Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources. (March 2010) |
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.[1]
Benny Morris writes that, after the war, Israel contrasted its "purity of arms" with the alleged barbarity of the Arab armies, which had engaged in the mutilation of corpses of Jewish prisoners of war. This helped to sell the image of the new Jewish state abroad. In reality, he writes, the Israeli army committed more atrocities and killed more civilians than the Arabs did, in large part because the Israelis captured 400 Arab towns and villages, whereas the Arabs took fewer than a dozen Israeli settlements.[1]
The Arabs committed two massacres, according to Morris: 40 workers were killed in the Haifa oil refinery, and 150 Haganah soldiers and local guards in Kfar Etzion who were either unarmed or were surrendering. There was also the destruction of a convoy of doctors and nurses in Jerusalem in April 1948, though Morris regards this as part of a battle, not a stand-alone massacre. There were few reported cases of rape, and few killings of unarmed civilians perpetrated by Arabs.[1] Conversely, there were 12-14 recorded cases of rape carried out by Jewish soldiers, and around 800 killings of unarmed civilians and prisoners-of-war, most of them during massacres in captured villages.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Events
[edit] Background
After about 30 years of nationalist conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Zionists and while no agreement could be found between parties, the British decided to terminate the Mandate in February 1947 and on 30 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted the Partition of Palestine.
The vote was immediately followed by a Civil War in which Palestinian Arabs (supported by the Arab Liberation Army) and Palestinian Jews, fought against each other while the region was still fully under British rule. On 15 May 1948, a full-scale war started when Israel declared its independence and Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq sent expeditionary forces to fight the Israelis.
The war caused the death of more than 20,000 people, around 1% of the population of both communities involved.[1]
[edit] Scale
[edit] Massacres
The main massacres and attacks against Jewish civilians were: the Haifa Oil Refinery massacre where 39 Jews were killed by rioters in the aftermath of an Irgun attack, and the Kfar Etzion massacre where around 120-150 surrendering defenders were killed by Arab villagers, with the possible participation of a few legionnaires.[1][2] The Hadassah medical convoy massacre is also reported as a massacre because it included the mass killing of unarmed medical personnel.[1]
On the other side, Morris states that "Yishuv troops probably murdered some 800 civilians and prisoners of war".[1] Most of these killings and massacres occurred as villages were overrun and captured during the Second phase of the Civil War, Operation Dani, Operation Hiram and Operation Yoav.[1] According to Morris, the "worst cases" were the Saliha massacre with 70 to 80 killed, the Deir Yassin massacre with around 100, Lydda massacre with around 250, the Al-Dawayima massacre with hundreds and the Abu Shusha massacre with 70.[3]
According to Morris the Israelis were responsible for 24 massacres during the war[1] but Saleh Abdel Jawad has listed 68 villages where acts of indiscriminate killing of prisoners, and civilians, where no threat was posed to Israeli soldiers, took place. He calculates that 455 people were killed at al-Dawayima including 170 women and children.[4]
Controversy surrounds the assertion that a massacre by Israelis took place at al-Tantura.[1]
[edit] Bombing attacks
At the beginning of the civil war, the Jewish militias organized several bombing attacks against cilivans and military Arab targets. On 4 January 1948, the Lehi detonated a lorry bomb against the headquarters of the paramilitary Najjada located in Jaffa's Town Hall, killing 15 Arabs and injuring 80.[5] During the night between 5 and 6 January, at Jerusalem, the Haganah bombed the Christian owned Semiramis Hotel that had been reported to hide Arab militiamen, killing 24 people including the Spanish Consul, and which may have included Iraqi irregulars (Arab militia) t.[6] (Morris also writes that the Semiramis Hotel bombing was an example of the Haganah "inadvertently employ[ing] terror".[7]) The next day, Irgun members in a stolen police van rolled a barrel bomb[8] into a large group of civilians who were waiting for a bus by the Jaffa Gate, killing around 16.[9] Another Irgun bomb went off in the Ramla market on February 18, killing 7 residents and injuring 45.[10][11] On 28 February, the Palmah organised a bombing attack against a garage at Haifa, killing 30 people.[12]
On 22 February 1948, supporters of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni organised, with the help of British deserters, three attacks against the Jewish community in Jerusalem. Using car bombs aimed at the headquarters of the Palestine Post, the Ben Yehuda Street market and the backyard of the Jewish Agency's offices, they killed 22, 53 and 13 Jewish people respectively.[13][14]
During the first months of 1948, the railway between Cairo and Haifa was often targeted. On 31 March, it was mined near Binyamina, a Jewish settlement in the neighborhood of Caesarea, killing 40 persons and wounding 60. The casualties were all civilians, mostly Arabs. Although there were some soldiers on the train, none were injured. The Palestine Post and the New York Times attributed the attack to Lehi.[15][16]
[edit] Causes
 |
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2009) |
Benny Morris considers that the killings and massacres occurred "[l]ike [in] most wars involving built-up areas."[1]
During the first stage of the war, the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, Haganah operatives had been cautioned against harming women and children but Irgun [and Lehi] didn't practice this distinction, while "Palestinian Arab militias often deliberately targeted civilians."[1] Due to the fact the British Mandate was not yet over, both sides were not able to set up regular POW camps and therefore didn't take prisoners.[1]
During the regular war, the fighting armies were more or less disciplined and "the killings of civilians and prisonners of war almost stopped, except for the series of atrocities committed by the IDF troops".[1]
Despite their rhetoric, Arab armies committed few atrocities and no large-scale massacre of prisoners took place when circumstances might have allowed them to happen, as when they took the Old City of Jerusalem or the villages of Atarot, Neve Yaakov, Nitzanim, Gezer and Mishmar Hayarden.[1] On the contrary, on 28 May, when the inhabitants and fighters of the Old City surrendered, in fear for their lives, the Transjordanian Arab Legion protected them from the mob and even wounded or shot dead other Arabs.[17]
With regard to massacres perpetrated by the IDF at the end of the war and particularly during Operation Hiram, where around 10 massacres occurred, Morris and Gelber have claimed that lack of discipline cannot explain the events.[1][18] Yoav Gelber points out the "hard feelings [of the soldiers] towards the Palestinians" and the fact that the Palestinians had not fled like in former operations.[18] Benny Morris thinks that they were related to a "general vengefulness and a desire by local commanders to precipitate a civilian exodus".[1]
To explain the difference in the number of killings and massacres, Morris speculates that "[t]his was probably due to the circumstance that the victorious Israelis captured some four hundred Arab villages and towns during April-November 1948, whereas the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab Liberation Army failed to take any settlements and the Arab armies that invaded in mid-May overran fewer than a dozen Jewish settlements".[1] He considers too that belligerents behaved reasonably well and that the "1948 [war] is noteworthy for the relatively small number of civilian casualties both in the battles themselves and in the atrocities that accompanied them" in comparison, for example, "with the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s or the Sudanese civil wars of the past fifty years".[1]
[edit] Consequences
According to historians, whether deliberate or otherwise, the massacres did have a strong impact on the exodus of the Palestinian Arab population. For example, the Deir Yassin massacre is considered to have generated more panic among the Arab population than all other previous operations together and to have caused a mass flight of Palestinians in numerous areas.[19][20]
Additionally, the Deir Yassin massacre became a strong argument for the Arab states to intervene against Israel. Arab League chief Azzam Pasha is one record for starting that, 'The massacre of Deir Yassin was to a great extent the cause of the wrath of the Arab nations and the most important factor for sending [in] the Arab armies'.[21]
[edit] Historiography
[edit] Arab warnings and threats of massacre
[edit] Against Jews of Palestine
After the Partition vote, Arab leaders threatened the Jewish population of Palestine. They spoke of "driving the Jews into the sea" and ridding Palestine "of the Zionist Plague".[22] On the eve of the Arab armies invasion, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, "describing the fate of the Jews" even declared: 'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.'[23]
According to the Israeli traditional historiography, these statements reflected the Arab intentions.[22][24] While Benny Morris considers the real picture of the Arab aims to be more complex, notably because they were well aware they could not defeat the Jews[22], he argues that the Yishuv was indeed threatened with extinction and feared what would happen if the Arabs won.[25] Yoav Gelber, on the other hand, regards these public statements as 'meaningless' and judges that the 'actions [of their armies] imply that the aims of the Arab invasion were decidedly limited and focused mainly on saving Arab Palestine from total Jewish domination'[26].
