As Maurice Ostroff has written:
The incontrovertible fact is that the story was a complete fabrication by Hazem Nusseibeh, editor of Palestine Broadcasting Service's in 1948, on the direct instructions of the secretary of the Arab High Committee, Hussein Khalidi. Incontrovertible, because during a 1997 BBC TV interview, Nusseibeh himself, admitted that he was instructed by Khalidi to falsify claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin so as to encourage Arab regimes to attack Israel. You can view a video clip of this interview (here) and if you have any doubts about its authenticity, you can check it out with the BBC.
Nusseibeh, told the BBC that the fabricated atrocity stories about Deir Yassin were "our biggest mistake," because "Palestinians fled in terror and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims" adding a new facet to research about the reasons so many Arabs fled in 1948.
All the stories about an alleged massacre that were rapidly circulated around the world were based on this fiction.
