Synagogue killings on the site of an Israeli massacre of Palestinians

Editor’s Note: The moral lesson of the “Nazi Holocaust” is supposed to be that humanity must not forget what happened. Yet many of the beneficiaries of “Holocaust” sympathy and reparations have worked to make certain that  the world does not remember the mass murder of Arabs by Israelis. The 2100 Palestinians killed by the Israelis last summer are now all but forgotten in the US media; and the cruel irony of having this week’s synagogue attack in west Jerusalem occur on the site of the village of Deir Yassin, where the massacre of Palestinians by Israeli terrorists occurred, and where the village once stood, is completely lost on the oblivious US media. For this writer, as a student of the religion of Orthodox Judaism, the media’s indifference would appear to be the result of having drank too often at the trough of Talmudic mentality, in which the lives of Judaic persons are more valued and highly prized than those of their enemies and victims. Prof. McGowan elaborates in a note to Mr. Avnery:

In the wake of the recent events in the synagogue at Har Nof, Uri Avnery has written an article which you can read here. Like all his work, Avnery’s article is informative, original and beautifully written. But it has a glaring omission. 

11/21/14 

Dear Uri: 

I know that you realize that the Har Nof neighborhood in West Jerusalem, where four rabbis and a police officer were recently murdered, is built on the lands of Deir Yassin, the Arab village which no longer exists, that was the site of the 1948 massacre, which according to Menachem Begin, was pivotal to the founding of the Jewish state. This was an early massacre in the Nakba (“catastrophe” i.e. the Israeli conquest of Palestine); there were many more to follow, but it struck fear among Palestinians, causing many to flee, also giving the Jews an angle for campaigns of terror, which they visited on other Palestinian villages, basically “Get out or we’ll do to you what we did in Deir Yassin.”

It is interesting to ask why the media, which has been all over this synagogue massacre, mentions nothing about what happened on this site on April 9, 1948?


Why does Wikipedia fail to even cite Deir Yassin in its history of Har Nof?

The picture (above) of Har Nof is taken from Yad Vashem, the most prestigous Holocaust memorial.  The water tower at the top right is next to the main buildings of Deir Yassin, which today serves as a mental hospital, mostly for those suffering with too much religion, an affliction also known as "The Jerusalem Syndrome."

At Yad Vashem all visitors, and especially American politicians, are repeatedly told to "Never forget."  At Deir Yassin the message is "Never mind.”  

There is not even a signpost among the old Arab buildings to indicate that it was once a prosperous Arab village of about 750 people.

In building the Har Nof settlement much of the Deir Yassin cemetery was destroyed.  The rest is now littered with trash and condoms.  Har Nof children have been seen digging up Arab graves.  (Imagine the outcry had they been desecrating Jewish graves.)  Apartment buildings of Har Nof are built on the old quarry where villagers were executed and their bodies dumped and burned on April 10, 1948.

The ironies are breathtaking.  But some of us still remember.

http://www.deiryassin.org

Daniel McGowan
Professor Emeritus, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

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