CrossFireArabia
Posted on Aslam Dar:
When you hear people say that history didn’t start on October 7th, this is exactly what they mean.
The date was 9 April, 1948. Just weeks before Israel declared independence, the peaceful Palestinian village of Deir Yassin had signed a peace pact with their neighboring Israeli settlers, and the Palestinian villagers took that agreement seriously and actively refused to allow Arab militias into their village, choosing instead to remain completely neutral in hopes of maintaining peaceful relations.
Now, the Israeli settlers knew the village had no armed protection, and rather than honoring that peace pact like the Palestinians did, they saw this as an opportunity. Zionist militias launched a savage attack on the village. They slaughtered hundreds of civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, and they did it in their own homes.
Reports from the time document acts of sexual violence and mutilation. After the killings, survivors were loaded onto trucks and paraded through the streets of Jerusalem. They were publicly humiliated and mocked for the crime of trusting the Israeli settlers.
Word of the massacre spread rapidly. The horror of what happened caused widespread panic throughout Palestine. Villages began to flee en masse, terrified they would suffer the same fate. The Israeli settlers had discovered that terror was an extremely effective weapon, and they used that fear to dramatically accelerate the Nakba.
There are many stories just like this. But why didn’t we hear about them in school?
