to fight for the memory of Deir Yassin.
To this end Éirígí asks that everyone concerned with justice for the Palestinian people to attend the commemorative events of the IPSC across Ireland, on Saturday, April 12.
At 2pm on the Saturday, the IPSC are appealing for people to gather at the Central Bank in Dublin while on the same day a mural unveiling will take place in Belfast. Details to be confirmed and updates to follow at www.ipsc.ie