(1) i'll give a counter sample of "perpetrators" getting more respect for their version - the noted Muhammad al-Durrah incident "perpetrated" by Talal Abu Rachmeh.

(2) i used many refrences besides the etzel for "the israelis" statement - here are a few of them:
 dir yasin on hebrew wiki - "the battle that traspired in the village"
 the battle described on hebrew wiki:
 some info about diwhere attacks started and locations and equipment used.
 "before the start of the battle the etzel and lehi gave up on the surprize element and notified the villagers about the intended attack so that women and children will have enough time to escape from the village, by that the forces tried to prevent an injury to residents of the village."
 "The battle started before the intended time because the Etzel forces' location was revealed by the village guards."
 "despite the purpouse of the operation was to capture the village and evict the population (e.g. since israel claim it was being used to attack convoys and it was a stratecig location to break the seige on jerusalem), matters turned into a battle, in which many of the villagers were killed, including women and children.
 Ezra Yakhin (elkanam) of the Lehi, who participated in the fighting, says: "at the beggining of the battle the women of the village joined the men who were also masking themselves as women, which gave a difficulty at seperating the fighting population with those who are not fighters"
more from that page:
 "current researches no longer raise the allegations of abuse, rape, or blowing up houses with the residents inside."
  this i only now found - historion writes serious book about it with documentation... he's israeli no?
  Da'at encyclopedia:
 "on 2.4.48 deir yassin people started sniping at the jewish neighbourhoods at Beit-Hakerem and Yafeh-Nof" (unlike the residents' testimony.. maybe they were "perpetrators" also?).
 "testimonials of the Haganda information tell of fortifications built at the village and of a lot of weapon's storaging."
 "several days before the attack, information was telling of presence of foreign fighters at the village, among them Iraqi soldiers and gang men."
 this article also mentions the beir zeit university and stated that the university's own research says that: "the bir zeit univ. report tells that the men at deir yassin took an active part in the violence against jewish targets and that many of the villagers particiapted at the battle of the kastel  alongside abd-al-kader al-husseini." <- i think we should find the original bir zeit research to check this one.
 this article has so much information.. that it's too much to translate.. but there's definately validity, "even if it's the israeli pov", to it's report.
  <- another heavily detailed link.
now i'm going no reverting back yet - but i think the reversion was somewhat out of order.