This is not about politics. It's not about specifics of the horrors that are occurring in the city whose name I, Diana Ghazzawi, carry with me. It's a tiny reflection. It's thinking about the fate that allowed some of my family to live fairly peacefully and freely in Kuwait and later North America, while my aunts, their husbands, and their children and grandchildren have lived their whole lives in Ghazza. It's me worrying about parking at the mall, while they worry about the death that's raining down upon them. How strange. How very strange. My aunts, my cousins, who I've never met. Who, God forbid, if they don't get lucky, I may never meet. I can't pretend I feel very close to them, as circumstances have kept us apart our whole lives. But when you see the sights I've been seeing, the sights my father has been watching, bringing news that his childhood haunts and sisters' streets have been bombed, you realize it's not important that you have relatives there. When you hear voices that sound like your own, and faces that look like your own, and shock and anger that are an amplified version of your own, you realize that every Palestinian is your aunt, your uncle, and your cousin.

Vexedlevantin writes a panoramic post on the Gaza massacre, and the Arab role in it:

‘The largest incursion against Palestinians in decades'. Israel openly declared an all out war against a a legitimately elected government it prefers to name terrorist organization. Naturally, calling Israel a terrorist state is deemed anti-Semitic, but we'll just put that aside for the time being. In the very words of the Israeli ambassador to the UK, ‘Israel will go as far as needed to protect the security of its people'. That's practically a Carte Blanche. This operation is aimed at toppling an inconvenient neighbour with a more Abbas-like government. Over 350 people dead since the bombing raid and rising, yet the Israeli press has the nerve to counter that unfortunate statistic with the death of three Israeli's (one of whom is a Palestinian Israeli). Sure, the lives of three Israelis' is worth 350 Palestinians. That's a ratio more suited to a Zionist sensibility. But despite it all, ‘every civilian casualty saddens us' (an Israeli statement). Of course civilians are just unfortunately in the way and the job has to be done one way or the other. But thats fine. One expects a the most debased of moral values in Zionists.

Vexedlevantine stresses on the core problem that allowed Israel to launched such attacks on Gaza:

But what really boils me with rage is the divided stance, statement, or even opinion of Arab states. I am specifically referring to the governments. It's a miserable day (one of many) to be referred to as an Arab. Egyptian forces opened fire this morning on Gazans trying to flee. Mubarak is provided with a golden opportunity to shine here. Instead, the Egyptian/Israeli status Quo must be protected at any cost. Is it fair to point the finger so dramatically on the Egyptians though? wouldn't any other Arab governments behave in the same manner if placed in a similar predicament? Egypt and Saudi Arabia have clearly sanctioned this massacre just as they blessed the 2006 bombing of Lebanon. One has to wonder, shouldn't we just cut our losses, save ourselves and amputate that limb before the disease spreads any further? Shouldn't one address the source of the problem and cut whats fueling it? At least partly. But who's to carry out that task? the only way is for people to rise up in protest, pretty much as they are doing in many Arab capital cities as they protest against the onslaught right now, but instead protest against the impotence of their governments. Governments that pay lip service to Arabism, brotherhood, and Islamic values, rather than actively illustrate the sentiment they blag about.

Israeli has strategically chosen the timing of this aggression which nears the premiership elections. In addition to restore the faith of it's people in it's army's invincibility especially after the debacle of Lebanon ‘06. Israel would more than happy to have another go at Hizbollah, and is tempting the prospect. But Nasrallah isn't prepared to be dragged in to such worm whole. Syria has “dramatically” called off it's indirect peace talks. A cookie is in order here. Israel has clearly come to the conclusion that Syria is not willing to break it's ties with Iran nor Hizbollah, to hell with indirect negotiations.
Iran and Syria are not prepared to go further than condemnation for the time being. The ‘half men' are a safe bet. We know which side of the fence they're on and its certainly not the Palestinians one. The cherry on the cake is Abbas and Mubarak's accusation of Hamas holding them responsible for everything. […]

Hamas is a by-product of Israeli foreign policy and occupation, just as much as Hizbollah was a by-product of Lebanon's civil war. So to preach a pseudo-rational rant on how Hamas has instigated this tragedy is absolutely pathetic and short-sighted.

