MORBID MORTON'S DEIR YASSIN DENIAL

Morton's strategy is simple. With Israel wielding absolute power over destitute Palestinians. And with most of the eyewitnesses either killed in the massacre or lost in exile. And with the only witnesses summoned are themselves supporters of or killers from the Irgun and Stern Jewish terrorist groups this is the best time to call for a retrial of the Deir Yassin massacre. It takes a person devoid of decency to pull a Morton. Even Americans came to terms with their legacy of hate and found it in their hearts to shed a tear or two on native Indians and African Americans, or even the Vietnamese.

In 1948, bandits of terrorist Jewish organizations overran a Palestinian village deemed strategic to Jewish defenses named Deir Yassin killing in the process approximately 250-300 men, women, and children using tactics rivaling those of Serbian ethnic cleansers ranging from rapes to mutilations. The objective of the massacre was to spread fear and panic which effectively sent thousands of unarmed Palestinian farmers fleeing for their lives from surrounding villages. British, Red Cross, and even some Israeli accounts corroborated the massacre as well as the few survivors who fled the village in the chaos that ensued.

But according to Morton and his henchmen, the massacre was a fabrication to scar the unblemished history of Israel and tarnish the reputation of its heroic worriers. Israel, they would like us to believe is a another biblical miracle that just happened. A ripe apple falling from a tree branch right into their pockets. What about millions of Palestinian refugees? It was their decision to leave, many Jews would argue.

With Palestinians vilified and deprived of their history, Israel is left standing as a righteous victor with no wrongs to right. But had it not been for well-documented and impartial accounts of the Palestinian tragedy, many horror stories would have gone untold and the Palestinian history would have sunk into the abyss with others who have vanished from history. But much to Morton's dismay, this is not the case.  Morton's backup plan as we are learning is to deny, deny, deny; discredit, discredit, discredit. As if loosing the future to Israel was not bad enough, Palestinians now  have to defend the legacy of their suffering from sinking into an Israeli-made oblivion.

HISTORICAL REVISIONISM 101

When Jews aspired for a homeland, they established Israel on the ruins of Palestine. Now all Israel needs is a great history of its own whence the honorable modern day worriers of Zion while outnumbered fought epic battles against barbaric philistines. Under Zionist reign, desert bloomed and democracy beaconed in the searing heat of the desolate and uninhabited deserts of Palestine. Hard working kepputzers labored day and night building a future for Israel while repulsing the indiscriminate onslaughts of marauding Arab bandits. Soon, good would prevail over evil. And Israel is reborn. Right? Only if you are a ZOA card carrying member would you buy into such a modern day fable.

If only the Palestinians never existed as Golda Meir once insisted. But times are different. The information age and the rising level of education has deemed it more difficult to continue to reinvent history. Today, those who seek the truth with objectivity, will find it. Ideologues will reinvent reality. Morton is a mere ideologue who has set up his own tribunal, selected his own panel of judges, and hand picked the witnesses. If trials were held Morton-style, no crime will ever go punished or restitution ever made.

The recent Jewish extremists campaign to discredit Deir Yassin as a fabrication reeks with hypocrisy when contrasted with Jewish ultra-sensitivity to Holocaust denials or revisionism. Not surprisingly, the litany of third-rate polemics meant to rebut the body of evidence accumulated along the years is finding an audience in the US amongst the religious right and parroted by beneficiaries of pro-Israeli moneys. And why not. If Sharon can be legally cleared in a New York court (of all the places) from his role in the Sabra & Shatila massacre in Lebanon, why can’t we clear the perpetrators of Deir Yassin, who some would like you to believe were honorable soldiers engaged in a war of survival oblivious to civilian casualty. Morton can teach the Bosnian Serbs a few lessons.

And Morton being a scientist by training seems obsessed with numbers. While "negotiating" the deaths of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust will draw the severest condemnations, Morton and his associates seem determined to nickel and dime the Palestinian tragedy to "death" on the casualty toll of massacres and killings committed by the Jews. Massacres? What massacres? It was a battle and Palestinian deaths were mere collateral damage. That's Morton's morbid logic.
 

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MORTON

According to Morton's law of nature, Rawandan Tutsis and Bosnian Muslims have no legitimate claims to victimhood. Their losses were collateral damage in a fair fight with winners and losers. But why look too far. Following Morton's logic, were Jewish casualties of World War II mere collateral damage too? What would Elie Wiesel think of Morton's reasoning, or its absence. And if we can't argue scientifically that exactly 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies, does that discredit the Holocaust. What about the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have perished over half a century as a result of Israeli violence and the travails of exodus and destitution. Overtaken by his hate, Morton must have forgotten that his tactics are a double-edged sword which cuts both ways.

But Morton is not interested in truth. No religious and ultra-nationalist ideologue was ever interested in truth and justice. Morton is a man with a loathsome agenda of hate and a Meir Kahana incarnate for the 21st century. Every generation has its prophets of hate. The Israelis traded their prophet of peace Itzhak Rabin for Binjamin Netanyahu and Morton Klein. That's a bum deal. The world according to Morton is a world of myth. But in the wrong environment myth flourishes with the same vigor as truth does. Only the voices of decency will ensure myth is never confused with truth by the coming generations.

At this juncture of Palestinian and Jewish history, sides have mostly been taken. Attempts at revisionism only serve to supply ammunition for a debate most of us have grown wary of. This debate serves no purpose but to widen a chasm already dangerously stretched. In an era of Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation, Morton rises from the ashes as an anachronism whose only contribution is to gain prominence by slapping around the despondent Palestinians at a time when Israel's 50th anniversary celebration signals the 50th anniversary of the obliteration of the Palestinian identity. After all, Palestinians today do make an easy target for aspiring extremist Jews. Out numbered and out moneyed; oppressed and exhausted, the Palestinians can only do so much. The burden to continue to tell the truth falls on the shoulder of every decent person who still believe in peace, justice, and truth. That includes Jews too.