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Dear editor:
For nearly a millennium beginning in 1144 in England the medieval blood libel emerged in which antisemites calumniate about non Jews being killed by Jews and using those calumnies to inspire murders of hundreds of jews. This blood libelous inspired murder and torment of Jews often required them to constantly move to avoid further torment and murder. (“The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe“, E.M.Rose, 2015).
However since 1948 the medieval blood libel has morphed into the Islamic blood libel in which legitimate Jewish self defense is called “massacres” and “ethnic cleansing” and legitimate targets of Jewish self defense — like Hamas and Hezbollah, who proudly proclaim that like the Nazis their raison d’etre is jew killing — are just “people.”
The modern Islamic iteration of the medieval blood libel began at the Battle of Der Yassin in April 1948 in which 90% of the residents of Der Yassin escaped and only 10% were killed. Yet for almost a century the main stream media and the academy has ignored these numbers and called legitimate Jewish self defense “a massacre.”
On April 9, 1948 there was a battle at Der Yassin in which 107 Arabs died. As described by Professor Eliezer Tauber in his recent exquisitely detailed study of the events of April 9 in which he compared survivor testimony, both Arab and Jew, and was able to detail the circumstances of practically every death:
“Seventy percent of the about 1,000 inhabitants of Der Yassin managed to escape the attack (because the attackers let them escape), twenty percent were taken prisoner, and ten percent were killed. As we have shown, the ratio between Arabs killed and injured (about 100 each) did not suggest a massacre. Even more indicative is the fact that double the number of Arabs were taken prisoner than were killed. This is an even better metric, because the decision to take individuals prisoners was an intentional act on the part of the captors (unlike when injuring people). Finally the fact that the overwhelming majority, ninety percent, survived the attack is the clearest refutation of the accusation of a massacre.” (“The Massacre That Never Was. The Myth of Der Yassin and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem“, Professor Eliezer Tauber, 2021).
Not only does Professor Tauber expose the “massacre” at Der Yassin as a blood libel, but just as importantly so does CONTEMPORANEOUS Muslim journalism which describes the Arab leaders’ modus operandi of screaming the blood libel of “massacre” to inflame the Arab populace against the Jews.
On April 9, 1953 the Jordanian daily “Al Urdan” reported: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs. By spreading rumours of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.” (See: “The Palestinian Delusion. The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process“, Robert Spencer , 2019, page 83.)
The recent use of pagers as legitimate Jewish self defense against Hezbollah who has fired thousands and thousands of rockets into Jewish civilian population centers over the past year murdering and injuring hundreds of Jews — pagers that have resulted in deaths and injuries to thousands of Hezbollah Jews killers — those Hezbollah Jews killers are the targets of the pagers and the only people authorized by Hezbollah to have these pagers.
Any civilian injuries or deaths from these pagers are the result of Hezbollah Jews killers disobeying their orders and allowing non Hezbollah members to have access to their pagers.
Notwithstanding that targeting Hezbollah jew killers is legitimate Jewish self defense just as targeting the Nazis who poured ZyklonB gas into the crematorium, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and much of the main stream media wrote that the pagers killed “people.” “People” walking their dogs? Not exactly. “People” swimming in the ocean? Not exactly. “People” having lunch in the park? Not exactly. The Jewish people of Israel in an act of legitimate self defense targeted thousands of Hezbollah jew killers who have made clear by their murderous actions that their raison d’etre is the genocide of the Jews of Israel. Yet the mainstream media wallowing in the Islamic blood libel of our time obfuscates the pure evil of every targeted Hezbollah terrorist and writes that “people” were killed.
It is amoral journalism no different than writing that in 1962 that Israel executed a “person” named Adolf Eichmann.
Richard Sherman
Margate, Florida
