Footnotes
1 For example, Benny Morris, dean of Israel's leftwing "new historians," has written that Milstein's
study "will most likely turn out to be the definitive military history of the 1948 war...No one is
likely to surpass the sheer breadth, depth, and scope of this work...Israeli military history has now
been pulled up to a new, higher and refreshing plane." (Morris, "'Pre-History' vs. 'History',
Jerusalem Post, 9 May 1989, p.40).
2 Sharif Kanani and Nihad Zitawi, Deir Yassin, Monograph No.4, Destroyed Palestinian Villages
Documentation Project (Bir Zeit: Documentation Center of Bir Zeit University, 1987), p.6.
3 Uri Milstein, The War of Independence: Out of Crisis Came Decision - Volume IV [Hebrew]
(Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan Publishers, 1991), p. 256.
4 Milstein, p.253 (interview with Yehoshua Arieli, 11 December 1987).
5 Milstein, pp.277-278.
6 Milstein, p.255 (interview with Moshe Barzili, 9 May 1982).
7 Israel Ministry of Defense, David Shaltiel: Jerusalem 1948 (Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of Defense,
1981), p. 139.
8 Milstein, p.260 (interview with Shimon Monita).
9 Milstein, p.260 (interview with Moshe Idelstein).
10 Testimony of Patchiah Zalivensky, Metzudat Ze'ev [Jabotinsky Archives, Tel Aviv] (hereafter
cited as MZ); Milstein, p.260 (interview with Yehoshua Zettler).
11 Milstein, p.260 (interview with Moshe Barzili).
12 Milstein, p.260 (interview with Yehoshua Zettler).
13 Milstein, p.260, quoting "Report by 'Elazar' [Gihon's Haganah code name]," 10 April 1948.
14 Milstein, p.260 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
15 Milstein, p.260, quoting "Report of the Haganah's [Anti-Dissident] Unit on the Deir Yassin
Action."
16 Testimony of Mordechai Ra'anan, MZ; Testimony of Yehuda Lapidot, MZ; Testimony of
Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ; Milstein, p.262 (interviews with Mordechai Ra'anan and Yehuda
Lapidot).
17 Milstein, pp.255-256; Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory
Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917-1929 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1978),
p.69.
18 Yitshaq Ben-Ami, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory (New York: Shengold, 1983), p.439.
19 Milstein, p.257 (interview with Mordechai Gihon). Milstein found the report in the Israel
Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 83/17, Reports of "Teneh," 9 April
1948.
20 Milstein interview with Haganah agent Yona Ben-Sasson, 12 November 1980; also, Milstein,
citing the Ben-Nur Report in the David Shaltiel Archives.
21 "Shots in Jerusalem,"Davar, 4 April 1948, p.2.
22 Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection
88/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948, 10:00 A.M.
23 Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection
88/17, "From Sa'ar," 4 April 1948, 10:00 A.M.
24 Testimony of David Gottlieb, MZ; Milstein, pp.257-258, citing the Israel Defense Forces
Archives, War of Independence Collection 21/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948.
25 Milstein, p. 258, citing "Operations Log - Arza," 4 April 1948, 17:00 hours, Broadcast #562,
Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 88/17.
26 Milstein, p.258 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
27 Milstein, p.258, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 228/3,
Operation Log, 9 April 1948, 2:40 a.m.
28 Testimony of Benzion Cohen, MZ; Testimony of Yehuda Lapidot, MZ.
29 Ilan Kafir, "Three Accounts of Deir Yassin" (Hebrew), Yediot Ahronot, 4 April 1972, p.3.
30 Ron Miberg, "They Showed Us the Photographs!" (Hebrew), Monitin, April 1981, p.37.
31 Milstein interview with Harif, p.262.
32 Milstein, p.263 (interview with Zalivensky).
33 Yachin's testimony is quoted at length in Lynne Reid Banks, A Torn Country: An Oral History
of the Israeli War of Independence (New York: Franklin Watts, 1982), pp. 58-65.
34 Milstein, p.265 (interviews with Yehuda Lapidot and Yehoshua Gorodenchik).
35 Milstein, p.265, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, Yitzhak Levy collection, "Report of
Yaakov Weg."
36 Testimony of Reuven Greenberg.
37 Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ.
