The Fall speaker has usually been a journalist or historian, the Spring speaker more artsy fartsy. The Fall is for propaganda, the Spring for sanitization. Last Fall it was Yosef Gorny, a critique of whose work on the origins of Zionism can be found in Norman Finkelstein's Image and Reality. Finkelstein accords him respect, although disagreeing with him on a fundamental level about the nature of Zionist ideology.

Gorny's presentation was unprofessional and unscholarly, with no references to the literature, more like a Zionist fairy tale he might tell to his grandchildren. As is the case in these matters, the event was attended almost only by Jews, academic or from the community. These events are never seen as a forum to debate serious issues, although two Muslim students attended and critically questioned him, as well as myself, especially on the role of transfer in labor Zionist ideology, which Gorny denies.

The comment that stuck in my mind from Gorny: In 1948, "some Palestinians ran, others were pushed out." Gorny, a refugee from Germany in the 1930s, would hardly apply the same terms to German Jews, of course.

Perhaps you would argue that this is what Ben-Gurion wanted in any event. Perhaps, but there's no denying he had no choice in the matter. Either commit natonal suicide, or refuse to allow the refugees to return in the absence of an internationally recognized peace agreement.

In retrospect, Palestinians of today admit that one of the most terrible mistakes they made back in 1948 was to over-report the details of the Deir Yassin massacre. "The goal was to mobilize Arab support for the Palestinians who were slaughtered by the Zionists but what really happened was that more and more Palestinians became scared and left their country," said Hazem Nusseibeh, a leading Palestinian figure who currently lives in Jordan. In 1948 he was among the key figures of the city of Jerusalem.

…"True, there was exchange of fire with the Jews. Prior to the attack, they used to come to the village and distribute leaflets calling for the establishment of friendly and brotherly relations with us offering a formula of 'do not hit us, we won't hit you.' Our youths confronted them and did not listen to them. Our youths used to go out to the eastern side of the village and beat up whatever Jew they saw."

…Mohammed Asaad Radwan Al Yassini, 70, who currently lives in the Old City of Jerusalem, confirmed that some of the men were dressed in women's outfits.

…Did they use speakers and what did they say?

"They called on us to surrender, to throw our weapons and to save ourselves. But we did not imagine them breaking into the village.

…Ali Yousef Jaber, Abu Yousef, is also 70 years old. He lives in Am'ari refugee camp near Ramallah. Excerpts below:

"I would like to stress on the fact that no rape incidents took place. That was part of a big lie that some of the Arabs and some of our leaders invented but were refuted by our villagers. I was among a group of people who went to Saad Eddin Al Aref to talk to him about this. He told us he wanted to frame them and attribute to them a brutal crime. I said to him: if you want to frame them, do not use Deir Yassin, or our women. Do not attribute to us something that never happened, otherwise this is infamy that our village and its people do not deserve…