[edit] Against Jews outside Palestine
Jewish population centers in Arab countries outside Palestine also became threatened, in relation to the partition plan. On November 14, 1947, the Egyptian delegate at the United Nations stated that: 'The proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Muslim countries. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries an anti-Semitism even more difficult to root out than the antisemitism which the Allies tried to eradicate in Germany'.[27] Indeed, the UN declaration of partition, though it was generally met with by peaceful protests in Arab countries, provided the pretext for a pogrom in Aden soon after, on 2 December 1947, in which 82 Jews were killed.[28]
The New York Times reported a memorandum of the World Jewish Congress expressing concerns about this situation in the edition of 16 May 1948 in an article enitled : "Jews in grave danger in all Moslem lands: Nine hundred thousand in Africa and Asia face the wrath of their foes".[29] At Cairo in Egypt, between June and November 1948, several bombing attacks took place against Jews, killings several dozens of them.[30]
[edit] "Purity of arms"
During the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine before the war, the criterion of "Purity of arms" was used to distinguish between the respective attitudes of the Irgun and Haganah towards Arabs, with the latter priding itself on its adherence to principle.[31] Generally speaking, this precept requires that "weapons remain pure [and that] they are employed only in self-defence and [never] against innocent civilians and defenceless people".[32] But if it "remained a central value in education" it was "rather vague and intentionally blurred" at the practical level.[31]
In 1946, at a meeting held between the heads of the Haganah, Ben Gurion predicted a confrontation between the Arabs of Palestine and the Arab states. Concerning the "principle of purity of arms", he stressed that : "The end does not justify all means. Our war is based on moral grounds"[33] and during the 1948 War, the MAPAM, the political party affiliated to Palmah, asked "a strict observance of the Jewish Purity of arms to secure the moral character of [the] war".[34]
When he was criticized by MAPAM members for his attitude concerning the Arab refugee problem, David Ben Gurion reminded them the events of Lydda and Ramla and the fact Palmah officers had been responsible for the "outrage that had encouraged the Arabs'flight made the party uncomfortable."[34]
According to Avi Shlaim, "purity of arms" is one of the key features of 'the conventional Zionist account or old history' whose 'popular-heroic-moralistic version of the 1948 war' is 'taught in Israeli schools and used extensively in the quest for legitimacy abroad'.[32] Benny Morris adds that '[t]he Israelis' collective memory of fighters characterized by "purity of arms" is also undermined by the evidence of [the dozen case] of rapes committed in conquered towns and villages.' According to him, 'after the war, the Israelis tended to hail the "purity of arms" of its militiamen and soldiers to contrast this with Arab barbarism, which on occasion expressed itself in the mutilation of captured Jewish corpses.' According to him, 'this reinforced the Israelis' positive self-image and helped them "sell" the new state abroad and (...) demonized the enemy'.[1]
[edit] Events of al-Tantura
There is a controversy among historians for what concerns the events of al-Tantura. On the night between 22 and 23 May 1948, soldiers of the Alexandroni brigade attacked the village. The fighting caused the deaths of a few dozens of Arabs and 14 Israeli soldiers.[35]
According to the analysis of Yoav Gelber, based on a counting of the unhabitants, the refugees, the POW's and the deaths, there is no people missing and therefore no massacre could have occurred.[35] Benny Morris's analysis concludes that the documentation and the interviews do not prove that a massacre occurred but that the hypothesis cannot be simply dismissed.[36] Ilan Pappé considers that the testimonies of former Alexandroni soldiers and Palestinian refugees prove, on the contrary, that at least 200 unarmed Tantura villagers were killed, whether in revenge for the death of Israeli soldiers due to sniper shots or later when they were unjustifiably accused of hiding weapons.[37]
[edit] Palestinian historiography
Nadine Picaudou studied the evolution of Palestinian historiography on the 1948 war. She argues that the Deir Yassin massacre long remained the only one discussed 'as if it sufficed to summarize the tragedy of Palestinian victims'. She thinks that during the period for which 'collective memory conflated with Palestinian nationalist mobilization, one exemplary event sufficed to express the tragedy'. Referring to the study performed in 2007 by Saleh Abd al-Jawad, Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War, she writes that the massacres engaged Palestinian historians' concerns relatively late, but that when 'Palestinians began to write their history, the issue of massacres inevitably became one of the relevant factors in accounting for the mass exodus.'[38]