Omar, blogging from Canada, calls our attention to the news headlines that concern Israel:

My customized Google page includes many newsfeeds among them Aljazeera and the BBC conveniently positioned one on top of the other. On a daily basis I compare the headlines of both feeds in terms of the information provided and the news stories covered. What I have always noticed is that when it comes to news concerning Israel the headlines are always contextually different. For example, on Saturday I woke up to the horrible news from Aljazeera of “271dead in an Israeli raid on Gaza” meanwhile just below, the BBC reported “Massive Israeli raids on Gaza.” While both headlines imply Gaza under attack, one doesn’t quantify the magnitude of the attack. AP on other hand reported that “Oil jumps above $39 as Israel-Gaza conflict widens.” Notice the use of the word conflict to imply two equals, and the misleading use of the word “widens”…but I digress.

I think it’s in times like these where alternative media resources like blogs really shine. If you’re looking for a great video coverage of the terror attacks against Gaza I suggest you visit The Real News Network. On the other hand blogs like International Solidarity Movement, In Gaza, as well as a blog to which I have a personal connection, Eva’s oPt. Eva is a friend of mine who is doing all she can to get the word across, I have never met a more dedicated person. She’s currently in Gaza and wrote to us after the rocket attack saying “please don't worry for me, worry for Palestinians.”

Uramium is mocking western media outlets for using the term “Israel's war on Hamas”, instead of “civilians”:

All the western media insists that the recent war is between
Israel and Hamas, and the planes that committed Air strikes yesterday had
targeted Hamas compounds, Also all the victims are from Hamas and other police
officers.

Here's the snapshot the blogger used to support his argument:

Both of Abu Kareem and Philip 1 linked to an article written by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. Here's an extract from the article cited:

Until about 1960 the complex origins of the Jewish people were more or less reluctantly acknowledged by Zionist historiography. But thereafter they were marginalised and finally erased from Israeli public memory. The Israeli forces who seized Jerusalem in 1967 believed themselves to be the direct descendents of the mythic kingdom of David rather than – God forbid – of Berber warriors or Khazar horsemen. The Jews claimed to constitute a specific ethnic group that had returned to Jerusalem, its capital, from 2,000 years of exile and wandering. […]

Research into the origins of populations now constitutes a legitimate and popular field in molecular biology and the male Y chromosome has been accorded honoured status in the frenzied search for the unique origin of the “chosen people”. The problem is that this historical fantasy has come to underpin the politics of identity of the state 
of Israel. By validating an essentialist, 
ethnocentric definition of Judaism it encourages a segregation that separates Jews from non-Jews – whether Arabs, Russian immigrants or foreign workers.

Sixty years after its foundation, Israel refuses to accept that it should exist for the sake of its citizens. For almost a quarter of the population, who are not regarded as Jews, this is not their state legally. At the same time, Israel presents itself as the homeland of Jews throughout the world, even if these are no longer persecuted refugees, but the full and equal citizens of other countries.

Yaman Salahi, a Syrian blogger based in the US, has posted a note on his Facebook commenting on few myths “that appear to be circulating in American media about Israel's attacks on Gaza ” as he put it.

Here we share few extracts from the blogger's note.

1. Israel Wants Peace

It takes quite a bit of chutzpah to claim that Israel “wants peace” as Israeli fighter jets drop hundreds of tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds [385 so far], destroying universities, hospitals, pharmacies, schools, homes, and social welfare offices. Rather than leading to peace, this claim actually only covers up for Israel's continued violence and intransigence. There has not been a single day in the past 60 years where there was not at least one Israeli gun pointed at a Palestinian, whether at the checkpoints that lace the West Bank, or on the battle field during Israel's frequent ground incursions into West Bank cities, or from the air as Israel drops bombs on Gaza. If that is what an aspiration for peace looks like, God save us from seeing an Israeli aspiration for war.

Entertaining the point is futile though, as it, too, is false. According to Haaretz, the Israeli government has been preparing for this attack on the people of Gaza since it signed a truce with Hamas six months ago. More disturbingly, the article implies that Israel's signing of a truce with Hamas was actually part of a long-term strategy to declare war on Gaza, a disingenuous move contrary to any claimed “desire for peace.”

