The April 9, 1948, Massacre in a Palestinian Village and the Killing of Peace in Palestine

Written by: Ned K. on 13 April 2026

April 9, 1948, was the date of the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin in occupied Palestine by one of the Zionist Far Right extremist groups, LEHI ("Freedom Fighters for Israel"). LEHI was also known as the "Stern Gang" led by Yitzak Shamir who later became Prime Minister of Israel.

("The Killing of Peace in Palestine" is the heading of an article in Vanguard printed way back in about 2003-04, the time of the US war against Iraq. Now we have the US war against Iran. More than 20 years apart, both wars of aggression occurred while the decades long war of aggression by the Zionist state of Israel backed by the same imperialist forces against the Palestinians has raged. The details below about events in Palestine in 1947-48 are taken from the Vanguard article of 2003-04.)

The massacre occurred following concerns expressed by Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat about the plight of 300,000 Palestinian refugees and advocated a return to their homeland. Bernadotte had initially been sympathetic towards the European based Zionists due to the persecution and genocide of

European Jews by the Nazis.
However, Bernadotte saw the 29 November 1947 United Nations adopted partition resolution dividing the land of Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish and one Palestinian as "unworkable". His diary note entries expressed his view of "the arrogance and hostility" towards Palestinian refugees. He proposed that Jews and Palestinians should form a "union" with changes to the boundaries set out in the UN partition. His strongest concern was the hypocrisy of the Zionists’ determination to rapidly increase Jewish immigration to the partitioned Israel state and beyond and at the same time of the denial of 300,000 Palestinian refugees returning to their homelands where they had lived for hundreds of years.

Shortly after the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin, Bernadotte was appointed UN Mediator for Palestine by the UN General Assembly.

This was too much for the Zionist forces to tolerate. In September 1948, Commander Yehoshua Zeitler of the Jerusalem Branch of the LEHI started training four men to kill Bernadotte. Bernadotte was assassinated on 17 September 1948 while on his way to a meeting with the governor of the then Jerusalem's New City. The assassination involved the blocking of a UN convoy and the firing of an automatic pistol into the passenger seating of the car in which Bernadotte was seated. The assassins called themselves " The Fatherland Front" which was later revealed as a front for LEHI.

The massacre of Palestinian civilians and the assassination of people in prominent political or diplomatic positions who oppose the Zionist regime as occurred in 1948 has continued right up until the current situation in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and now Iran.

Throughout this period from 1947-48 to 2026, the Zionist regime has been backed by US imperialism with its faithful allies such as the Australian Government supporting it, sometimes openly, sometimes through its silence.

Despite this alliance of the Zionist state and imperialism, the Palestinian people continue to struggle for a free Palestine with the support of millions of people across the globe.

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Further reading: The terrorist dispossession of Palestinians by Zionists in 1948 is documented in Israeli historian Ilon Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. The same terrorism is continued on the West Bank today by Zionist “settlers”.  

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