Sir: I agree with Mr Gershlick (Letters, September 4) that
it is difficult now to say how many of the Palestinian refugees fled from Palestine in 1948 out of simple fear for their lives and how many were driven out by the Israelis. It is not true, however, that Sir John Glubb, in his book A Soldier with the Arabs, makes "no specific accusations" against the Israelis. On the contrary, he gives (p. 162) a vivid account of the expulsion by the Israeli forces of the entire population of Lydda and Ramie on July 12, 1948, adding that "houses were broken into and women sufficiently roughly handled" to ensure that the evacuation was completed within half an hour.
But surely, the important point is not whether the Israelis drove these unfortunate people from their homes, but that they refused to allow them to return once the fighting was over. It was by this callous refusal (and how much more callous it seems in the light of the Jews' own history!) that the Israelis created the refugee problem, which remains today, in the words of!. F. Stone, a "moral millstone about the neck of world Jewry." Not until that millstone is removed will the Israelis or their supporters be able to rest in peace.
Michael Adams 104 Grand Buildings, Trafalgar Square, London WC2.
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