MASSACRE OF CAPTIVES AT AIN ZAYTUN

In his book Blood Libel - The true Story Of The Massacre At Deir Yassin, the Israeli historian Dr. Uri Milstein describes for the first time in details a massacre at a place called Ain Zaytun. His claim was published last Friday by the Nazareth weekly Kul al-Arab (PDF). This is a summary of a chapter in Milstein's book (here in English, here in Hebrew) in which he claims that there was no massacre in Deir Yassin.
Milstein, who is very popular among Israeli right wingers and got the Jabotinsky Award in 2007 for this book, argues that Ben Gurion and his followers built the legend of a massacre in Deir Yassin allegedly committed by the right wing undergrounds Irgun and Lehi in order to discredit them. A very welcome "side effect" for Ben Gurion & Co., according to Milstein, was that the story of Deir Yassin also spread among Arabs in Palestine and caused many of them to flee. 
While the Zionist Labor movement invented a massacre, its own troops committed several massacres and its historians kept covering up this fact, claims Milstein.
The Arab paper printed only the story of the massacre in Ain Zaytun and made only a small reference to Milstein's main argument, saying that he claims that Ain Zaytun's massacre was worse than Deir Yassin.
Actually from a moral point of view for the Palestinians it does not make much difference if there was a real massacre at Deir Yassin or not. Milstein is not a Nakba denier and does not deny that Israeli armed forces committed massacres (not only in Ain Zaytun); he emphasizes that the Israeli Labor leadership also used propaganda in order to encourage Palestinians to flee.




Edited by George Malent