How did the village of Dier Yassin come to be fought over in 1948, and why do sources A and B differ on who was to blame for the Arab flight from the village and other pars of Palestine at the time?

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How did the village of Dier Yassin come to be fought over in 1948, and why do sources A and B differ on who was to blame for the Arab flight from the village and other pars of Palestine at the time?

Dier Yassin is a village inside the British mandate of Palestine. In 1948, at the time of the Israeli war of independence, from the 9-11 of April Dier Yassin was attacked. Over 100 Arabs were killed on the Haganna and Stern Gang war path between Jaffa and Jerusalem. This was a turning point in the Arab Israeli conflict and some claim that it started the Palestinian refugee crisis.

This attack, however, was a small part of a bigger conflict in which the Arab contingent started war on the newly created Israel. The conflictarose from decades of old competing nationalists and as a result of this the Israelis launched operation Dalet on the 4th of April. Using Haganna and other militant groups their aim was to clear a road from Jaffa to Jerusalem and to split the Arab state into two and capture Jerusalem before the UN partition came into effect.

This action was a result of a UN proposal formed after the refugee crisis as a result of World War One. The UNSCOP partition split the country in to two states: Israel and Palestine and put Jerusalem under UN control. This created tension on both sides. Firstly the Arabs had less land even though they had two thirds more people. They also had no direct access to their main port of Jaffa. In addition their state was split into three separate parts, which, added to the fact that all of the most fertile land was under Israeli control made them extremely unhappy. Both sides felt they should control Jerusalem as a legal, moral and religious right. The Israelis had no direct access to Jerusalem, which meant they would have to travel through Arab territories to reach their holy city.

These tensions resulted in both sides making war on each other before the UN partition could come into effect. The Arabs and Jews believed they had moved from one controlled and policed state to another.

 The British mandate was a result of World War One. In World War One the British needed allies, they promised Israel Mac Mahan and Palestine the same, things they could not give. This angered both sides and forced a mandate and lead to conflict and fighting.

This conflict, however, has even earlier roots, which trace back to the start of both their religions. Both Jews and Arabs believe they have religious rights to the land. According to both sides Moses had two sons who were both promised the same land. One founded the Judaism and the other, Islam. This resulted in both sides claiming they had rights to the same land.

Although we can extract a number of facts, such a date, number of victims and names of leaders, from source A but in the main it tries to bend our opinion because it is a propaganda leaflet, designed to affect opinion. It tells Zionists attacked Dier Yassin on the 9thApril 1948. and that “154 men, women and children” from a “peaceful village” were “massacred” in “cold blood” The language the author uses suggests to the reader that the perpertrators were unnecessarily violent. The phrase “men, women and children” claims the murderers were indiscriminate and brutal murderers; a war crime had been committed.  The phrases “cold blood” and “plan” suggest that the attack was part of a coordinated attempt to force Palestinians out of the homes through the use of terror and fear.

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In Source A we are told that one of the groups who attacked the village was lead by Begin, who later became president of Israel;  the government of Israel therefore in not to be trusted, having members in it who sanctioned  war crimes, thus it follows that Israel is an illegal state. The author portrays, through words such as “fate”, “confusion and terror” the attack as a momentous and morally and legally unjustified act which led directly to the refugee crisis because the Palestinians were “prevented” from returning to their “homes”. His main aim to create sympathy for the Arab ...

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