Nadine Picaudou also underlines that 'Palestinian historiography has retained the nakba paradigm, which reduces the Palestinians to the status of passive victims of Israeli policies, as [illustrated by] the limited attention accorded by researchers to the 1947-48 battles (...)'.[38]
[edit] Deir Yassin
In 1948, the village of Deir Yassin was located west of Jerusalem. It had nevertheless no strategic importance and its inhabitants were not participants in the war. On 9 April, around 120 men from the Irgun and the Lehi attacked the village in the context of the Operation Nachshon. The inhabitants opposed an unexpected resistance to the attack. The assailants suffered heavy losses and civilians were killed in the exchanges of fire. The militiamen then took the houses one by one, often cleansing them with grenades and unarmed civilians were shot at spot. After the fighting, some villagers were executed after being exhibited in the streets of Jerusalem. A group of prisoners were executed in a quarrel of the surroundings and other at Sheikh Bader. On the 100 to 120 victims, around 70% were civilians.[39][40][41]
In 2007, Israeli military historian Uri Milstein published a controversial book, Blood Libel at Deir Yassin in which he claims that the events of Deir Yassin were before all the result of a battle and not of a massacre. Nevertheless, he goes farther and on the contrary to his peers, reject the reality of the atrocities that followed the attack of the village.[42] Nadine Picadou also nuances the events and consider that in the Palestinian historiography, 'the massacre of Deir Yassin eclipsed the battle of Deir Yassin'.[38] Benny Morris considers that the capture of the village, insignificant on the military point of view, can hardly be considered as a "battle".[41]
[edit] Beit Daras Massacre
Beit Daras was occupied by Jewish paramilitary groups on May 11, 1948.
Before the occupation the land was as follows:
LAND[43] Ethnic Land Ownership (Durums) Arab 15,896 Jewish 0 Public 461 Total 16,357
POPULATION[44]Time Number
1596 319 1922 1,670 1931 1,804 1945 2,750 1948 3,190 Est. Refugees 1998 19,590
According to Palestinian historiography, after a number of failed attempts to occupy this village, Jewish paramilitary groups mobilized a large contingent and surrounded the village. Sudanese troops defended the village and there were clashes with the Jewish paramilitary groups.[45] However, The people of Beit Daras decided that women and children should leave because of the intensity of the fighting. As women and children left the village they were met by the Jewish paramilitary groups who massacred them despite the fact that they could see they were women and children fleeing the fighting. [46]
The massacre occurred during the Operation Barak (lightening)by the Giv'ati Brigade.[47] According to Arab historian Walid Khalidi, "The only remains of village buildings are the foundation of one house and some scattered rubble. At least one of the old streets is clearly recognizable"
[edit] Hadassah medical convoy
In 1948, Hadassah hospital was located in the enclave of the Mount Scopus, at Jerusalem from where it dominated several Arab quarters. On 14 April, a convoy carrying medical personnel, some injured fighters and munitions, and protected by Haganah soldiers, tried to reach the enclave. Arab fighters had been informed by an Australian officer that the convoy's mission was to use the enclave to attack Arab quarters and cut off the road to Ramallah. A large Arab force then ambushed the convoy, and, in the fight, several vehicles were shot up, and couldn't withdraw. The battle raged for several hours and British intervention was late in coming. 79 people from the convoy were killed, mainly civilians. Following the incident, Jacques de Reynier urged that in future all convoys be relieved of military escorts and placed under Red Cross protection. This was quickly agreed to. He also asked that the enclave be demilitarised under similar conditions, but this was refused by the Zionist authorities.[48]
While the whole event is usually seen as a massacre, Benny Morris considers it to have been, rather, a battle, given that there was shooting between Arab and Haganah militia and targeted a medical supply convoy headed for Mount Scopus (a hospital that ironically also treated Arab injured). He points out however that the death toll incurred by medical personal, who were unarmed, was massive.[1] However, in "One State, Two State: Resolving the Israel/Palestinian Conflict (pg. 55)", he refers to the Arab attack as an "ambush" of a "Jewish convoy bearing doctors and nurses" and that "seventy-eight were slaughtered". Even in "1948" he describes the convoy as protecting the doctors, students and nurses and describes the seventy-eight killed as "roasted alive" such that only thirty could be recovered, with the rest "turned to ashes".
