yesterday that a single Arab resident had been expelled by the Government since the establishment of the State of Israel and he said the pre-State Jewish underground had announced that any Arab would remain where he was. He said the fugitives had fled under the orders of Arab Leaders". In the same "Spectator Correspondence" (page 54), Jon Kimche wrote "But there is now a mountain of independent evidence to show that the initiative for the Arab exodus came from the Arab side and not from the Jews". In the same "Correspondence" the views of Ben-Gurion and Kimche are critiqued by Childers and Khalidi (see - Criticisms of the "Arab leaders' endorsement of flight" explanation - below) In the case of the village of Ein Karem, William O. Douglas was told by the villagers that the cause of their flight was twofold: first, it was caused by fear that came out of the Deir Yassin massacre, and second because "the villagers were told by the Arab leaders to leave. It apparently was a strategy of mass evacuation, whether or not necessary as a military or public safety measure." Statements by Arab leaders and organizations Khalid al-`Azm who was prime minister of Syria from 17 December 1948 to 30 March 1949, listed in his memoirs a number of reasons for the Arab defeat in an attack on the Arab leaders including his own predecessor Jamil Mardam Bey: Fifth: the Arab governments' invitation to the people of Palestine to flee from it and seek refuge in adjacent Arab countries, after terror had spread among their ranks in the wake of the Deir Yassin event. This mass flight has benefited the Jews and the situation stabilized in their favor without effort.... Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homeland, while it is we who constrained them to leave it. Between the invitation extended to the refugees and the request to the United Nations to decide upon their return, there elapsed only a few months. After the war, a few Arab leaders tried to present the Palestinian exodus as a victory by claiming to have planned it. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said was later quoted as saying: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died