Deir Yassin: History of a Lie March 9, 1998
Introduction
For fifty years, critics of Israel have used the battle of Deir Yassin to blacken the image of the
Jewish State, alleging that Jewish fighters massacred hundreds of Arab civilians during a battle in
that Arab village near Jerusalem in 1948.
This analysis brings to light, for the first time, a number of important documents that have never
previously appeared in English, which help clarify what really happened in Deir Yassin on that
fateful day.
One is a research study conducted by a team of researchers from Bir Zeit University, an Arab
university now situated in Palestinian Authority territory, concerning the history of Deir Yassin and
the details of the battle. The researchers interviewed numerous former residents of the town and
reached startling conclusions concerning the actual number of people killed in the battle.
The second important work on this subject that has never previously appeared in English, and
which was consulted for this study, is a history of the 1948 war by Professor Uri Milstein, one of
Israel's most distinguished military historians. His 13-volume study of the 1948 war includes a
section on Deir Yassin based on detailed interviews with the participants in the battle and
previously-unknown archival documents. Professor Milstein's meticulous research has been
praised by academics from across the political spectrum.1
Another document used in this study is the protocols of a 1952 hearing, in which, for the first and
only time, Israeli judges heard eyewitness testimony from participants in the events at Deir Yassin
and issued a ruling that has important implications for understanding what happened in that battle.
This study is also based upon a unique collection of testimonies concerning the battle of Deir
Yassin, by participants and eyewitnesses, which are on file in Israel's Metzudat Ze'ev Archives
and have never before appeared in English.
The documents cited in this study were located in Israeli archives by a team of researchers and
legal scholars, with additional research in the United States by Chaviva Rosenbluth.