38 Banks, op.cit., p.62.
39 Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ.
40 Milstein, pp.264-265, interviews with Ezra Yachin, Mordechai Ra'anan, Benzion Cohen and
Yehuda Lapidot; Testimonies of Mordechai Ra'anan, Benzion Cohen, and Yehuda Lapidot.
41 Milstein, p.263, interview with Uri Brenner; Daniel Spicehandler's testimony, quoted in Ralph
G. Martin, Golda: Golda Meir - The Romantic Years (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1988), p.329.
42 Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ. Benny Morris, a harsh critic of the IZL and Lehi,
has characterized Gorodenchik's testimony as "confused." (Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p.323, n.175.
43 Milstein, p.264, (interview with Mordechai Gihon and "Report of Etzioni intelligence officer").
44 Milstein, p.266.
45 Testimony of Mordechai (Kaufman) Ra'anan, 30 June 1952, Procotol of the Board
of Appeals in Appeal 89-90-92-96/51, p.7, File kaf-10/9, MZ. 46 Milstein, p. 266 (interviews
with Moshe Eren, Kalman Rosenblatt, and David Gottlieb).
47 Natan Yellin-Mor, Fighters for the Freedom of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Shikmona
Publishers, 1974), p.472; Milstein, p.267 (interviews with Moshe Barzili and Shimon Monita, and
Testimony of Yaffa Bedian).
48 Milstein, p.255 (interviews with Meir Pa'il; interviews with Yitzhak Levy; interview with David
Cohen, 18 July 1987; interview with David Shaltiel; interview with Yehoshua Arieli; Testimony of
Meir Pa'il, 10 May 1971).
49 Milstein, p.259 (Testimony of Meir Pa'il; interviews with Moshe Idelstein).
50 Miberg, op.cit., p.36.
51 Pa'il quoted in Yerach Tal, "There Was No Massacre There" [Hebrew], Ha'aretz, 8
September 1991, pp.2-3.
52 Milstein, p.274 (interviews with Yehoshua Zettler, Mordechai Ra'anan, Moshe Barzili, Yehuda
Lapidot, Patchia Zalivensky, Moshe Idelstein, Moshe Eren, Shlomo Havilov, Yehoshua Arieli);
Testimonies of David Shaltiel, Zalman Meret, Zion Eldad, and Yeshurun Schiff, MZ.
53 Tal, op.cit.
54 Miberg, p.39.
55 Ha'aretz, 8 September 1991; Miberg, op.cit.
56 Milstein, p.275.
57 Pa'il, quoted in Kafir, op.cit.
58 Milstein, p.275 (interview with Yona Ben-Sasson).
59 The relevant sections of Reynier's report are translated in Walid
Khalidi, ed. From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948
(Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1987), pp.761-766.
60 Reynier, 762, 763.
61 Ibid., p.762.
62 Ibid., pp.763, 764.
63 Milstein, p.269.
64 Milstein,p.269 (interview with Moshe Barzili).
65 Ibid., 764-765.
66 Milstein, pp.269-270 (interview with Alfred Engel, 7 December 1987).
67 Milstein, p.260.
68 Eric Silver, Begin: The Haunted Prophet (New York: Random House, 1984), p.93.
69 Ibid., p.95.
70 Uri Avnery, Israel Without Zionists: A Plea for Peace in the Middle East (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1968), p.196. Avnery also got the date of the battle wrong, as well as the
time of day it took place. He stated that the IZL and Lehi captured Deir Yassin in a "night battle";
the battle actually began at dawn and continued until mid-day. He asserted that the "massacre"
took place on April 10, when in fact the Arabs who died were killed --however they were killed--
on April 9.
71 Yellin-Mor, op.cit.
72 "Agency Berates Massacre," Palestine Post, 12 April 1948, p.1.
