Talk:Deir Yassin massacre/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Discussions around the representation of the Irgun and Lehi as terrorists. If you disagree with the current formulation you are strongly advised to read this discussion, as it contains lots of relevant information (as in, things you probably don't know). I left on the main page Joseph's final words (see below) since I had the impression it related to other occurrances around Wikipedia as well. Gadykozma 14:06, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Terrorism, definitions, and consistency

Jayjg; when we last got into this, in another artice, you wrote: "(cur) (last) 22:58, Aug 11, 2004 Jayjg (Lebanon - the athletes deaths didn't just happen either, nor were they shot by German police; rather, they were actively killed by the terrorists)"

Now, considering the fact the the 'attacks' on civillians: 'The Jewish forces participating in the battle belonged to two Jewish groups widely considered terrorist- the Irgun (Etzel) and the Lehi (the Stern gang). Both groups were known for their direct, aggressive tactics that included attacks on civilians'. In respect to the changes made today, are these not also terrorist attacks? Why is it that the definition of these groups has to be softened in some way?

Is not any attack on a civillian not a terrorist attack in its very nature?

Is there not a contradiction here? In all due respect lets not gloss over the fact that these two groups were terrorist groups (para-military or not). There can be no dispute about this.

If Palestinian attacks against civillians are classified as terrorism, which I believe they are, then so too has to be the actions of these two groups: Irgun (Etzel) and Stern (Lehi ).

I have not changed the revert back, yet... But I am hoping you will do the right thing. In fact, I think the whole paragraph should be re-worded. I will wait to see how you re-phrase it, if you do, but here are two rough suggestions:

"The Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang (headed by Yitzak Shamir [sp]) 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. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet. The mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform this takeover, which quickly turned into a massacre."

or

"Between 9 and 11 April 1948, over 100 Arab townspeople were massacred by Jewish terrorist paramilitaries in Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, in the British Mandate of Palestine. These Jewish terrorist paramilitaries were called the Irgun (Etzel) and Stern (Lehi ) gangs, and had been responsible for the killings of other civillians in other terrorist operations."

In any case give it some thought, and let me know, or I will change the paragraph[s] myself. I just wanted you to discuss any changes here before we make more changes to a page that has at best been controversial.

In respect and peace.

Joseph 16:24, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

The issue is not whether attacks on civilians are terrorist. The previous sentence already says that the groups are "widely considered terrorist"; the addition of the word "terrorist" before "attacks on civilians" is redundant, since deliberate attacks on civilians by military organizations are terrorist by definition, and since it was just stated in the previous sentence. In addition, terrorist is a highly emotive and controversial word; this article should be about describing the events, not about asserting what is "terrorist" and what is not. Jayjg 16:42, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In response:

Well look at it this way, are they terrorists or not? If they are, how can they be "widely considered terrorist"; please lets just be fair, and consistent...I have been very tolerant when it comes to allowing sometimes slightly inaccurate statements about Palestinians go unchecked in Wikipedia.

In fact I have shown many of these articles and edit comments to others, Library Profesionals, scholars, Arab people I know, and others. You do not want to know what they think. So many have advised me to stop wasting my time here, as the truth will come out one day. Think about it, do you want this Wikipedia project to be respected or not?

If this project is to remain an unbiased objective source of information, even the most unpleasant truths will have to be accepted for what they are. If some people from the Zionist side are ashamed of these actions from the past so be it. I am personally very ashamed of the actions of any Palestinian groups that have taken innocent lives in the past and present.

These guys Irgun and Stern gang members were/are terrorists, and even became heads of the Zionist state. Lets at least be honest about this aspect of history.

It cannot be one way in reference to Palestinian Fedayeen freedom fighter groups, and another way when it comes to Jewish forces freedom fighter groups (I do not know how to phrase it another way) who were/are considered terrorists. Both are the same side of the same coin, killing civillians and innocents is a crime and considered terrorism.

Please correct that paragraph or the introduction.

BTW: I have not done so because I do not want another edit war, I am trying to find a peaceful solution.

Thank you!

Joseph, you are taking this much too hard. The sentence already says they are terrorists. Why does it need to say it twice? You are seeing "denial of terrorism claims" where there is none. Really. They were terrorists. Your addition was removed because of style reasons, not contents.

If you really think the sentence is too weak, just replace the "widely believed" with a stronger text. Don't wait for Jayjg. But use the word terrorist only once.