On top of this, a Vanity Fair article published last April exposed the long-term conspiracy between the Israeli government, the Bush administration, and opportunistic elements of the Palestinian political faction Fatah to overthrow the government in Gaza, thereby derailing any hopes for a genuine peace process. […]

Yaman lists what he believes the second myth in the American mainstream media about Israel's war on Gaza:

2. Israel is Defending Itself From Rockets

Palestinians have basically no weapons that pose a significant threat to Israel as a political establishment, or to Israelis as citizens. That has been the case for decades. Israeli soldiers have not even set foot into Gaza yet because they are attacking safely at a distance via fighter jet. Gaza has no anti-aircraft defense systems, it has no weapons capable of defending from jet attacks. In other words they don't stand a chance, and it doesn't “remain to be seen' who will be the military victor (aka, the most successful killer) after these attacks on Gaza come to a temporary end.

Nevertheless, Israeli PR will attempt to discuss “the horror of rockets raining down on southern Israel.” Let's be very clear about what these rockets are. There is a picture to the right from The Israel Project, an Israeli PR group. Notice these rockets are mostly intact, even after crashing into the ground. There is another picture below of the damage caused by one of these rockets. There is barely a hole in the ground. The idea that they actually pose a menacing threat worthy of a military response of ANY sort is comical. The American media has really dropped the ball on this one, allowing hysterical sensationalist and exaggerated propaganda claims from the Israeli government to go unquestioned.

I don't doubt that ordinary citizens are worried about these things falling from the sky, but let's face it, in Israel your are several times more likely to be involved in a domestic murder than to be a victim of one of these rocket attacks according to numbers from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2008, there have been over 300 cases related to murder or attempted murder in Israel. In the past 6 years, the projectiles coming from Gaza have caused less than two dozen deaths in Israel. […]

And the third myth according to Yaman is:

3. Israel is Liberating Gaza From Hamas

Israeli PR understands that it doesn't look so good when Israel invades and overthrows the democratically elected government of another people. That is why it is trying to frame itself as liberating Gaza from Hamas, as if Hamas–not Israel–was occupying Gaza and in Tom Segev's words, “holding Gaza residents hostage,” when, in fact, Hamas is a political party that was democratically elected by the people of Palestine in 2006. One absurd corollary of this myth is that Israel is only attacking Hamas, as if its bombs are not killing and wreaking havoc on all Palestinians in Gaza, and as if a schoolteacher who happens to have voted for Hamas is a legitimate military target who poses a threat to Israel.

Since 2006, Israel has been holding the people of Gaza hostage, having imposed an embargo and siege on the Gaza Strip that has created unbearable conditions for its residents. Palestinians in Gaza have reached a point of desperation, building tunnels across the border with Egypt to import necessary goods because Israel and Egypt keep the normal border routes closed as punishment of the Palestinians for the way they voted.

The notion that Hamas is a group of “thugs,” according to George Bush, that is keeping Gaza under its grasp against the will of the people of Gaza couldn't be further from the truth.

And finally, the fourth myth:

4. Hamas Is a Front Group for Iran

Because Iran has bogeyman status in the United States, Israeli PR plays up this line to claim that Israel is confronting a threat from Iran in Gaza. This plays into a long history of Israeli propaganda that presents Palestinians as everything but Palestinians: first they were part of a Soviet threat, then al-Qaeda, and now the current Iranian government.

Hamas is, first and foremost, an independent and grassroots Palestinian political movement that, interestingly, was once tacitly supported by Israel when it had wanted to undermine secular Palestinian groups. Like Israel, it uses violence for political ends, and frequently targets civilians, but on a notably smaller magnitude. Calling it “Iran-backed” implies that its agenda is controlled by Iran, which is a false claim. The Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid pre-dates whatever the bogeyman of the day is.

Let’s be crystal clear. Israel’s massive attacks on Gaza today have one overarching goal: conflict management. How to end rocket attacks on Israel from a besieged and starving Gaza without ending the impetus for those attacks, 41 years of increasingly oppressive Israeli Occupation without a hint that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state will ever emerge.

Indeed, the Occupation, in which Israel controls Gaza under a violent siege which violates fundamental human rights and international law, is not even mentioned in Israel’s PR campaign. Speaking to the international community, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insists that no country would tolerate its citizens being attacked, a seemingly reasonable statement were it not for Israeli sanctions on Gaza supported by the US and Europe – sanctions that preceded the rocket fire on Israel – or the fact of Israeli Occupation in general…

The responsibility for the suffering both in Israel and Gaza rests squarely with successive Israeli governments, Labor, Likud and Kadima alike. Had there been a genuine political process (remember, the closure of Gaza began in 1989), Israelis and Palestinians could have been living together in peace and prosperity already for 20 years. After all, already in 1988 the PLO accepted the two-state solution in which a Palestinian state would arise on only 22% of historic Palestine, alongside the state of Israel on the other 78%. A truly generous offer.