[edit] Lydda
In July 1948, the Israelis launched the Operation Danny to conquer the cities of Lydda and Ramle. The first attack on Lydda occurred on the afternoon of 11 July when the 89th battalion mounted on armoured cars and jeeps raided the city "spraying machine-gun fire at anything that moved". "Dozens of Arabs (perhaps as many as 200)" were killed.[49] According to Benny Morris, the description of this raid written by one of the soldiers "combine[s] elements of a battle and a massacre".[49]
Later, Israeli troops entered the city and took up position in the town centre. The only resistance came from the police fort that was hold by "a small force of Legionnaires and irregulars". Detention compounds were arranged in the mosques and the churches for adult males and 300-400 Israeli soldiers garrisoned the town. In the morning of 12 July, the situation was calm but around 11:30 an incident occurred. Two or three armoured cars entered the town and a firefight erupted. The skirmish made believe to Lydda townspeople that the Arab Legion was counter-attacking and probably a few dozen snipers[50] fired against the occupying troops. Israeli soldiers felt threatened, vulnerable because they were isolated among thousands of hostile townpeople and 'angry [because] they had understood that the town had surrendered'. '[They] were told to shoot 'at any clear target' or, alternatively, at anyone 'seen on the streets'. The Arab inhabitants panicked. Many rushed in the streets and were killed.[51]
There is a controversy among historians for the events that followed. According to Benny Morris, at the Dahaimash mosque some prisoners tried to break out and escape, probably fearing to be massacred. IDF threw grenades and fired rockets at the compound and several dozens Arabs were shot and killed.[51] The Palestinian historiography describes the events differently. According to it, it was civilians that had refugeed themselves in the mosque, thinking that the Israelis would not dare to profane the sanctuary. The Israelis killed all the people there making 93 to 176 dead.[52] Alon Kadish and Avraham Sela write that there is a confusion between two mosques. According to them, detenees were only gathered around the Great Mosque, where no incident occurred and it is a group of 50-60 armed Arabs who barricaded in the Dahaimash mosque. Its storming resulted in the death of 30 Arab militiamen and civilians, including elderly, women and children.[53]
The deaths of July 12 are regarded in the Arab world and by several historians as a massacre. Walid Khalidi calls it "an orgy of indiscriminate killing."[54] Benny Morris writes that the "jittery Palmahniks massacr[ed] detenees in a mosque compound."[55] According to Yoav Gelber, it was a "bloodier massacre" than at Deir Yassin.[56] Alon Kadish and Avraham Sela write that it was "an intense battle where the demarcation between civilians, irregular combatants and regular army units hardly existed."[53]
[edit] Table of killings and massacres
Here is a non exhaustive table of killings or massacres that took place during the war :
| Date | Event | Victims | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 December 1947 | Beit Nabala, Ramla | Convoy | |
| 18 December 1947 | Al Khisas, Safed | Villagers | 10 dead including five children[57] |
| 30 December 1947 | Haifa Oil Refinery | Workers | Following Irgun attack |
| 31 December 1947 | Balad al-Shaykh massacre, Haifa | Villagers | Following Haifa Oil Refinery massacre |
| 5 January 1948 | Jaffa Town Hall | --- | |
| 5 January 1948 | Semiramis Hotel bombing, Jerusalem | Civilians | |
| 8 January 1948 | Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem | Civilians | |
| 22 February 1948 | Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem | Civilians | |
| 13 & 16 March 1948 | Al-Husayniyya, District of Safed | Villagers | 'the total death toll was put at dozens by Israeli sources[58] |
| 9 April 1948 | Deir Yassin, Jerusalem | Unarmed fighters and villagers | |
