Israel is guilty of the same massacres and atrocities it has accused Palestinians of committing on October 7. My family survived one of those massacres in the village of Deir Yassin on this day 76 years ago.
On this day 75 years ago, my grandmother and her family survived the Deir Yassin Massacre in 1948. I inherited my family’s memories, the scars that come with them, and the duty never to forget.
Zionism has always used sexual violence as a primary tool to eliminate indigenous Palestinians, and maintain the Israeli settler-colonial regime.
The same settler-colonial project that carried out the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 is responsible for the killing of 16-year old Qusay Hamamra last week.
Israel’s settler-colonial project in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan reminds Philip Farah of how his family’s history reflects the ongoing Nakba.
Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer’s statements celebrating Israel’s creation as a Jewish state in the ancient Jewish “homeland” are appalling in their anti-Palestinianism. They fail to say a word about the fact that 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled in Israel’s creation and not allowed to return to their homes.
From April 1st to May 14, 1948 — before Israel was declared, before the British left, and before any Arab soldier entered Palestine to save it — Zionist militias essentially conquered Palestine. Salman Abu Sitta says this critical period leading to Al Nakba has rarely been looked upon in this light, and shows how massacres that took place during this period were pivotal in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
A week ago, Haaretz published a bombshell investigative report about a government agency that was systematically disappearing Nakba archives. Yesterday, Israeli historian Benny Morris followed up with a piece focusing on the disappearance of archives specifically concerning the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.
Today marks 70 years since the massacre at Deir Yassin. The latest repression in Gaza is a reminder that the spirit of this massacre lives on in Israel. In 1948, as today, massacres to push and keep Palestinians off of the land were dictated by core Israeli policies. It is past time to confront the Western part in this tragedy.