73 Israel Ministry of Defense, David Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948 (Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of
Defense, 1981), p.139. In what may be another instance of post-battle recriminations, but this
time coming from the IZL-Lehi side, Lehi member Reuven Greenberg later claimed that after the
battle, a Palmach member killed an Arab civilian with a small explosive charge. (Testimony of
Reuven Greenberg, MZ.) Lehi veteran Baruch Nadel described a similar incident in Kati Marton's
A Death in Jerusalem (New York: Pantheon, 1994, p.29), although Marton translated Nadel's
reference to the perpetrator as "an Israeli" (rather than "a Palmach member") which seems
inaccurate, since the State of Israel did not yet exist at the time of the incident. Yisrael Segal,
correspondent for the leftwing Israeli magazine Koteret Raishit, examined Greenberg's testimony
and concluded that it "is almost certainly drawn mainly from the imagination." Segal notes that
Greenberg's account of the killing of the Arab "has no corroboration from other testimonies."
Questioning Greenberg's credibility as a witness, Segal characterizes him as "a man with a
checkered past who was involved in many political and criminal capers in the first years of the
state...Greenberg knew how to tell tales." (Segal, "The Deir Yassin File" [Hebrew], Koteret
Raishit, 19 January 1983, p.8.)
74 Decision of the Board of Appeals in Appeal 89/51 (Aryeh Halperin v. Benefits Officer), File:
kaf 4-10/2, MZ.
75 Milstein, pp.269-270 (interview with Alfred Engel, 7 December 1987).
76 Spicehandler testimony in Martin, op.cit.
77 Silver, p.95
78 David Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948, p.140; Aryeh Yitzhaki, "Deir Yassin--Not Through a Warped
Mirror," Yediot Ahronot, 14 April 1972, p.17.
79 Thurston Clarke, By Blood and Fire: July 22, 1946 - The Attack on Jerusalem's King David
Hotel (New York: G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1981), p.224; Nicholas Bethell, The Palestine Triangle:
The Struggle for the Holy Land, 1935-48 (New York: G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1979) p.156.
80 A long excerpt from Catling's report may be found in Collins and Lapierre, p.276.
81 Spicehandler testimony in Martin, op.cit.
82 Milstein, p.274 (interviews with Shimon Monita, Moshe Idelstein, Yona Feitelson, and
Mordechai Gihon).
83 Menachem Begin, The Revolt (Los Angeles: Nash, 1972), p.163.
84 Milstein, pp.268-269 (interview with Mordechai Ra'anan).
85 Milstein, p.269 (Testimony of Meir Pa'il).
86 Milstein, p.273 (interview with David Cohen, 18 July 1987). Pa'il used the figure in Yediot
Ahronot, 20 April 1972. But in 1989, he wrote that in his report to Galili, "the number of those
murdered was not mentioned at all, since we did not then know the number." (Uri Milstein, "The
Speech Which Was Not Given" [Hebrew], Ha'aretz, 10 March 1989, p. 15.)
87 Silver, op.cit., pp.95-96.
88 Kanani and Zitawi, Deir Yassin (Bir Zeit study), p.5.
89 Ibid., p.7.
90 Ibid., pp.7-.8.
91 Ibid., p.57.
92 Milstein, p.273 (interview with Mordechai Ra'anan).
93 "Arabs Charge Cruelty," Palestine Post, 12 April 1948, p.1; Schmidt, "Arabs Say Kastel...,"
op.cit.
94 The relevant sections of Reynier's report are translated in Walid Khalidi, ed. From Haven to
Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948 (Washington: Institute for
Palestine Studies, 1987), pp.761-766.
95 Dana Adams Schmidt, Armageddon in the Middle East (New York: The John Day Company,
1974), pp.4-5.
96 Dana Adams Schmidt, "200 Arabs Killed, Stronghold Taken," New York Times, 10 April
1948, p.6.
97 Schmidt, Armageddon, p.5.
98 Dana Adams Schmidt, "Arabs Say Kastel Has Been Retaken; Jews Deny Claim," New York
Times, 12 April 1948, p.1.
99 "A Haganah Plane Downed by British," New York Times, 13 April 1948, p.7.
100 Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1969), p.480, n.60.
101 "A Haganah Plane...," op.cit.
102 "Palestine: War for the Jerusalem Road," Time, 19 April 1948, pp.34-35.
103 R.M. Graves, Experiment in Anarchy (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1949), p.179.
104 William Polk, David Stamler, and Edmund Asfour Backdrop to Tragedy: The Struggle for
Palestine (Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1957), p.290; Christopher Sykes, Crossroads to Israel
(Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company, 1965), p.351.
