In article <HM.93Apr24130607@angell.cs.brown.edu> hm@cs.brown.edu (Harry Mamaysky) writes: >In article <martinb.735590895@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> aurag@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Aurag Hassan) writes:  I am replying to this because I haven't seen anyone else do so yet. It seems rather odd really as there are so few really wierd posters left who aren't fascists or Arab extremists.  >Arab civilians did die at Dir yassin. But there was no massacre.  Yes it was and it was clearly admitted so by the troops who carried it out and then stupidly deposited testimony in their own archives to that effect.  >First >of all, the village housed many *armed* troops.  Source? Noone is claiming this anymore except you. Would you like to name one credible historian who asserts this? I believe that even Begin has the decency not to claim this.  >Secondly, the Irgun >and Stern fighters had absolutely no intentions of killing civilians.  Yes they did and thye said so - they said they went their with the intention of killing all the men and all the women who got in their way. Their *own* archives remember, this is not hostile testimony.  >The village was attacked only for its military significance. In fact, >a warning was given to the occupants of the village to leave before >the attack was to begin.  Sound van bogged down in a ditch. No warning given.  >By all rational standards, Dir Yassin was not a massacre. The killing >was unintentional.  Yes it was and no it was not. It was a massacre - the murder of hundreds of unarmed civilians who had no part in the fighting. The surviving men were taken to the local quarry and shot in the back of the head. Not intentional? Yeah right.  >The village housed Arab snipers and Arab troops.  No it did not - you have a source for this slander of course?  >Thus it was attacked for its military significance. It was not >attacked with intentions of killing any civilians.  The men involved said clearly that the intention was to kill all the men. It was a premeditated mass murder nothing else.  >To even compare Dir Yassin, in which some 120 or so Arabs died, to the >Holocaust is absurd.  On that we agree at least.  >The Irgun did not want to kill any civilians. The >village had almost 1000 inhabitants, most of whom survived.  Yes they did want to kill the inhabitants and many of them were killed. This is of course simple to resolve, the Haganah sent a soldier to report on the massacre. He brought a photographer with him. He sent in a report. The Israeli government suppressed it. Now the government was a Labour Government. Since then the Revisionists have gotten into power but for some reason Likud didn't release the report and its pictures either. Perhaps you might want to tell me why? If it happened as you claim then there will be no pictures of men shot in the head with their hands tied behind their backs, no women and children shot as they slept. Yet for some reason they did not take the chance to clear their own name. You have a reason for this don't you? I somehow doubt it. The facts are exactly as the people responsible claim - a premeditated mass murder nothing else. No Iraqi soldiers, no other fighting. Just ethnic cleansing at work.  Joseph Askew