Deir Yassin
Sir: So Patrick Marnham (28 January) chooses to ignore my evidence (21 January)
that Begin never said about Deir Yassin that the massacre was justified. Mr Marnham may ignore it, but the leading proArab pressure group in this country, the Council for the Advancement of ArabBritish Understanding, have accepted it, and realised that their quote suppliers have played them false. They have now had the decency to delete the offending passage from their pamphlet on Begin.
Often 'quotes' from speeches or writings by Israeli or Zionist leaders in Arab propaganda turn out to be either complete fabrications, as in this case, deliberate mistranslations, or quotes out of context. The fact that official Arab propaganda found it necessary to misquote Begin is a very strong indicator that the Arab version of Deir Yassin was itself a fabrication. I dealt with what happened at Deir Yassin in a previous letter (26 November).
In 1948 the Arab authorities needed to spread the massacre story in order to create hatred which would increase the fighting spirit of their troops and blacken the name of Israel. However we have now reached a turning point in the conflict. On 20 November, 1977, after a generation of bloody fighting, the leading Arab statesman at last agreed to start peace negotiations, which clearly are going to be very long and difficult. Even now there are still many `rejectionist' Arabs who are horrified at the idea of peace. Under these circumstances it is surely very wrong to resurrect the hate propaganda of thirty years ago: it will hardly help achieve peace.
David M. Jacobs 23 Worley Road, St. Albans, Herts.
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