It is an encore performance for the tourist receiving indoctrination on the non-stop trip to the Wailing Wall and the Holocaust Museum. The war for this road was over in April 1948, weeks before Israel declared independence on 15th of May, before the hapless rag-tag units of Arab neighbors entered Palestine and saved what remained of the native population. As T.S. Elliot observed, April is the cruelest month. And so it was on that fateful April when the Palestinians were doomed to start a journey to five decades of exile. Its apotheosis was reached near the entrance to Jerusalem, where the Sacharov gardens lead to a cemetery, to a lunatic asylum and to Deir Yassin.
Death has many names.
On the night of the ninth of April 1948, the Jewish terrorist groups Etzel and Lehi attacked the peaceful village and massacred its men, women and children. I do not want to repeat the gory tale of sliced off ears, gutted bellies, raped women, torched men, bodies dumped in stone quarries or the triumphal parade of the murderers. Existentially, all massacres are similar, from Babi Yar to Chain Gang to Deir Yassin. Yet, the Deir Yassin massacre is special for three reasons. One, it is well documented and witnessed.