In his statements, he echoes the words a few days previously of the Chief Rabbi of the United Congregations of the British Commonwealth (the Very Rev. Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits) who said that, "Something must be done about the nests of terror."¹

In asserting such things, these supporters of Israel are trying to pull down a curtain on history and the wool over the eyes of the public at large. Israel was a state founded on terrorism and is still maintained by it.

Israeli Massacre Remembered

It is an opportune time to remember this fact, for just as South Africa remembers its Sharpeville massacre, so too do the Arab peoples remember that on the 9th of April, 1948 the nascent Israeli forces carried out the infamous massacre at Dier Yasin. This article marks the thirtieth anniversary of those who perished.

The background setting of Dier Yasin is the mandate territory of Palestine at the close of the 1939-45 war. Zionist groups were carrying out both illegal immigration to bring more Jews into the area and bombing and assassinations to force the British to relinquish control.

Entrusted with the latter tasks were the Hagana, under the direction of the Jewish Agency, and the Irgun Zvei Leumi and Stern gangs which were identified with the more extreme revisionist Zionist grouping.

In 1943 the Irgun enlisted a new recruit, Menachem Begin, the current Prime Minister of Israel. Begin was soon to rise to the leadership of the Irgun.

These groups, despite their superficial antagonisms were to coordinate in their objectives to spread destruction and terror throughout the entire territory. This even extended to the blowing up of a ship in Haifa harbour in November 1940, with the loss of 252 lives — Jewish lives — in order to blackmail the British authorities and to engender sympathy for the "plight of the Jews struggling to liberate their homeland."²

When the General Assembly moved in late 1947 to recommend the division of Palestine into one state for Jews and one for the Arabs, the Zionist cause was well prepared. Instead of letting a phased handover of power from the British take place, as prescribed by the UN, the Israeli state was declared and the terror gangs went into full operation. Dier Yasin was one result.

The Dier Yasin Atrocity

Time recently described the massacre: "An incident that shocked the world was an assault on the Arab village of Dier Yasin in April 1948... Using sten guns, rifles, hand grenades and long Arab knives, Begin's men massacred more than 200 villagers, mostly old men, women and children. Many were mutilated and the women raped... But he (Begin) still takes credit for Irgun's actions. Asked not long ago about the Dier Yasin massacre, he replied, "I was the commander, I was responsible for any of the operations carried out".³

Begin, in an interview published in Tel Aviv on 19 May 1977, said the finest period of his life was when he led the Irgun in hostilities against the British in 1946-47 and not even being Prime Minister could compare with that. He wrote of his finest hours in connection with Dier Yasin, "The massacre was not only justified, but there would not have been a state of Israel without the "victory" at Dier Yasin... All the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter; the Arabs began to flee in panic shouting 'Dier Yasin' ".⁴

The outcry at this time was widespread. The British Secretary for the Colonies told the House of Commons that Dier Yasin was one of a long list of atrocities committed by the Zionists up to that time, while the historian Arnold Toynbee described it as "comparable to the crimes com committed by the Nazis against the Jews."⁵

Eyewitness Account

An eyewitness, Colonel Meir Pa'el, released a report of the massacre six years ago, after he left Israeli Military service:

"The Etzel and Lehi irregulars left the places in which they had been hiding and started carrying out cleaning up operations in the houses. They fired with all the arms they had, and threw the explosives into the houses. They also shot everyone they saw in the houses, including women and children...

"In the meantime some 25 men had been brought out of the houses; they were loaded into a freight truck and led in a "victory" parade (in Jerusalem). At the end of the parade they were taken to a stone quarry between Giv'at Sha'ul and Dier Yasin and shot in cold blood... " The men of Etzel and Lehi started a shameful massacre of the (remaining) in-habitants — men, women, old people, and children, without distinction, standing the inhabitants against the walls and in corners in the houses. There is photographic evidence of this."⁶

In such a context it is worthwhile to note the words of Sami Hadawi, a Palestinian scholar and lecturer, who visited New Zealand in 1975:

The Zionist Record

"When the Israeli leaders use international platforms to indignantly protest the Palestine Arabs justification to fight for their rights in their homeland, they should be reminded of their own Zionist record of how they aquired the homes, lands and country of those whom they now now call "terrorists". They are the Last entitled to condemn — or even complain against —acts of terrorism and violence, kidnapping and holding of hostages, sending letter bombs and murder, because they were the first to indulge in such practices.

"To this repertoire, they, as a state establishment, have, since 1967, added such refinements as torture, collective and area punishment, expulsion and deportation, destruction of property and confiscation of Arab owned land in the occupied territories,"⁷

Since Dier Yasin the dispossessed Palestinian Arabs have had no other option but to take up arms to regain the land that was once theirs. Israeli orchestrated world outrage has been directed against such incidents as Munich, Ma'aiot and the recent Al - Fatah raid along the Tel Aviv/Haifa highway. Besides the fact that the numbers of casualties involved here are small, (more civilians were killed in a single day's air raids over Lebanon in December, than in all these more celebrated incidents) they were a consequence of Israeli refusal to negotiate release of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The Palestinian "terrorists" were trying to bargain with the only thing they had left. In a hideous fashion it makes sense for the Israelis to keep a hold on their 3,000 political prisoners and engender international sympathy by having a few of their citizens perish as martyrs.

Terror in Uniform

As indicated, the terrorism of the Israeli forces did not cease when the old terror gangs donned the uniforms of the official Israeli Army. The recent Israeli invasion into Southern Lebanon is a long anticipated event for the boundaries of Israel on the map have been that of a burgeoning amoeba. As early as the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 the Zionist cause has specifically claimed the area south of the Litani River. To this effect, the Israeli Air Force and Navy have been carrying out many attacks on settlements in Southern Lebanon over the last few years. Since 1972, the Israelis have even abandoned the attempt to link their raids with specific Palestinian geurilla attacks.

Then, last month, the Israelis adopted their habitual pretense of self protection in invading the Lebanon to, "clear out the Palestinian infestation once and for all". ⁸ The formula is quite simple: the Palestinians are driven out of their homes to the border states and Israel extends to the limits of international acceptance. Next, border incidents are provoked by the Israeli forces against Palestinians, the Israelis claim they are compelled to invade for self protection to cast out these pestilent Palestinians and the cycle is ready to begin once more.

The function of the Israeli armed forces, for all their uniforms and sophisticated Phantoms and Sky hawks, is therefore exactly the same as that of the old terror gangs; to drive out the "alien" native population and replace them with Israelis.

"Terror" is an expression used here in a very much different sense than that adopted by the Israeli Ambassador. His use of the word is designed to create hysteria rather than a critical understanding, hypocritically condemning the raids into the lands the Palestinains once owned, while ignoring the rampages of his army through the Middle East and his secret police assassinations squads through Europe.

"Terror" is a word that should be used sparingly, not senselessly and indiscriminately any time the dispossessed and frustrated retaliate against the fat and comfortable. It should only be used after a thorough examination of the motives involved, the alternatives available and the justice sought. Israel's actions, past and present, are based on the motives of racism, denying the available alternative of a negotiated peace and the justice of the oppressor.

Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel