Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April/May 1999, pages 103-106

Southern California Chronicle

Deir Yassin: Still Rememberd After 51 Years

By Pat and Samir Twair

This year, when April 9 rolls around, ceremonies in the United States and Jerusalem will commemorate the massacre perpetrated at the Palestinian hamlet of Deir Yassin by the terrorist Israeli Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Lehi (Stern Gang) militias in 1948. A procession from Arab East Jerusalem will be led by school teacher Khaireh Abu Shusheh to the site of Deir Yassin, provided an Israeli permit for the march is forthcoming. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee also will host an observance in Washington.

Much of the renewed awareness of Deir Yassin is the result of a one-man project, Deir Yassin Remembered, which was started by Prof. Dan McGowan. He will be speaking about the massacre and its effect on the Palestinian psyche April 7 at the University of Michigan, April 9 at Georgetown University, and April 17 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

McGowan also spearheaded publication of Remembering Deir Yassin: The Future of Israel and Palestine. The book, which is about 50 years overdue, is going into a second printing and is available through the AET Book Club (see catalogp. 129 of this issue). Hopefully, if a new generation of Jews and non-Arabs read it, the national tragedy wreaked on the Palestinians will finally be understood.

McGowan, who co-edited the book with Marc H. Ellis, is a college economics professor who learned about the Deir Yassin massacre on a trip to Israel/Palestine. Ever since, he has been leading a campaign to establish a memorial to the 254 Palestinians murdered there by Israeli forces 51 years ago. Ellis is a Jewish theologian specializing in modern Judaism and post-Holocaust thought.

All proceeds from the book are earmarked for a Deir Yassin memorial fund McGowan has established. An oil painting by New York artist and human rights activist Ann Leggett, which graces the paperback cover, will go to the highest bidder at an April 9 auction. McGowan vows that someday a memorial park or sculpture will be placed on the site of Deir Yassin, which is less than 1,400 meters distant from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum.

“It is a chilling fact that Deir Yassin is in the shadow of Israel’s preeminent national shrine where the names of every known Jewish victim of the Germans are recorded,” McGowan commented. “Yet a few hundred feet away, the massacred civilians of Deir Yassin were cremated and buried in an unmarked grave. The irony and hypocrisy are breathtaking.”

Most of the stone houses of Deir Yassin’s massacred Palestinian villagers remain standing. They have been preserved partially because they are used to house residents of a Jewish mental institution known as Givat Shaul. However, few in this West Jerusalem neighborhood would even recognize the name of Deir Yassin if they were questioned and fewer, if any, would admit knowledge of the brutal massacre that occurred here on April 9, 1948.

Deir Yassin Remembered is not just a collection of essays dealing with the massacre of Palestinians by Jewish terrorists that prompted Arab villagers all over Palestine to panic in 1948. In his memoirs, former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who had headed the Irgun terrorist gang, wrote that the “legend” of Deir Yassin “was worth half a dozen battalions to the forces of Israel” (in that it accelerated the ethnic cleansing of Israeli-occupied portions of Palestine).

Divided in two parts, Remembering Deir Yassin’s first section deals with the Palestinian catastrophe which began with Deir Yassin and concludes with a proposal for a memorial park. The second half offers individual visions of how Jewish admission of “a martyrdom cast to the winds” could lead to a binational state.

Essayist Souad Dajani theorizes that Israeli creation of facts on the ground has precluded a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, leaving the only viable solution the creation of a binational state in which Israelis finally acknowledge and try to redress the Palestinian past.

An essay that all Jews should read is “A Jewish Eye-Witness,” an interview with Col. Meir Pa’il, who worked for the Haganah (which later became the Israel Defense Forces) and who looked on as the massacre proceeded during the afternoon of April 9, 1948. McGowan conducted the interview with Pa’il in Tel Aviv on Dec. 11, 1996.

Another moving essay, “The End of Innocence,” by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, deals with her recollections of a young Palestinian girl, Hayat Balabaseh, who gave up her studies to teach school in Deir Yassin and who was murdered there while trying to help an elderly man struck down by Jewish terrorists.

All students of the Middle East should read Rosemary Radford Ruether’s chapter, “Christianity and the Future of Israeli-Palestinian Relations.” This hard-hitting American Catholic scholar describes Oslo as a blueprint to subjugate totally the Palestinian people under the bullying of Yasser Arafat’s police. She stresses:

“Little of the money given to Arafat or the Palestinian Authority was used for development that gave new jobs or cultural institutions to Palestinians. It became clear that this money was to be used primarily for police and security repression. In the five years from the beginning of the peace process to 1997, Palestinians grew rapidly even more impoverished, losing 36 percent of their already miserable GNP (the equivalent of $6 billion), while a corrupt PLO leadership flaunted large houses and cars and were surrounded by bodyguards.” Ruether scorns Christian Zionists hell-bent on Armageddon in the Holy Land and calls on fair-minded Christians who live by the precepts of their religion to take an active part in securing justice for the Palestinians—Christian and Muslim.

McGowan’s singleminded crusade for a memorial to Palestinians slaughtered a half-century ago by Zionist terrorist militias came about in a roundabout way. He said he had no interest in the Middle East in the mid-1980s when he took note of the trend by American colleges and universities to force their pension funds to withdraw their investments from South Africa.

The economics professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, didn’t like the apartheid government in Pretoria, but he questioned political obstructions to the free flow of capital. As McGowan researched divestment strategies, he noticed a peculiar double standard whenever Israel was included in the equation.

Unaware of the bombshell he was naively dropping, McGowan publicly asked: “If Krugerrands are to be banned, why not diamonds imported from South Africa and cut and exported from Israel? Does cutting them in Israel remove the Black blood on them?”

Or, he would query to an uncomfortable audience: “If apartheid is evil, why is it bad for South Africa yet acceptable for Israel? Why is the expropriation of land for the exclusive use of whites condemned, while the expropriation of land for the exclusive use of Jews (a restriction now covering more than 90 percent of Israeli real estate) condoned?”

McGowan’s talks were beginning to ruffle feathers of Israel’s supporters, but he persisted in pointing out in lectures on labor markets that Israel practiced ethnic and religious discrimination. For even though Israel has a tradition of labor union rights when the workers are Jews, when the Jewish state employs Palestinians they are confined to menial jobs in agriculture, construction and sanitation and receive few of the benefits accorded Jewish workers.

The economics professor finally saw the light when he checked to see if an introductory course on Islam was offered on his campus. He was astounded to discover the religion department had five full-time faculty and offered 39 courses, 10 on Judaism and the Holocaust, but not a single class on Islam. When he inquired why a religion observed by one-quarter of the world’s population was not represented by even one course, he was told there weren’t many Muslim students on campus.

“By that analogy, colleges without Russian students would have no reason to teach Russian,” he countered, but to no avail. Ten years later, Hobart and William Smith Colleges still do not offer a course on Islam.

McGowan’s curiosity over this intentional omission of Islamic studies led him to contact the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He learned about ADC’s “Eyewitness Israel” program and applied.

“I guess I wasn’t a good candidate, what with being a Republican, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and an economist instead of a human rights organizer, journalist or ordained cleric,” he recalled.

At the last minute, McGowan was accepted and paid his own way to live in Jabalya, the largest refugee camp in Gaza. He was shocked to observe the abuse Palestinians endured under Israeli military rule. The tall, lanky American walked the streets of Hebron, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Jenin, but it was the total Zionist coverup of the massacre of Deir Yassin that most galled his sense of justice.

Returning to the U.S., he lectured about the systematic depopulation of 700,000 Palestinians from more than 400 Arab villages and cities. He formed an international board for the organization he founded, Deir Yassin Remembered—a twist on “Remember Deir Yassin” which Zionist extremists blared over loudspeakers in 1948 to scare villagers into fleeing across the border.

His organization’s board includes both Palestinians (Hanan Ashrawi, Sahar Ghosheh, Saleh Abdel Jawad, Edward Said and Khairieh Abu Shusheh) and Israeli and American Jews (Roni Ben Efrat, Sherna Berger Gluck, Rachelle Marshal, Lea Tsemel and Stanley Sheinbaum). At the onset, McGowan sent an invitation to serve on the board to Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who writes about Holocuast survivors “so they won’t be forgotten.” Wiesel actually was working for the Irgun in France when it carried out the Deir Yassin massacre and afterward, but he has never answered any of McGowan’s phone calls, letters or faxes.