Oh, and please don't use so much bold in your comments. It's hard to read. Italics is the way to go. Gadykozma 20:14, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please read Gadykozma's excellent comment carefully. No-one is denying terrorist claims, but there's no need to say it twice in two sentences. The addition added nothing because the point had already been made. Jayjg 21:45, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK,look I defer to both of your council, but look I guess when I read it, it struck me as needing clarification, do you want me to do this?

How about I delete - widely considered and replace with:

The Jewish forces participating in the battle belonged to two Jewish terrorist groups - the Irgun (Etzel) and the Lehi (the Stern gang). Both groups were known for their direct, aggressive tactics that included attacks on civilians? Joseph 03:17, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think that's fair. The crackpots that would have started an edit war over this in February seem to have left Wikipedia... but Jayjg's view is different from mine. Gadykozma 11:06, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks then, it is done, I appreciate your help and wise council with this issue. Joseph 15:21, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Irgun was a paramilitary group fighting British occupation; much the way Hizbullah and Hamas describe themselves, except that the Irgun's hands were considerably less bloody. Jayjg 04:02, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK, maybe I overdid it when I said Joseph's formulation was fair. I take that back. However, your formulation is too much in the other direction. Consider might be better than believe but still does not really represent the facts, namely, that they were terrorists, and that only the right wing of Israel does not admit that. Both of you, what do you think of my formulation? Gadykozma 04:37, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"generally acknowledged" are weasel words. Who are the people who have "generally acknowledged" this? At least I gave a reference that actually matched the descriptions of these groups in other Wikipedia articles. Jayjg 05:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

True, these are weasel words, but "by the British" is POV, since it implies much more contention of this fact than there really is. This is the literal interpretation of events such as the King David Hotel bombing, the murder of Folke Bernadotte, and many others. You are free to suggest a different formulation, as long as it doesn't imply there is a serious disagreement about this issue. Gadykozma 11:45, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean "there isn't serious disagreement" on the subject? The King David Hotel was British military headquarters, a legitimate military target i.e. non-terrorist. Are we expanding the definition of terrorist to military targets now? Exactly which "terrorist" activities was the Irgun noted for. By the way, Bernadotte was murdered by Lehi, not the Irgun. Jayjg 14:56, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In the case of Lehi, they seemed to like being called terrorists and repeatedly described themselves that way (using the English word "terror" transliterated into Hebrew). That's why I didn't hesitate to use the word in their article Lehi. I don't recall the Irgun agreeing to the word "terrorist", though if they weren't terrorist the word has little meaning. The mainsteam Zionist organizations such as Mapai called the Irgun terrorists all the time (even while secretly collaborating with them) and so did most of the Jewish press. The headline in the Palestine Post after the King David bombing was "41 dead, 53 injured, 52 missing, in terrorist attack on secretariat". The Jewish Agency and Vaad Leumi are quoted as calling them a "gang of desperados". Almost everyone except the Irgun's active supporters called them terrorists. Despite all this, I would vote against using the word "terrorist" in this article at all. It adds no information and this game of sticking on labels doesn't excite me. --Zero 15:33, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for making that interesting post. I differentiated between Lehi and Irgun for precisely that reason. My issue with the use of historical views of what was a "terrorist" group is that it is not clear to me that the same definition was used 60 years ago as is used today (if we can even find agreement on what the term means today). From what I can tell the meaning back then included any non-governmental group that attacked military targets, which would be much more controversial usage today. As for your final point, I think that is the clincher; is Joseph Saad insisting that in this case we refer to them as "terrorist attacks on civilians" because in other cases deliberate attacks on civilians are not terrorist? If so, then we have a fundamental disagreement on what is or isn't terrorist. If not, then the label adds nothing. Jayjg 15:50, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Zero, not sticking labels is also a POV. You can't really avoid the problem by hiding. Oh, and another thanks for the interesting information from me. Gadykozma 16:38, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I disagree again strongly, and again there is one term being used when these Terrorists, are Zionist and when the Terrorists are Arab, what? So nothing the Irgun or the Stern gang did was terrorist in its very nature, attacking civillains? They are a terrorist group, plain and simple. Deny all you want, it is a lie. The King David hotel was not a military target, come on; you have got to be kidding. The barrel bombs thrown at villages, this too military targetting? Come on, you get real Jayjg

This is not NPOV, the fact is this is getting very frustrating, and quite frankly a waste of time. Only because I am sick of the lies and falsehoods do I fight on this cursed project. What is the next step, now? I disagree, and want some arbitration.

