Deir Yassin / Dayr Yasin

Hello,

Tomorrow morning Eitan Bronstein and I are going to Deir Yassin. It was a village right near Jerusalem that was attacked by Jewish terror gangs on April 9, 1948 and roughly 250 Palestinian men, women and children were massacred.

Now it is a mental hospital and offbounds to the public. I have no idea how we're going to get in or what we are doing there. Eitan did not explain that to me on the telephone.

I went to a NGO friend of Zochrot's website to do some reading up on Deir Yassin (hebrew spelling) and I was horrified by what I read.

I don't bring this to you for the sake of shock; but I feel it important that we face the tough facts of history, especially to have a context for understanding things today.

I invite you to look at the following link:

http://palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Dayr-Yasin/index.html

If you so choose, you can scroll down the page and read the information. I do want to give you fair warning, the Stories and Memories section is graphic and disturbing.

I am going for a bike ride right now. I have to process my thoughts and feelings.

Darren