-From ICAHD

Following Yazan's coverage of the Syrian blogosphere in English, I will be covering those in Arabic.

Yaman, blogging from the US, sums up the Arab feelings towards the ongoing massacre in Gaza:

دور النظام الصهيوني في حصار غزة ومجزرة شعبها لا يلفت النظر مثل الدور العربي.

Free Man, a blogger who rarely blogs has posted three posts so far. He shares with us his thoughts on the Gaza massacre:

أقل ما يقال عنها أنها مجزرة بشعة. أكثر من 155 شهيداً و200 جريح في غزة التي مازالت تطعن فوق جراحها ولما تخر صريعة بعد!القوادين أمثال نمر حماد، الذي حمل حماس مسؤولة الهجوم البربري الإسرائيلي
على غزة. لا مجال للفكر هنا ولامجال لأي توازن واتزان أمام هذه المشاهد الدامية. هل كانت إسرائيل بحاجة لذرائع عندما احتلت فلسطين وقتلت وهجرت أهلها وارتكتبت المجازر بحق سكانها الآمنين في بيوتهم وأرضهم؟ هل كانت احتلت إسرائيل شبراً واحداً من الأرض لولا أمثاله وأمثال حسني مبارك وأزلامه الذي شارك في قتل وتجويع وحصار الغزيين.

Mr. Blond from Syria comments on the mechanism of the western mainstream media:

لو أن صهيونياً جرح بشظايا صاروخ انطلق من قطاع غزة .. لقامت الدنيا وما قعدت، ولحشدت اسرائيل كل قواهالو أن صهيوني العسكرية وجميع أجهزتها الإعلامية، ولطالبت العالم كله أن يقف معها في مواجهة هذا الإرهاب الفلسطيني .. ولكن أن تقتل هي العشرات والمئات من سكان هذا القطاع المحاصر المحروم من الإنسانية خلال يوم واحد .. فهذا لن يواجه إلا بالصمت والتخاذل والحقد وفي أحسن الأحوال التعاطف الساذج !!!

Yaser Orwani, also blogging from Syria, informs us with a campaign launched for Gaza:

تحت عنوان ” كلنا غزة ” تطلق مجموعة من المبرمجين والمصممين والصحفيين والمراسلين موقعا الكترونيا عاجلاً تضامنا مع الاهل الصامد في قطاع غزه في ظل المجازر الصهيونيه الكبيره التي ترتكب وما زالت مستمره حتى اللحظه

لزيارة الموقع : http://www.nowgaza.com

Yaser also have compiled a video which he dedicated to those who were killed by Israel in Gaza:

Many Syrian bloggers feel depressed and paralyzed over what's happening in Gaza now. Most of the Syrian blog-posts reflect this feeling. Some of the bloggers narrate how they feel, some of them blogged their silence as we will see later on in this coverage.

Syriangavroche in Spain shares with us an incident he had with his Gazan friend whose friend in Gaza had just lost his two brothers in the recent Israeli war on Gaza. He also shares with us his feeling of helplessness towards what can be done to help the innocent people in Gaza from being killed:

تلقّيت في ساعات المساء الأولى اتصالاً من صديق غزّاوي يخبرني فيه باستشهاد شقيقَي صديق غزّاوي آخر كانا يعملان في شرطة غزّة, و أن الجميع سيذهب لتقديم واجب العزاء و دعمه بما نستطيع, فواعدته فوراً و توجّهنا إلى منزل هذا الصديق. عندما وصلنا وجدت بعض الزملاء الذين كانوا قد سبقونا, و لم أجد صديقنا فقد كان قد دخل الحمّام ليغسل وجهه, و عندما خرج رآنا فقدم نحونا و كنت أول من تلقاه بالأحضان…عانقني بشدة و انفجر باكياً مرة أخرى بشكل جمّد كل قدراتي على النطق, و لم أعد أدري ماذا أقول, فلزمت الصمت ثوانِ طويلة قاربت الدقيقة حتى وصول نقطة شعرت فيها أن عليّ أن أقول شيئاً.. لكنني لم أجد ما أقول إلا كلمة “lo siento” بالاسبانية, التي تقال في المآتم و تعني حرفياً بأنني أشعر بما تشعر به و لكنها تعني أيضاً “آسف“.لا أعلم إن كنت أريد بهذه الكلمة المعنى الأول أم الثاني, أم كلاهما..لا أدري إن كان سبب اعتذاري هو عجزي عن تقديم شيء ما عدا الكلام.. لا أدري إن كان شعوري بالذنب عائد إلى أنني جبان يخاف أزيز الذبابة بينما يتحمّل أطفال فلسطين هدير كسر جدار الصوت..نعم.. أشعر بالذنب, و نعم.. غالباً أنا مذنب..

