THE OTHER EXODUS
SIR,—In his letter of June 2, Mr. Kimche states that he has spent some years 'checking and rejecting not only the evidence but also the so-called sources of the evidence' on the Exodus of the Arabs from Palestine. At the same time, however, he is clearly unaware of the nature, scope and whereabouts of the monitoring records of the ME broadcasts for 1948 which constitute perhaps one of the most important collections of material on the contemporary atti- tudes and reactions in the 1948 war. There are, in fact, two monitoring collections for 1948: one com- piled by the BBC, the other by the CIA, both from Cyprus. There is considerable overlapping between these collections but in the interests of 'checking' and 'rejection' they should be studied separately. Both collections give detailed daily coverage of broadcasts' from Arab capitals and of such Zionist radios as Haganah Radio (in Hebrew, English and Arabic), the Free Hebrew Station (Stern) and the Voice of Fight- ing Zion (Irgun). I was pleased to see that the re- searches of Mr. Childers in the British Museum confirm my own findings, I can report now that the complete CIA collection here in Princeton also over- whelmingly confirms and elaborates the results that Mr, Childers and I have arrived at independently of one another. Briefly, these are the following : (1) There are countless broadcasts by Zionist radios which indicate deliberate psychological warfare against the Arabs. (2) There is not one single instance of an Arab evacuation order or a hint of such an order. (3) There is an impressive stream of explicit Arab orders to the Palestinian Arab civilians to hold their ground and remain in their towns and villages. (4) A similar stream between March and May an- nounces plans for the setting-up of a Palestinian administration and urges Arab civil servants to stay at their posts. (5) Many Zionist broadcasts repeat and comment on the Arab announcements, referred to in (3) and (4) above. (6) Even at the darkest of times Arab broadcasts consistently be- littled Zionist atrocities.
The evidence of the monitoring records is not only negative in that it shows that there were no Arab evacuation orders but also positive inasmuch as it indicates what both Arab and Zionist broadcasts did actually say. This is why no amount of footwork (however deft) can save Mr. Kimche : such as his saying that it was I who invented the myth of the Arab broadcasts, or that he cannot produce 'a piece of paper' to prove the broadcasts (a welcome admis- sion in itself) or that the orders were really tele- phoned, or that there was no need for orders in the first place. Indeed, .these reactions of Mr. Kimche serve only to illustrate the synthetic, and tactical nature of Zionist propaganda : once one fabrication is shot down, you simply invent another or shift your premise. Consider in particular Mr. Kimche's re- ference to telephone conversation between Cairo and Haifa, in which I believe we have been privileged to witness a new Zionist fabrication in the very pangs of parturition. The logic seems to be :, A spoke to B on the telephone, therefore A must have told B such and such.
The Zionists must really make their minds up : to have an order or not; to have the order broadcast or telephoned, etc. Incidentally, the CID document on Haifa which Kimche mentions is neither a photo- stat of an original nor of a copy of one. One cannot but recall in this connection the fictitious British army unit described by Kimche in his Secret Roads which the Zionist Mossad organisation created in Italy complete with 'all the documents and papers needed by an Army unit, all meticulously copied.' Kimche should also have a look at the banner headlines of the semi-official Zionist Palestine Post of April 23, 1948 (the morrow of Haifa's fall) an- nouncing that 'Haganah forces in a thirty-hour battle . . . crushed all resistance, occupied many major buildings forcing thousands of Arabs to flee by the only open escape route—the sea.'—Yours faithfully, \VALID KHALIDI Research Associate, Near East Program Princeton University Princeton. New Jersey
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