down." Jamal Husseini, Palestinian representative to the United Nations, wrote to the Syrian UN representative, at the end of August 1948, According to Yitschak Ben Gad, Mahmoud Abbas, then member of PLO Executive Committee, wrote an article "Madha `Alamna wa-Madha Yajib An Na`mal" [What We Have Learned and What We Should Do] and published it in "Falastineth-Thawra" [Revolutionary Palestine], the official journal of the PLO, Beirut, on March 26, 1976: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemned to change places with them: they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity." Criticisms of the "Arab leaders' endorsement of flight" explanation Numerous recent historians, particularly since the 1980s, now dismiss the claim as devoid of evidence, Morris, with others of the New Historians school, concur that Arab instigation was not the major cause of the refugees' flight. As regards the overall exodus, they state that the major cause of Palestinian flight was instead military actions by the Israeli Defence Force and fear of them. In their view, Arab instigation can only explain a small part of the exodus and not a large part of it. Moreover, Morris and Flapan have been among the authors whose research has disputed the official Israeli version claiming that the refugee flight was in large part instigated by Arab leaders. More evidence is presented by Walid Khalidi. In his article the author argues that steps were taken by Arab governments to prevent Palestinians from leaving, ensuring that they remain to fight, including the denial by Lebanon and Syria of residency permits to Palestinian males of military age on April 30 and May 6 respectively. He also notes that a number of Arab radio broadcasts urged the inhabitants of Palestine to remain and discussed plans for an Arab administration there. His point is taken by Glazer (1980, p. 101), who writes that not only did Arab radio stations appeal to the inhabitants not to leave, but also that Zionist radio stations urged the population to flee, by exaggerating the course of battle, and, in some cases, fabricating