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Honoring Deir Yassin

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(WASHINGTON DC 04/09/2017) -- Today, we commemorate 69 years since the Deir Yassin massacre, the tragic event that came to symbolize the Palestinian Nakba, or Catastrophe.

Deir Yassin was not the first massacre or even the largest that occurred between the Partition of Palestine in November 1947 and the end of the Zionist war in January 1949. But it was the one Zionist Jews used to terrorize the native Palestinians, causing them to flee their homes and their beloved Palestine.

Deir Yassin represents the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine that still continues because of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its apartheid policies that violate international law and deprives Palestinians of their human rights. Now with the confirmation of pro-settlement David Friedman as ambassador to Israel and plans of the Trump administration to move the U.S.  embassy to Jerusalem, there is concern among Palestinians and the global community the rate of Israeli dispossession of the Palestinian people will increase.

At dawn on April 9, 1948 extremist Zionist militias entered Deir Yassin and systematically murdered men, women and children as they slept. Zionist leaders, intent on creating the state of Israel, used the massacre to terrorize the indigenous population into fleeing the oncoming Haganah and militias, such as the Stern Gang and the Irgun.

“The Nakba is not just one historical event, but an ongoing event,” said Osama Abuirshaid, AMP National Policy Director. “The Nakba is a process that developed the systematic dispossession of Palestinians; it’s the destruction of a civil society for the intended purposes of a colonial enterprise to be set in its place.”

We must never forget the victims of Deir Yassin. Educate yourself so that you can spread the truth about the events that led to the creation of the state of Israel and the dispossession of the Palestinians.

Read Nakba survivor testimonials

Read our Nakba book, “Preserving our Narrative”

Read the Nakba fact sheet

Visit Deir Yassin Remembered

Attend our Palestine Advocacy Day and Training from April 29-May 1, 2017

Watch for calls for action in coming months to push back against plans to move the embassy to Jerusalem and settlement expansion

We must honor the deceased, those permanently in exile and all those who today continue to resist the occupation by striving to bring justice to the Palestinian people.