| 13 April 1948 | Hadassah Hospital convoy, Jerusalem | Convoy | |
| 1 May 1948 | Ein al Zeitun, Safed | Villagers | |
| 13 May 1948 | Kfar Etzion, Hebron | Unarmed prisoners | |
| 13–19 May 1948 | Abu Shusha, Haifa | Villagers | |
| 20 May 1948 | Al-Kabri, Acre | Villagers | |
| 23 May 1948 | Al-Tantura, Haifa | Villagers | There is no consensus among historians concerning these events |
| 11–12 July 1948 | Lydda | Civilians | |
| 24–28 August 1948 | 'Arab Suqrir, Gaza | Bedouins | "ten Arabs who tried to escape were killed."[59] |
| 28 October 1948 | Al-Dawayima, Hebron | Villagers | |
| 29 October 1948 | Saf Saf, Safed | Villagers | Between 52 and 70 men shot[60] |
| 30 October 1948 | Saliha, Safed | Villagers | |
| 30 October 1948 | Eilabun massacre, Tiberias | Villagers | Appears to be different from 2 November event |
| 30 October 1948 | Sa'Sa', Safed | Villagers | "mass murder" Israel Galili[61] |
| 31 October 1948 | Hula, Lebanon | Villagers | |
| 2 November 1948 | Arab al-Mawasi, Tiberias | Bedouins | 15 men taken to Eilabun and shot.[62] |
[edit] See also
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- Mordechai Weingarten
- 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine - 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- 1948 Palestinian exodus
- List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- The Sons of Eilaboun a documentary film about the massacre in Eilabun
- Operation Cleaning (Mivtza Nikayon)
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Morris 2008, pp. 404-406.
- ^ Morris, 1999, p. 214: 'Villagers shouting "Deir Yassin, Deir Yassin" poured through the breach. The remaining defenders laid down their weapons and walked, hands in the air, into the center of the compound. There, according to one of the few survivors, the villagers and perhaps some legionnaires as well proceeded to mow them down. In all, about 120 defenders, 21 of them women, died that day. Of the 4 survivors, 3 were saved by Arabs."
- ^ Interview with Benny Morris by Ari Shavit in Ha'aretz on September 1st 2004.
- ^ Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007), Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War, in E. Benvenisti & al, Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Berlin, Heidelberg, New-York : Springer, pp. 59-127
- ^ Yoav Gelber, 'Palestine 1948', p.20; The Scotsman newspaper, 6th January 1948; Walid Khalidi states that 25 civilians were killed, in addition to the military targets. 'Before Their Diaspora', 1984. p. 316, picture p. 325; Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949', Cambridge University Press, p.46.
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 123.
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 66.
- ^ Larry Collins/Dominique Lapierre, 'O Jerusalem'.History Book Club/ Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London. 1972. Page 135: 'two fifty-gallon oil drums packed tight with old nails, bits of scrap iron, hinges, rusty metal filings. At their center was a core of TNT...'
- ^ Collins/Lapierre. Page 138: 17 killed. Dov Joseph, 'The Faithful City - The Siege of Jerusalem, 1948'. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1960. Library of Congree Number: 60-10976. page 56: 14 killed and 40 wounded.The Scotsman, 8 January 1948: 16 killed, 41 injured.
- ^ Embassy of Israel, London, website. 2002. Quoting Zeez Vilani - 'Ramla past and present'.
- ^ Scotsman 24 February 1948 :'Jerusalem (Monday) - The 'High Command' of the Arab military organisation issued a communique to the newspapers here to-day claiming full responsibility for the explosion in Ben Yehuda Street on Sunday. It was said to be in reprisal for an attack by Irgun at Ramleh several days ago.'
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem revisited, p.221.
- ^ Yoav Gelber (2006), p.24
- ^ Efraïm Karsh, 2002, p.36.
- ^ The Palestine Post, 1 April 1948
- ^ New York Times, 1 April 1948
- ^ Benny Morris (2008), pp.219-220.