105 Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? (New York: Dodd, Mead
& Co., 1978), p.795, n.23; David McDowall, Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p.298, n.44; Desmond Stewart, The Middle
East: Temple of Janus (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), p.314; Nathan Weinstock, Zionism:
False Messiah (London: Ink Links Ltd, 1979), p.303, n.45.
106 Arthur Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1949 (New York: The MacMillan
Company, 1949), p.160.
107 Weinstock, op.cit., p.305, n.23; Lilienthal, op.cit., p.795, n.40; Charles D. Smith, Palestine
and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p.150, n.64; Nicholas
Bethell, The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle for the Holy Land, 1935-48 (New York:
G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1979), pp.354-355.
108 McDowall, op.cit., p.299, n.44; David Gilmour, "The 1948 Arab Exodus: 2. What Really
Happened," Middle East International No.288 (21 November 1985), pp.15-17.
109 Jon Kimche, Seven Fallen Pillars: The Middle East, 1915-1950 (London: Secker and
Warburg, 1950) is cited by, among other books, Sydney D. Bailey, Four Arab-Israeli Wars and
the Peace Process (London: Macmillan, 1990); Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The
United States, Israel and the Palestinians (Boston: South End Press, 1983); and David Gilmour,
Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians, 1917-1980 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson,
1980).
110 Israel's Struggle for Peace (New York: Israel Office of Information, 1960), pp.41-42.
111 Background Notes on Current Themes - No.6: Dir Yassin (Jerusalem: Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, Information Division, 16 March 1969), pp. 1-2.
112 Ibid., pp.2-3.
113 Ibid., p.4
114 Ibid., p.5-6.
115 Ibid., p.6.
116 Quoted in Shaul Mishal and Reuben Aharoni, Speaking Stones: Communiques from the
Intifada Underground (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994), p.223.
117 Abu Iyad with Eric Rouleau, My Home, My Land (New York: Times Books, 1981), p.4.
118 Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books, 1979), p.44.
119 Issa Nakhleh, on p.570 of John Norton Moore, ed., The Arab Israeli Conflict - Volume I:
Readings (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974).
120 Sami Hadawi and Robert John, Palestine Diary - Volume Two: 1945-1948 (New York:
New World Press, 1972), p.328.
121 Eugene M. Fisher and M. Cherif Bassiouni, Storm Over the Arab World: A People in
Revolution (Chicago: Follett, 1972), p.44.
122 This allegation appears in, for example, William R. Polk, The Elusive Peace: The Middle East
in the Twentieth Century (New York: St.Martin's Press, 1979), p.144: John Marlowe, The Seat
of Pilate: An Account of the Palestine Mandate (London: The Cresset Press, 1959), p.245; and
George Lenczowksi, The Middle East in World Affairs (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962),
p.400.
123 William Polk, David Stamler, and Edmund Asfour Backdrop to Tragedy: The Struggle for
Palestine (Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1957), p.291. 124 Cheryl A. Rubenberg, in Roselle
Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo, and Norton Mezvinsky, eds. Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections
(Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1989), p.189.
125 Geoffrey Furlonge, Palestine is My Country: The Story of Musa Alami (John Murray,
London 1969), p.155
126 Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p.333.
127 New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, p.62.
128 New York: Praeger, 1975.
129 Eshkol: The Man and the Nation (New York: Pitman, 1969), p.130.
130 Samuel Katz, Days of Fire (Jerusalem: Steimatzky's, 1968), p.215.
131 Said, op.cit., p.44.
132 Gerald Kaufman, To Build the Promised Land (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973),
p.139.
133 Lois A. Aroian and Richard P. Mitchell, The Modern Middle East and North Africa (New
York and London: Macmillan and Collier Macmillan, 1984), p.245.
134 Christina Jones, The Untempered Wind: Forty Years in Palestine (London: Longman, 1975),
p.90.
135 Martin Wright, ed. Israel and the Palestinians (London: Longman, 1989), p.24).
136 Jamal R. Nassar, The Palestine Liberation Organization: From Armed Struggle to the
Declaration of Independence (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991), p.24, n.57.
137 Punyapriya Dasgupta, Cheated by the World: The Palestinian Experience (London: Sangam
Books, 1988), p.82, n.39.