McGowan officially opened his fund-raising campaign for the Deir Yassin memorial at ADC’s 1995 convention in Washington, DC. There he outlined his plans to raise $100,000 for the memorial which would entail an international design competition. Everyone applauded his idea, but the project has yet to raise anything like that amount of money.

McGowan has received inquiries from artists and sculptors who are eager to design a memorial. He has even met Israelis who say they will petition the Knesset for a suitable site at Deir Yassin/Givat Shaul. Many Palestinians, however, tend to be skeptical of this project and say they would like to see whether McGowan can secure a site from the Israelis before they contribute to the project.

McGowan invites all Washington Report readers to visit the Deir Yassin Remembered website at www.deiryassin.org. Readers who wish more information or would like to participate in the project may e-mail him at mcgowan@hws.edu

MPAC Reviews Progress

Hesham Reda, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Washington, DC office, reviewed progress since it opened 10 months ago at a Feb. 14 program in the Islamic Center of Southern California.

Looking to the 2000 elections, Reda said MPAC is considering both of the two leading presidential prospects, Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush Jr.

“We are aware that Gore is more supportive of Israel than the present administration, but if we cut off all ties with him, there would not be much of a chance for dialogue if he is elected,” Reda said. “Even though Bush has had no links to the Zionists, he went to Israel as soon as he became governor of Texas. It seems that every American politician who gets elected must go to Israel and receive its blessings.”

As for U.S. foreign policy on Palestine and Iraq, the State Department’s views are rigid but MPAC continues to strive for a relaxation of its pro-Zionist stance and insistence on sanctions against Iraq.

Reda noted that the Zionists and affiliated groups from the Christian far right have been using the issue of religious freedom abroad to criticize Muslim governments that they charge persecute minority groups.

“The [religious freedom] bill talked about Sudan, but not Kosovo or Tibet,” Reda said. After several meetings with the White House and members of Congress, wording of the bill was changed to decry persecution of any religion. MPAC pointed out that Muslims are persecuted in some non-Islamic countries and even in predominantly Muslim countries. He used Turkey as an example of the latter category, stating that after an Islamist party came to power, the army shut it down.

When terrorist bombs struck American embassies in East Africa last August, MPAC was among the national Muslim groups that successfully urged President Clinton to point out that all Muslims should not be identified as terrorists.

The anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress has concerned MPAC particularly, since 24 men are in U.S. prisons on the basis of secret evidence.

“These men are all Muslim and mostly Palestinian,” Reda continued. “We have talked to the attorney general’s office about this situation, particularly after Secretary of Defense William Cohen’s remark that the U.S. must make compromises on human rights in order to clamp down on terrorists.”

Another concern has been profiling of Muslims and Arabs at airports as potential terrorists. When asked what Muslims can do to confront the rising tide of anti-Islamic sentiments, he replied: “Work together on civil liberties in general and not just what deals with Muslims.”

Martha Azzam Honored

Martha and Ed Azzam were pioneers of the Arab-American community in Southern California ever since they settled in Gardena in 1949. Even after Ed’s death in 1995, Martha has continued to support the Arab cause and traveled to Palestine in 1997.

More than 100 friends, relatives and members of the Arab community were able to keep a secret and surprise Martha on her 80th birthday at a luncheon prepared by daughter Jadine at El Camino College. Son Ed, Jr was master of ceremonies for a trip down memory lane as he recounted how Martha had worked for the American Consulate in Jerusalem from 1945 to 1947. It was there she met Ed, who worked at the famous Young Men’s Christian Association in Jerusalem.

Ed followed Martha to her home in Bowling Green, OH, where they were married Feb. 19, 1948. Ed served as president of the Council of Arab American Organizations in 1975 and 1976, was chairman of the Arab Community Center and served on the local boards of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and USOMEN.

Many Gardena city officials were on hand to thank Martha for her continued volunteer service, including serving as a receptionist at the Senior Citizens Bureau. Entertainment was provided by many grandchildren and nieces performing Pacific Asian dances. A highlight was when Dr. Nabil Azzam (no relation) performed a violin selection written for the occasion, entitled “The Crescent.”

Speaking of Dr. Nabil Azzam, he recently conducted a concert, “Albilad,” as part of the guest artist series at the University of Redlands. We understand it was the first time classical Arabic music had been performed on campus and, judging by the number of people who turned out, the music department predicts it will become a tradition.

