Remember Deir Yassin
by Gilad Atzmon
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Deir Yassin 2012
Yesterday, after an absence of five years, Deir Yassin was once again remembered.
The London Palestinian Community and well-wishers remember
Deir Yassin Remembered is an organisation which exists only to remember the massacre of Deir Yassin of April 9th 1948. I became familiar with DYR in the early 2000s. I performed at a few DYR commemorations and each and every time I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t only the emotional intensity of the commemorations but also only at DYR events could one see the true commitment and devotion of the Palestinian community.
It is no secret that the one people who are rarely seen at Palestinian solidarity gatherings are Palestinians. They are hardly ever involved with the PSC or any other organization, but Deir Yassin Remembered is different. A DYR commemoration is no mere solidarity event – it is about Palestinians and only about Palestinians - their past, their present and their enduring suffering.
Dr Hassassian inscribes in the Book of the Victims
Yesterday, as on previous occasions leading members of the UK Palestinian community gathered together to light candles for their parents, brothers and sisters, murdered by the Irgun and Stern Gang at Deir Yassin. Present, was the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Dr Manual Hassassian and the entire Palestinian Delegation. Dr. Hassassian is a remarkable speaker who, while welcoming those gathered, managed to draw meaningful historical interpretations from the massacre. The fact is that in the Holy Land nothing has changed – the racially driven plan to evict the true people of that land is still in place and practiced 24/7 by the Israeli government.
Abu Ashraf tells of the massacre
DYR, together with the Palestinian Delegation flew over from Palestine, Abu Ashraf, a survivor of Deir Yassin. Abu Ashraf was eight years old when he saw his family and friends slaughtered by my grandfather’s beloved Irgun. But strangely, although it was my grandfather who was the Irgun commander and therefore primarily implicated in the atrocity, as I listened to Abu Ashraf and his story, it was of my dad that I thought.
Abu Ashraf's son and nephew - Martyrs both
Abu Ashraf and my dad were born in the same year, on the same land and under the same sun. When he was eight years old, Abu Ashraf’s life – present and future – was cruelly shattered. His home was destroyed, his family and friends were murdered and since then, he has lived as a refugee. Forty years later his own son was also butchered by the IDF while the rest of his kids ended up in Israeli prisons.
My father, on the other hand, though living under the same blue sky and growing up on Abu Ashraf’s land, was a free man. He travelled the world, he studied, he saw his parents grow old and was able to care for them – and his son, yours’ truly, is alive and kicking. My father is a free man while Abu Ashraf is a prisoner.
Can Abu Ashraf and my dad ever be friends? I know they can. But can my people make friends with Palestine or Palestinians? Well, my people are not as friendly as I would like them to be, so of that I am not so sure.
Remembering the victims
For years Deir Yassin Remembered was silent. In 2005-6 the organisation was wounded by a massive AZZ (anti-Zionist Zionists) campaign. Some Jewish so-called ‘anti-Zionists’ were disturbed by DYR’s equation of Deir Yassin with Jewish suffering and the Shoa. But to me it all made perfect sense. After all, Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust memorial, built on the confiscated land of Ein Kerem, lies just 1400 meters from, and is in clear sight of, the village of Deir Yassin.
So, for a time the UK Jewish anti–Zionist community managed to slow down DYR’s activity, but it seems this precious organisation has bounced right back – and, as is so often the case with adversity bravely faced, DYR has re-emerged stronger than before. We owe thanks to this organization and to the support of the Palestinian Delegation and its Cultural Attache Mouhamed Masharqa.
But sadly, there were some people missing last night. The PSC leadership, though invited, were not in the room and I learned that the PSC leadership attempted to boycott, and even destroy the commemoration by mounting pressure on the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) to withdraw its support to the event. Now, what with the UK BDS movement, more active against fellow Palestinians than ever it was againstIsrael, there does seem to be an awful lot of boycotting going on in the Palestine solidarity movement.