138 Sami Hadawi, Bitter Harvest: Palestine Between 1914-1979 (Delmar, NY: The Caravan
Books, 1979), pp.80-81.
139 Menachem Begin, The Revolt: The Memoirs of the Commander of the Irgun Zvai Leumi in
Eretz Yisrael [Hebrew](Tel Aviv: Achiasaf Publishers, 1950).
140 Maxime Rodinson, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? (New York: Monad Press, 1973),
p.114, n.109; Erskine Childers, "The Other Exodus," The Spectator, 12 May 1961; Stewart
Perowne, "Levant Dusk: The Refugee Situation," in Walter Z. Laqueur, ed., The Middle East in
Transition (New York: Praeger, 1958), p.222.
141 Desmond Stewart, The Middle East: Temple of Janus (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971),
p.314; Desmond Stewart, The Palestinians: Victims of Expediency (London: Quartet Books,
1982), p.62.
142 Kenneth Cragg, This Year in Jerusalem: Israel in Experience (London: Darton, Longman &
Todd, 1982), p.56.
143 "Israel and Judaism," Christian Century, 16 March 1949, p.328.
144 Andrew Sinclair, Jerusalem: The Endless Crusade (New York: Crown, 1995), p.232.
145 Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (New York: World Publishing,
1970), pp. xi, 138-149.
146 J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI, and the Palestine Underground,
1929-1949 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), p.296.
147 Melvin I. Urofsky, We Are One! American Jewry and Israel (Garden City, NY: Anchor
Press/Doubleday, 1978), p.485. Bell is also the only source cited for the Deir Yassin massacre
charge in Stephen Green's Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel (New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1984), p.260, n.15.
148 Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972),
pp.274-276.
149 David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East
(London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1977). Collins and Lapierre wrote, "Its [Deir Yassin's]
assailants killed, they looted, and finally they raped." (p.275) Hirst wrote, "The attackers killed,
looted, and finally they raped." (p.125) Books listing Hirst as a source include: Yemima Rosenthal,
ed. Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel: Volume 3 - Armistice Negotiations with the Arab
States December 1948-July 1949 (Jerusalem: Government Printer, 1981; Dilip Hiro, Inside the
Middle East (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982); John W. Amos II, Palestinian Resistance:
Organization of a Nationalist Movement ((New York: Pergamon Press, 1980); and David
Gilmour, Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians 1917-1980 (London: Sidgwick and
Jackson, 1980).
150 Collins and Lapierre, op.cit., p.584.
151 Kimmerling and Migdal, op.cit., p.151.
152 Kanani and Zitawi, Deir Yassin (Bir Zeit study), p.7.
153 Tessler, op.cit., p.291.
154 Ibid., pp.292-293.
155 Yaacov Shimoni and Evyatar Levine, eds.Political Dictionary of the Middle East in the 20th
Century (New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1974, p.36; Congressional Quarterly,
The Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1991), p.13; Eli Barnavi,
ed.Historical Atlas of the Jewish People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), pp.244, 276;
Judah Gribetz, ed. Timetables of Jewish History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p.495;
Bernard Reich, ed.Historical Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1996), pp.128-129, 247.
156 Peretz has served as an official of a number of extreme-left organizations, including the Jewish
Committee on the Middle East (as a member of its Advisory Committee), which calls for halting all
U.S. aid to Israel; the Jewish Peace Lobby (as a member of its Policy Council), which lobbies in
Washington for PLO statehood; Breira (as a member of its board of directors), the first American
Jewish group to call for an Israeli retreat to the pre-1967 borders; and the Committee for New
Alternatives in the Middle East (as a member of its Steering Committee), which lobbied against
U.S. arms shipments to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Peretz's two Deir Yassin entries
appeared in Reeva S. Simon, Philip Mattar, and Richard W. Bulliet, eds. Encyclopedia of the
Modern Middle East (New York: Simon & Schuster - Macmillan, 1996), pp.546-547, and Don
Peretz, Library in a Book: The Arab-Israel Dispute (New York: Facts on File, 1996), pp.39,
121.
http://www.zoa.org/pubs/DeirYassin.htm
Just like the contemporaneous reports of the Sabra and Shatilla event had the number killed at over 3000 which was later revised down to 600 to 650.
NYT the paper of misrecording.