There are three areas that need to be corrected:

1) That these were terrorists groups, in fact there was discussion of a massacre before the actual attack, which proves they were planning on committing an atrocity beforehand. It was the villagers of Givaut Shaul who later on chased the killers away, they were shocked by what they found. It is a well known fact, they were terrorists and attcked a peaceful civillian village. The Haganah records themselves show this.

2) These were not all teens, and it was some sort of adolescent adventure. These were I agree green troops, but there is no proof they were teens and a bunch of kids. They were a gang of terrorists that wanted to show what they could do against a peaceful civillan village to gain acceptance by the IDF. Meir Phal goes into this at some length, he was disgusted by their actions, and no where calls them teens or kids, etc.

3) They did not in fact capture the village, in the end it was the Haganah (a true para-military group which became the IDF), one I might consider terrorist by their actions, but not one in the strictest sense of the word, as it beacme the IDF (sanctioned by a government I do not recognize).

I will wait to hear from you guys for a time, but I want a change or abritration, or should I just simply revert it again? I am trying to avoid an edit war.

Jaygj I resent you telling me to get serious, I am very serious and offended. you change things right away, not discussing anything, and your views are showing their bias again in the writing. Please try to stick to the facts, why can you not just admit a fact? Try for once to see the other side. Joseph 21:22, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Made changes, I hope that is ok? tried to keep the original meaning of the article intact. Joseph 16:00, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

If you read the above discussion carefully, you will note that I retracted my support of your version, leaving you as the only supporter (out of 4) of qualifying the Irgun and the Lehi as terrorists with no caveats. Therefore I restored the caveat which was accepted by the other three. If you read carefully Wikipedia:Neutral point of view you will agree with us that an article must represent minority views too. Please do not try to convince us they were terrorists again. This is irrelevant. The fact that a certain group views them as non-terrorists should be reflected in this page. If you have some other formulation that represents the minority view as well, don't hesitate to suggest it.

Other changes I did to your text were concerned mostly with style. Please feel free to discuss them. Gadykozma 18:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Joseph, if you don't think the King David Hotel was a military target, then I encourage to research this whole topic carefully before attempting to make any more edits. As the article points out, "[t]he hotel was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command, and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police)". Jayjg 20:00, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC) 19:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reply

I am not too concerned about support or lies, in truth I am, what you are all saying now is lies are allowed to be represented as fact see: [Nationmaster.com]

Encyclopedia: Stern Gang - Lehi (Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel") was a radical Jewish underground military group which was terrorist according to both its own description and that of its opponents. It was active during the British Mandate of Palestine prior to the founding of the State of Israel and during the first part of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The British authorities dubbed it the Stern gang, after its founder, Avraham Stern.

And - Noted Lehi attacks: November 6, 1944 - Lehi assassinates Lord Moyne, a British government representative blamed for the White Paper immigration policy, in Cairo. This act rocked the British government, and outraged Winston Churchill the British Prime Minister. The two assassins were captured, sentenced to death, and executed.

April 9, 1948 - Lehi and Irgun attack Deir Yassin (see Deir Yassin massacre).

September 17, 1948, Lehi assassinated the UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Bernadotte's insistence on the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes was the cause for his murder. The assassination was directed by Yehoshua Zetler and carried out by a four-man team led by Meshulam Markover. The fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen. Lehi leaders Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matitiahu Schmulevitz were arrested two months after the murder. Most of the suspects involved were released immediately and all of them were granted general amnesty on the 14th of February, 1949.

In 1980 Israel instituted the Lehi ribbon, red, black, grey, pale blue and white which is awarded to former members of the Lehi underground.

Pronunciation: "Le" as in "let", "hi" as in "he" but with a hard guttural "h" similar to German "ch". Accent on first syllable.

Quotation

Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can negate the use of terror as a means of battle.

...We are quite far from moral hesitations on the national battlefield. We see before us the command of the Torah, the most moral teaching in the world: "Obliterate - until destruction." We are particularly far from this sort of hesitation in regard to an enemy whose moral perversion is admitted by all.

But primarily terror is part of our political battle under present conditions and its role is large and great: *It demonstrates, in clear language, to those who listen throughout the world and to our despondent brothers outside the gates of this country of our battle against the true terrorist who hides behind his piles of papers and the laws he has legislated.

*It is not directed against people, it is directed against representatives. Therefore it is effective.