Of course, this is no big surprise to me. In recent years and under the leadership of Sarah Colborne, the PSC London head office transformed itself into a true Zionist outlet taking its orders from rabid Zionist and openly Islamophobic Harry’s Place and desperately looking for ever new ways to please the Jewish Chronicle. Completely subservient to the sectarian AZZ command, the PSC recently expelled from its ranks some of its leading long-standing activists because they didn’t comply with the Jewish political line and, for the same reasons, has even gone as far as expelling Palestinians. 
The PSC is now irrelevant but with the rapidly growing popularity of deLiberation and the clear success of yesterday’s Deir Yassin commemoration, I believe it is only a matter of time, it may even be mere days, before a new solidarity voice will be heard in this Kingdom.
Posted by Gilad Atzmon
on April 24, 2012. Filed under Activism,Britain.
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13 Responses to Remember Deir Yassin
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searching
April 24, 2012 at 11:44 pm
Great article. People have to remember their history, and have the right to express their pain and condemnation of the crime, and those who did it.
” If you can’t beat them, join them” -the fifth collumn motto.
Very effective tactic. Takes some time to achieve its goal, but once it reaches it, the damage is ENORMOUS.
I see it in activities of the hierarchy of Catholic Church ( since Vaticanum II),
you see it in the PCS in the “Jewnited Kingdom”.
Gilad Atzmon
April 25, 2012 at 12:47 am
Tx so much.. i like the Jewnited Kingdom::))
searching
April 24, 2012 at 11:57 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVi1IAwF5ws
searching
April 25, 2012 at 12:03 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KBzaT4ZaLA&feature=related
searching
April 25, 2012 at 12:07 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6fyFJfmobg
ariadna
April 25, 2012 at 12:52 am
“I will never abandon it!” says the little terrorist.
No wonder the Israelis feel threatened.
What does it take to cleanse the land that “g-d” gave the Jews of these undesirables!?!
Laura Stuart
April 25, 2012 at 4:32 pm
I can’t believe I wasn’t there – I completely forgot.
I also can’t believe that the P.S.C. would attempt to boycott this event. So take away the word Palestinian and the word Solidarity and what have you got left?
searching
April 25, 2012 at 4:51 pm
You are right. Once one starts worrying about not offending sensitivites of “our Jewish friends” by saying this or doing that , then basicaly is the end of a free speech and actions, and welcome to the world of political correcteness, censorship and bolshevic style of ruling, (the top says, the bottoms listens and does whatever was told to do without a word of complain…or else.)
Truth offends many people. Truth does not compromise just to make itself look good or popular. Truth has many enemies, but Truth ,even crushed into the earth, will rise again.
Roy Bard
April 25, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Sadly I couldn’t make it either – I wish I had been able to. Thanks for the write up Gilad.
searching
April 25, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Here is an excellent movie ,done by a Polish director, Greg Braun, titled :”Eugenics–in the name of the progress”.
This documenatary film got very good reviews and few ,independent rewards.
A MUST see. It explains a lot of what/why we observe right now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NQIYq5u4n4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4jK_-cWC1Q&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB91WpJqB9w&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2yJ3kF5Aes&feature=relmfu
searching
April 26, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Here is another great video on the subject of so called Transhumanism.
Many people are not aware of it.
It is a must watch video.
Scientists may become the biggest and the most effective “Evil’s willing executioners” if they lack in morals/ethic. And they often do.
What differs them from any average mass killer?? Only the amount of education and knowledge.
Nothing more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJcGbDQ62M
Somoe
April 25, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Amazing how apt this tune by Pato Banton is for our time ~ speaks to people of the world today just as much as it did 25 years ago… ‘We struggle but we Never give in’. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTGDMTqKFM8
searching
April 26, 2012 at 4:43 pm
64 years passed, tons of papers used for so called “peace negotiotions” , billions of empty words and empty promises have fallen into fresh air ,and that’s how far it got.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/yesterday-and-today/