- ^ a b Yoav Gelber (2006), pp.227-228.
- ^ Simha Flapan , 1987, 'The Palestinian Exodus of 1948', J. Palestine Studies 16 (4), p.3-26.
- ^ Benny Morris (2004), pp.239-240.
- ^ Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis, 1986, p.89.
- ^ a b c Benny Morris (2008), p.396.
- ^ Howard Sachar (2007), p.333.
- ^ Mitchell Bard, 1948 War, on the website of the Jewish Virtual Library.
- ^ Benny Morris (2004), pp.589-590.
- ^ Yoav Gelber, The Jihad that wasn't, Autumn 2008, n°34.
- ^ Malka Hillel Shulewitz (2000), p.84.
- ^ Reuben Ahroni, The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: history, culture, and ethnic relations, Brill, 1994 p.210
- ^ New York Times, 16 May 1948, retrievable here
- ^ Joel Beinin (1998), pp.68-69.
- ^ a b Anita Shapira (1992), p.252.
- ^ a b Avi Shlaim, The Debate About 1948, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27:3, 1995, pp.287-304.
- ^ Anita Shapira (1992), p.295.
- ^ a b Yoav Gelber (2006), p.291.
- ^ a b Folklore versus History: The Tantura Blood Libel, Appendix III of Yoav Gelber (2006).
- ^ "The Tantura "Massacre", 9 February 2004, The Jerusalem report
- ^ Ilan Pappé, The Tantura case in Israel, Journal of Palestine Studies, 2001, pp. 19-39.
- ^ a b c Nadine Picaudou, The Historiography of the 1948 Wars, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, November 2008.
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Revisited, p.237.
- ^ Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948, pp.309-310.
- ^ a b Benny Morris, 1948, pp.125-127.
- ^ Uri Milstein, Blood Libel at Dir Yassin, on the website of the author.
- ^ "Village Statisitcs of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine" Produced by the Mandate Palestine Government in 1937 under the request of the Peel Commission, Published in 1945, http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html
- ^ Ottoman Tax Records cited in "All That Remains" by Dr. Walid Khalidi.
- ^ http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/Bayt-Daras/index.html
- ^ http://www.freepali.com/
- ^ The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-1949 by Benny Morris
- ^ Henry Laurens, " La Question de Palestine: L'accomplissement des prophéties, 1947-1967", (tome 3) Fayard, 2007, p.76.
- ^ a b Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited', p.426.
- ^ Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited', footnote 78, p.473.
- ^ a b Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited', pp.427-428.
- ^ Spiro Munayyer, The Fall of Lydda, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 27, issue 4, p.
- ^ a b Alon Kadish and Avraham Sela (2005) "Myths and historiography of the 1948 Palestine War revisited: the case of Lydda," The Middle East Journal, September 22, 2005.
- ^ Walid Khalidi, Introduction to Spiro Munayyer's "The Fall of Lydda", Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 80-98, 1998.
- ^ Benny Morris (2008), p.290.
- ^ Gelber, Yoav. Palestine 1948, Sussex Academic Press, 2001, p.162, p.318.
- ^ All That Remains, ISBN 0 88728 224 5. page 465, quoting New York Times
- ^ All That Remains, page 456
- ^ All That Remains, page 80
- ^ All That Remains, page 491
- ^ All That Remains, page 497
- ^ All That Remains, page 546.
[edit] References
- Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2008.
- Howard Sachar, A History of Israel - From the Rise of Zionism to our Time, Knopf, 2007.
- Saleh Abdel Jawad, Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War, in E. Benvenisti & al, Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Springer, 2007.
- Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld Publishing, 2007.
- Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948, Sussex Academic Press, 2006.
- Benny Morris, The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
- Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999, John Murray, 1999.
- Efraim Karsh, The Palestine War 1948, Osprey Publishing, 2002.
- Malka Hillel Shulewitz, The forgotten millions, Continuum Int'l Publishing Group, 2000.
- Joel Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, University of California Press, 1998.
- Anita Shapira, Land and power, Stanford University Press, 1992.
[edit] External links
- Benny Morris, Arab-Israeli War, in Roy Gutman (Editor), Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
- Film about the massacre in Eilabun