Singer Samir Saado brought down the house with his folk songs. It was the improvisations of maestro Azzam on the violin, Maurice Mitri on the oud, Nabeeh Smeirat on the nay, Samer Farah on qanun and Suheil Kaspar on the tablah drum that filled the concert hall with cries of admiration. The ambitious program offered folk dancing by the Adam Basma Dance Troupe and a stunning belly dance by Nagham.

Operation Desert Democracy Staged at UCLA

Representatives from several Iraqi opposition groups gathered Jan. 16 for a roundtable on the Gulf crisis, but no concrete plan on where to begin was formulated. However, as moderator Salam al-Marayati pointed out, it was significant that the discussion was doing something new, attempting to include all voices, including the Christian Assyrian minority represented by Dr. Lincoln Malik.

The event was sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies, the Institute of Iraqi Affairs, the Kurdish National Council, the Iraqi Forum for Democracy and the Iraqi American Committee.

Dr. Laith Kubba of the National Endowment for Democracy addressed the problem of why the Iraqi opposition is disunited by offering a historical perspective. Fragile democratic units collapsed after 1958 as the army began to interfere in politics, he said. “From 1968 to 1978, Communists, Islamists and anyone in opposition to the Ba’athist regime were executed,” he continued. “After the oil boom, Iraqis exchanged their civil liberties for profits in petroleum sales. Thousands died, but the millions who remained silent are suffering now.”

From 1978 to 1988, Dr. Kubba said, most of the opposition was forced to live in exile and the various groups were influenced by the countries in which they took refuge.

“After the Gulf war in 1991, a new breed joined the opposition,” Dr. Kubba stated. “These were people who had belonged to the regime—even its torturers. Their motives and backgrounds were different and they retained their regional, ethnic or religious identities instead of forming a national perspective.”

The most important element missing in the opposition is an effective role for the Iraqi people, he stressed. “Those inside are on the front line. They are the ones who are suffering. It is delusional to think we can build a coup from here. We must work collectively and establish mechanizations.

Commented Dr. Malik: “Sanctions are a word for containment, to isolate an entity from disturbing the status quo. The U.S. has done it to Cuba and to Libya. If this [unpopular] containment continues, it could lessen U.S. power in the Middle East.”

Dr. Malik called on the U.S. to consider the French/Russian proposal to return to doing business with Saddam, but disallowing him from buying weapons. He also warned the U.S. to give up any ideas of replacing Saddam with another dictator.

“Iraq is not a backward fiefdom, it is not a banana republic. Its people are sophisticated and would never put up with a new dictator.

“We must put forward a face on the Iraqi opposition that represents all phases of Iraqi society. This will require networking and respecting each other’s concerns.”

Challenging the many groups present, Dr. Malik asked: “Are we going to continue a policy of exclusion or unite?”

Mustafa Quzwini of the Iraqi American Committee noted that not all blame for Iraq’s plight should be placed on the Pentagon or Washington, and that Iraqis must share some of the responsibility.

The religious leader, who is based in Orange County, appealed to Washington to refrain from replacing one dictator with another, not to support one opposition group over another and to stop the sanctions. Taking a step further, he called for the removal of Iraq’s seat in the United Nations and for Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to be indicted for genocide and invading neighboring countries. He advocated that all of Iraq be declared a no-fly zone and that the south be declared a no-drive zone.

Graham Fuller of Rand commented that the U.S. does not instinctively hate Iraq and, if it had a good government, Washington could get along with Baghdad the way it does with the Saudis. He predicted that in the coming century, 50 to 60 percent of present regimes will fall “because the people won’t put up with the repression.”

When a member of the audience retorted that it is not in the geopolitical interest of the U.S. to have democracy in the Middle East, Fuller replied: “The history of the role of the U.S. in the Middle East is terrible. But the future of the Middle East will not be decided by this emir or that general. The region will be destabilized during the transition to democracy, but it is coming.”

When Fuller was challenged with the statement that Washington wants Israel to remain the superior power in the Middle East, he answered:

“We all know the U.S. favors Israel. But since [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu was elected, relations between Washington and Tel Aviv have never been so bad. Jews in the State Department actually prefer [Palestinian Authority President Yasser] Arafat because Bibi is so bad. Americans are beginning to realize that Israel has an ugly side, that there is no oil in Israel, that it is not a big market for our exports and it is not so important as a military base.”

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers based in Los Angeles.