Sixty years after the Deir Yassin massacre - What we should remember

“At two in the morning they came and invaded our village of 750 inhabitants, eventually leaving at six o’clock in the evening. House by house, they rushed inside and shot all the people they could find,” remembers Abd Al-Qader, one of the survivors. Today, at eighty-two years old, he is speaking to a group of people gathered to remember the massacre that took place in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948.

The attack formed part of the execution of Plan Dalet, a strategy prepared by the Haganah (a Jewish paramilitary organisation) in 1947 with the purpose of conquering as much of Palestine as possible and to expel as many Palestinians as possible, in preparation for the creation of a Jewish state. The massacre has now become a symbol of the events of 1948 that led to Palestinian exodus and dispossession, and that lie at the heart of the Palestinian refugee problem.

Organized by the Israeli group Zochrot (“remembering” in Hebrew), the annual ceremony seeks to remember both the massacre of Deir Yassin in particular, and the truth about the events surrounding the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) in general. This truth that has been consistently masked, revised and marginalized by Israeli historians, academics, political leaders, and others seeking to conceal the violence and dispossession that preceded the creation of the Israeli state.

Some ten police officers accompanied the group of fifty Israelis and internationals as they marched through the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Givat Shaul, which now lies on the site of the former village. Participants carried boards listing the names of those killed in the massacre, while the group leader used a megaphone to give explanations about the massacre in Hebrew and Arabic. The group was taken to the industrial area that was built where the village’s stone pit used to lie, and to the former homes that were turned into a psychiatric clinic for Holocaust survivors and soldiers.

Gavier and Navit, two students and members of Zochrot explained that they consider it their mission to remind fellow Israelis about the Nakba because, as they put it, the majority in Israeli society find it “more comfortable to close their eyes.” Navit explained, “We want to provoke reactions. Negative reactions are better than none. And in Jerusalem there are always stronger reactions than in Tel Aviv.” But even if the majority acknowledges that the Nakba existed, added Gavier, they put it all “underneath the Holocaust” which is why Zochrot attempts to push Israeli society towards more self-critical scrutiny.

Naama Hochstein, another Jewish-Israeli participant, agreed that attention on the Nakba has increased in recent years. But she expressed surprise that there were few Israelis present among the crowd of international participants. “ Deir Yassin is as much a part of our history as it is for the Palestinians, but it is still a silent part,” she said.

Zayneb Jaber, a sixty-six year-old woman from Deir Yassin, also joined the group to share her memories. In tears, she described how she and her sister were able to flee the village but that the rest of her family was murdered. After her dispossession in 1948, she fled to the Malha area of West Jerusalem, but was forced to move when her home was demolished by the Israeli authorities. Now, she is being threatened by yet another Israeli military order to demolish her current home in East Jerusalem.

But the residents of Givat Shaul seem to be somewhat fed up with the story. “We remember too much and it has already all melted into one narrative,” says local resident Aliza Sanders. “War is not a moral thing,” she goes on, “that is how things like this happen.” In calling it a ‘War of Independence’, she feels that Israel is free of any responsibility. For Sanders, the reality of what happened at Deir Yassin is still escapable even when she faces the village’s former Palestinian inhabitants during the ceremony. With such a lack of critical awareness and the will to hide in indifference, mutual understanding is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Abd al-Qader wistfully shows the group the last remains of his home, thirty-three steps that now lead into nothingness.