*If it also shakes the Jews in Israel from their complacency, good and well.

Only so will the battle for liberation begin.

-- The Front (Lehi underground newspaper), Issue 2, August 1943. The italicised quotation is a combination of two Biblical references to the Amalekites, Ex. 17:14 and Num. 14:45: Utterly blot out their remembrance...and destroy them completely.

Also see: [JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY] and I quote:

As a result of its activities, Lehi found itself isolated in the yishuv. The yishuv's institutions condemned it and the British police hunted its members. On February 12, 1942, Avraham ("Yair") Stern, the leader of Lehi, was captured in a Tel Aviv apartment and murdered by British detectives. The remaining fighters continued to wage his war, and a new command structure was established. Terrorism continued to be the organization's guideline, in the belief that a series of painful attacks would force the British to re-evaluate the wisdom and price of remaining in Palestine.

On November 6, 1944, two Lehi members assassinated Lord Moyne, the British Minister for Middle East Affairs in Cairo. The perpetrators, Eliyahu Beit-Tzuri and Eliyahu Hakim, were caught, tried by a military tribunal, and hanged on March 23, 1945.

When the Hebrew Resistance Movement was founded in November 1945, Lehi joined it, along with the Haganah and Etzel. Lehi carried out several operations as part of the movement, the largest of which was the bombing of the Haifa railroad workshops in June 1946, in which 11 Lehi members were killed. After the Hebrew Resistance Movement broke up following Etzel's bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, Lehi continued with its harassment and attrition policy.

For Irgun-

[Britain's Small Wars]

Kidnappings, Beatings, Murders and Hangings - Attacks by the Irgun and Stern Gang Jewish resistance to the British mandate had begun before the Second World War when Jews extremists set up an organization called, "Irgun Zvia Leumi" (IZL) or simply, "The Irgun". Their aim was to campaign for the establishment of the state of Israel.

At the outbreak of the Second World War most of the Irgun selected to support the Allies and fight the common enemy, "Nazism. "A splinter group led by a Abraham Stern decided to continue the fight against the British. This group, better known as the "Stern" gang, was responsible for many terrorist atrocities and murders in the following decade, though Stern himself was killed in a gunfight with the Palestine Police in the early 1942.

In 1944, with the end the war in sight, Irgun, now under the leadership of Menachem Begin , the future Prime Minister of Israel 1977-83, began to attack the British administration in Palestine, starting with bomb attacks on the immigration offices, tax offices and police stations. Because the war was not yet over these activities met with condemnation even from the Jewish Agency and Haganah, the main Jewish Defense Force, and the forerunner of the Israeli Army. This disapproval did not deter Irgun or the Stern Gang, and in 1944 the Stern gang murdered Lord Moyne the British Minister of state for the Middle East in Cairo, and started a series of bomb attacks on British installations.

In November and 1945 there were some serious Arab Jewish riots in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. These riots were put down by the 3rd Parachute Brigade part of the newly arrived 6th Airborne division. These riots lasted seven days resulting in some loss of life.

During December 1945, the focus of the Jewish attacks shifted to RAF airfields, police stations and armories. There was frequent exchanges of fire and some loss of life on both sides. The High commissioner, Lord Gort , left Palestine in November 1945 and was replaced by another British general Sir Allan Cunningham. Cunningham decided to mount a major blow against the IZL and on the 28 to June 1946, 17,000 British troops flooded into Jerusalem to carry out Operation Agatha. The Jewish Agency offices were raided, arms found and the agency shut down, with a large number of Jews suspected of terrorism being arrested. Jewish terrorists soon started planning the a reprisal for Operation Agatha and made plans for the bombing attack on the King David hotel.

The British response to the King David bombing was another 48 hour cordon and search, code named Operation Shark. This operation was mounted by the men and 6th Airborne division. The aim of Operation shark was to remove the few remaining hard core terrorists left on the scene. British and American press agencies were quick to take the opportunity to sell more newspapers but the result was to place the British Army in a bad light, as in Aden years later, propaganda pictures of British soldiers seemingly being brutal to women and children were splashed in the world newspapers.

Again: [JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY] and I quote:

Etzel rejected the “restraint” policy of the Haganah and carried out armed reprisals against Arabs, which were condemned by the Jewish Agency. Many of its members were arrested by the British authorities; one of them, Shlomo Ben Yosef, was hanged for shooting an Arab bus. After the publication of the White Paper in May 1939, Etzel directed its activities against the British Mandatory autorities.