Ayman Haykal, blogging from the US, decided that nothing can be said on the blow of horrific bloody images we see in Gaza now, he decided to be silent:

…أمام رهبة الموت وبشاعة الظلم ووحشية العدو وتواطؤ الأخ والشعور الجارف باليأس …لا أملك إلا أن أصمت.

Some bloggers blogged ways with which they think they can help the Gazas, Ola from Syria has more:

حملة تبرعات في الجامعات أو المدارس أو العمل أو أي مكان لأنه أهلنا في غزة يحاتجون إلى الدواء والغذاء خصوصاً أنهم تحت وطأة الحصار

اذا كنت تجيد الانجليزية انشر ايميلات لغير العرب لتعريفهم بالأحداث الحقيقة لأن إعلامهم لاينقل لهم الحقيقة

استمر على المقاطعة ولاتقل أنها لاتؤثر وتذكر الأزمة المالية وكيف ستؤثر المقاطعة

الدعاء ثم الدعاء

انشر في المنتديات المشترك بها في موقعك أو مدونتك

ممكن تنشر صور المجازر بالانجليزي وتعملها فيديو وتنزلها على اليوتيوب

Finally, there were strong resentment in the Syrian blogsphere towards the Arab regimes, and towards the Egyptian regime in particular.

The book club has a website of its own, a blog, and you can see its founders on the sidebar. The blog so far contain posts of books that were read or yet to be read. The first book the club's founders decided on reading was Perfume by Patrick Süskind. Five Syrian bloggers wrote their feedback on the novel and here we're quoting two:

We start with Farah [AR]who was sympathetic with Grenouille, the protagonist, and thought that the author, Suskind, was harsh on him:

كان غرنوي يعيد الجثة بعد حفظ رائحتها، فهو يرى البشر لا يهتمون لما أخذه، هم فقط يهتمون لجسد الفتاة وشكلها، لا شيئ غيره، هذا ما يبهرهم، وجودها فقط، ولا يهتمون بالرائحة التي أخذها، لم يعتبر يوماً أن ما فعله كان خاطئاً فهو أخذ ما يحتاجه وترك لهم ما يحبونه

Second, we have Fattousha [AR] who tells us that the protagonist has no smell of his own, and when he wore a perfume in order to have one, people started to recognize him and respect him. Here, Fatousha comments:

هل من المعقول ” أن تكون حقيقياً” مرعب إلى هذا الحدّ، وهل علينا لكي نكون مقبولين اجتماعياً أن نكذب

The new book to be reviewed this week is the novel AL ORJUHAH by the Syrian playwright, poet and novelist, Muhammad AL Maghout. Al Maghout is one of leading playwrights in Syria and some of his plays were influential in forming the Syrian consciousness in the early 80s.

Finally, Alloush, [AR] a member of Arabic Lingua project, posted a detailed roundup of these five posts on his blog. He said that the idea was taken from Global Voices and might be used as well in the newly formed Syrian blog aggregator, ALMUDAWEN.

The prisoners' exchange, arranged between Hezbolla and Israel, has raised a lot of controversy in mainstream media and on the blogsphere as well. Some called the deal as a victory for Hezbollah and Iran, while some saw it as another failure for the US and Israel in the region.

Syrian blogger Mohammad Online (Ar), from Damascus, informs his readers that on July 17, 2008, and during an interview held with Samir Kuntar by MANAR TV, Kuntar said that there is an Egyptian prisoner still held in Israeli jails and that no one tried to free him except for Hezbollah. Commenting on the peace deal which exists between Egypt and Israel, the blogger asks:

فما فائدة هذا السلام إن كان لا يستطيع ذاك السلام العظيم أضعف الإيمان تحرير أسير من دولة هناك سلام معها

What’s peace for if this grand peace cannot liberate a prisoner of the country that signs a peace agreement with Israel?”

