Amiad Haran Diman

Introduction In 1949, heated debate plagued the elite of the newly created state of Israel. Controversial construction work began on the lands of the displaced Palestinian village of Deir Yassin to build a Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A group of intellectuals had written to Israel’s prime minister, David Ben Gurion, asking for the settlement to be cancelled because failing to do so would appear to endorse the infamous events in the villages a year earlier.