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The video focuses on an interview with Hazem Nusseibeh, a member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent Arab families. In 1948 he was an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news.
In this interview with the BBC he admits that in 1948 he was instructed by Hussein Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin in order to encourage Arab regimes to invade the expected Jewish state. He made this damming admission in explaining why the Arabs failed in the 1948 war. He said "this was our biggest mistake", because Palestinians fled in terror and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims.
Nusseibeh describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's OldCity with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi... 'I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,'. He said, "We must make the most of this." So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped, all sorts of atrocities, though these things didn't happen.
In the video clip Abu Mahmud, who was a Dir Yassin resident in 1948, told the BBC that the villagers protested against the atrocity claims: We said, "There was no rape." But Khalidi said, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews."
This false press statement was released to New York Times correspondent, Dana Schmidt leading to an article in the New York Times on April 12, 1948, claiming that a massacre took place at Deir Yassin that was reprinted worldwide and cited even in Israel as proof of Israeli atrocities
Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh was a representative of Jordan at the Mixed Armistice Commission and he was Minister of Foreign Affairs.He was also the Permanent Ambassador of Jordan to the UN and has authored several books, including The Ideas of Arab Nationalism, Palestine and the United Nations and A History of Modern Jordan.