Jabhat el Tahsis (Ar) from Egypt, posts more information about the Egyptian prisoner:

أسير المصري اسمه إياد أبو حسن ..موجود في السجون الإسرائيلية منذ عشرين عاما و لا أحد يسأل عليه أو يطالب به .. و حسب سمير القنطار بأن المقاومة بذلت جهدا كبيرا لتحريره في هذه الصفقة لكن لإعتبارات سياسية ( منها الإتفاقية و العلاقات السياسية المصرية الإسرائيلية ) حالت دون الموافقة على ذلك من قبل الإسرائيليين .. في الصفقة الماضية و الحالية هذه الدول العربية طلبت من اسرائيل عدم إدراج أبنائها في صفقات حزب الله كي لا يصبح حسن نصرالله قائدا للعرب جميعا ..كما يقولون ..

The Egyptian prisoner's name is Eyad Abu Hasan.. he has been in Israeli prisons for 20 years and no one is asking for his release. According to Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese resistance has put a lot of effort to free him in the prisoners' exchange deal but that political considerations, such as the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, prevented the prisoner's release. It is because countries like Jordan and Egypt has called for not including their citizens in such deals with Hezbollah out of fear that Nasrallah would then become a national hero for all Arabs, as they claim.

Back to the Syrian blogsphere and more reactions to the prisoner swap. Blogger Ayman Haykal (Ar), a Syrian blogger in the US, asks his readers if Kuntar truly smashed a four-year-old girl's head:

لا أخفي إعجابي بنجاح حزب الله في استعادة الأسرى ورفات الشهداء من إسرائيل. لكن سؤالاً واحداً يقضّ مضجعي: هل صحيح أن سميراً هشّم رأس طفلة بعقب بندقية؟

I must say that I admire Hezbollah's success in returning the prisoners and the martyr's bodies, but there is one thing that still bothers me: Is it true that Samir smashed the girl's head with a rifle?

Another Syrian blogger in the US, Abu Kareem, reflects on people elevating Samir Kuntar to hero status:

I wanted to stay out of this debate altogether but the way Kuntar is being treated like a celebrity has left me more than a little queasy. I am annoyed with the way many Arabs have reflexively accepted his promotion to icon of the resistance and are willing to gloss over the facts that have brought him to his iconic status.

For Abu Kareem:

The real resistance heroes in my book are the Hizbullah fighters who fiercely and valiantly battled the Israeli army forcing its exit in 2000, or the youngsters of the intifada who battled fire with rocks and slingshots.

Hizbullah did not liberate the South by staging operations against civilian targets in Israel; they did it by making life hell for the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) in the South.

And last but not least, Razan, a Syrian blogger based in Beirut, Lebanon, posts few pictures from the celebration in Southern Beirut at the arrival of the Lebanese prisoners liberated by Hezbollah.

April 9 marked the massacre of Deir Yassin, where an estimated 100 Palestinians were killed in the early morning hours, by commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang. Bloggers commemorate the tragedy 60 years later.

Palestinian Haitham Sabbah links to DeirYassin site and writes:

Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.

In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage.

Sabbah also links to for the Institute for Middle East Understanding website, which has more information about the massacre.

Attending The World sheds light on the political reasons behind the massacre, quoting Menachem Begin, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first Likud Prime Minister of Israel:

“Deir Yassin massacre was not only necessary, but without it the state of Israel could not have emerged” said Menachem Begin.

The blogger also publishes a testimony by former Haganah officer, Col. Meir Pa’el, upon his retirement from the Israeli army in 1972:

“In the exchange that followed four [Irgun] men were killed and a dozen were wounded … by noon time the battle was over and the shooting had ceased. Although there was calm, the village had not yet surrendered. The Irgun and LEHI men came out of hiding and began to `clean’ the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre …. I pleaded with the commander to order his men to cease fire, but to no avail. In the meantime, 25 Arabs had been loaded on a truck and driven through Mahne Yehuda and Zichron Yousef (like prisoners in a Roman `March of Triumph’). At the end of the drive, they were taken to the quarry between Deir Yasin and Giv’at Shaul, and murdered in cold blood … The commanders also declined when asked to take their men and bury the 254 Arab bodies. This unpleasant task was performed by two Gadna units brought to the village from Jerusalem.”