At the outbreak of World War II, the organization declared a truce, which led to a second split (see Lohamei Herut Yisrael). Etzel members joined the British Army's Palestinian units and later the Jewish Brigade.

From 1943 Etzel was headed by Menachem Begin. In February 1944, Etzel declared war against the British administration. It attacked and blew up government offices, military installations and police stations. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah moved against the Etzel in a campaign nicknamed the Sezon. Etzel joined the Jewish Resistance Movement and after its disintegration in August 1946, Etzel continued attacks on British military and government objectives.

In April 1947, four members of the organization were hanged in Acre prison. In May 1947, Etzel broke into the fortress at Acre and freed 41 prisoners. In July 1947, when 3 other Etzel members were executed, the I.Z.L. hanged two British sergeants.

As far as the King David Hotel, I am willing to modify my position on that, as it was in fact being used (in part for military and administration), but also had many civilians in it as well.

See:The Outrage - The Bombing of the King David Hotel - On the morning of the 22nd of July 1946 a party of between 15 and 20 Jews, dressed as an Arabs entered the King David Hotel. The hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. The terrorists were able to enter the building without arousing too much attention because part of the building was still being used as a hotel and other people frequented it. The Jews pretended to be an Arab working party. Having unloading from their lorry several milk churns filled with 225 kilogram's of explosive, they placed them in the basement of the wing of the hotel occupied by the Secretariat.

I only chose this one source, but have found numerous instances of the same thing.

About the other changes, these guys were not teens, please correct,

and also Deir Yassin was a peaceful village, please correct. In fact the villagers at Givaut Shaul [sp], were outraged as many had been dealing with the villagers and had peaceful relation until the attack. Please correct.

I again ask for outside arbitration, if we can make no agreement, facts are facts. If the trend you outline is the way Wikipedia operates, why then are Palestinian POV observations routinely singled out and dubbed not NPOV?

All I am asking for is the truth to be laid out for all to judge and discern for themsleves, not one persons version of the truth. Joseph 20:30, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

jayjg - Sorry I did not see your reply, in fact I retract with reservations the bombing of the King David Hotel. It was used for military purposes, but non the less, the attack killed many innocent people (about 100 Jewish persons as well others), so maybe we could reflect that? I am not sure why we discuss this anyway, as the article is not dealing with it directly. For form though, would you not consider this a terrorist attack though anyways? If in todays times a bus being used to transfer Israeli soldiers was targetted and blown up, and it contained both soldiers and civilains, is that not also terrorism? Just curious, we should be consistent and fair. Joseph 20:37, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Joseph, since italics didn't do the trick I'll try bold and italic: Please do not try to persuade Jayjg or anyone else the Irgun and Lehi were terrorists. You are wasting your time (and ours). This is not what the discussion is about. The discussion is about how many people consider them terrorists (or if you want, which groups), how many do not and how to best describe the proportions between these two groups in the article. If you have anything to add on this respect and on this respect only (that was not covered in Zero's excellent response), please do so.

If you want outside arbitration, the way to go is Wikipedia:Peer Review or Wikipedia:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict. Don't expect much help, though.

As for "peaceful", as I already stated, I removed it due to style and not POV. The relations between Deir Yassin and their neighbors is amptly covered in the next paragraph and there is no need to duplicate it. Gadykozma 22:10, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Joseph, please read Gadykozma's statement above extremely carefully. Jayjg 22:15, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was slightly amused to see the quotation above from nationmaster.com, as it is simply their reprinting of Wikipedia's article Lehi that was largely written by me. On the matter of the Irgun and terrorism, of course they were. Over their history they killed far more innocent civilians than Lehi did. To mention a few cases: in 1938-9 they conducted a large number of attacks on Arab civilians that included setting off bombs in Arab marketplaces (example 39 killed and 50 injured in Haifa marketplace on July 25, 1938). When Menachem Begin announced his "revolt" in 1944, he promised to avoid military targets so as to not harm the British war effort (a really stupid statement, since the British had to assign even more soldiers to defending civilian targets). Targets that were not military included the income tax office (so they weren't all bad ;-). We can also consider the mining of public roads, which was ostensibly aimed at the British military but can reasonably be called terrorist on account of its indisciminate nature. In 1947-8, the Irgun resumed operations similar to 1938-9 including public bombings. --Zero 23:27, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)