In Al- Falastiniya's post, I am Dier Yassin, she asserts that Deir Yassin is more than a “death toll”:

we are so much more than a death toll or a simple story to be told in order to conjure up pity.
i walked home tonight and realized that the streets were not full of blood. i claimed the sidewalk as my own; no one stopped to question me. i walked, and i realized i was perhaps too lucky. “deir yassin, deir yassin, have you heard of what happened at deir yassin? do you want to end up like those of deir yassin?” i have never had to answer this question. i have never had to flee for my life. i have never heard the sound of a gunshot… the sadness is not mine alone- it was not mine originally, i simply inherited it.

Otto's Random Thoughts, Carousel and MyDD link to South African Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils' article on the Electronic Intifada site.

We also have a post from John Hilley, who argues how Deir Yassin massacre has been omitted in the western media:

9 April 2008 marked the terrible events of Deir Yassin, sixty years after 254 of the village's Palestinian men, women and children were massacred by Zionist forces.

You didn't hear anything about it on the BBC. You didn't see any recognition of it by the US, EU and other ‘civilized' Western governments. And you certainly won't find any message of regret over it from a state which has sought to bury the truth of this and multiple other atrocities with all those murdered Palestinians.

For Israel, its allies and their media stenographers, Deir Yassin doesn't merit special commemoration. It's just a name, a village, a place, a painful memory still firmly fixed in Palestinian consciousness.

Finally, Free the Detainees shares with us scenes from New York commemorating the Deir Yassin massacre here.

All photos are courtesy of Deir Yassine site.

Yaman Salahi, an undergrad student of UC Berkeley and an active member of Students for Justice in Palestine club there, has posted a series of reactions to the club's die-in protest that took place on campus few days ago in solidarity with the 116 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. You can view pictures of the die-in protest on Isabel's Flickr account.

The Daily Californian's covered the die-in protest publishing this photo and these words:

Yaman criticized the newspaper's tagging of the protest as “stand[ing] against conflict” and addressed the newspaper as follows:

Actually, Daily Cal, yesterday [3rd of March] students participated in a die-in in solidarity with the 116 Palestinians that the Israeli army killed over the weekend in Gaza. We did not stand against “conflict,” but the Israeli occupation. Can you say those words, or is that a little too informative?

One of the commentators disapproved of Yaman's use of the word ‘occupation' and thus accused him of being “anti-semetic.”

Allison, another commentator, responded to this accusation as follows:

Calling Yaman an anti-Semite and assuming he finds Haifa and Tel Aviv to be occupied is really low. There is nothing in what he has written that would suggest those were the things he was thinking or intending. If so he would have been involved in a great big “free occupied haifa and tel aviv” demonstration where he would announce himself as a Jew-hater. The reality is that the demonstration was to recognize the loss of life that has occurred due to the excessive, unequal use of force by Israel, on Palestinians. You only jump to those conclusions as an attempt to discredit him and show him to have violent intentions. Those are your words, not his, he is talking about a government sanctioned military occupation over a civilian population, not irrationally hating or wishing harm to Jews.

116 people died in the past few days and that pains us; we lay on the ground to grieve, we lay on the ground out of compassion for human life. None of which is anti-semetic.

In another post, Yaman writes about a counter-protest to the die-in protest held by HaTikva: Students for Israel. He notes:

Their counter-protest consisted of a sign displayed ahead of our protest that read, “Victims of Palestinian Terror,” meant to confuse passers-by as to the purpose of our action.

Yaman expresses his worries of the students group's rhetoric when they ignore the civilian deaths of the Palestinian side, categorizing all of the dead under “terrorists”:

According to B’tselem on March 3 (before the death toll rose by another dozen), over half of those killed by the Israeli military in Gaza were civilians. According to Maan News, at least 1/3rd were children. On the other hand, according to Tikvah …Israel “eliminated about 110 terrorists.”

Tikvah’s message is clear: all the Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, be they children, be they unarmed civilians, are terrorists. Further, Tikvah has dehumanized Palestinians to the extent that they do not even die. They are not killed or murdered; they are not even casualties. Like pests, they are “eliminated.”

Finally, Yaman concluded his post by asserting that the real issue is not whose lives are more valuable in both sides' deaths, but stopping the violence is. He explains:

To stop the violence, step back from it. Recognize the legitimate grievances of all people in Israel and Palestine. The United States will not solve this issue; there will be no impartial or neutral arbitrator or judge who will issue a verdict that all people will follow. Cheer-leading squads for Israel like Tikvah will do nothing that can even change the status quo, let alone construct a path towards resolution and reconciliation. It is up to us to escape the suffocating influence of state narratives and to create opportunities and possibilities for the future with our own hands.