counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. In his 2004 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Morris wrote, "My feeling is that the transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s was not tantamount to pre-planning and did not issue in the production of a policy or master-plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion." Morris also states that he could not find anything in the Israeli archives that would prove the existence of a Zionist plan to expel Palestinians in 1948. Elsewhere Morris has said that the expulsion of the Palestinians did amount to ethnic cleansing, and that the action was justifiable considering the circumstances. Yoav Gelber notes that documentation exists showing that David Ben-Gurion "regarded the escape as a calculated withdrawal of non-combatant population upon the orders of Arab commanders and out of military considerations", which is contradictory to the hypothesis of a master plan he may have drawn up. Concerning Plan Dalet, Gelber argues that Khalidi and Pappe's interpretation relies only on a single paragraph in a document of 75 pages, that has been taken out of its context. Describing the plan in reference to the announced intervention of the Arab armies, he argues that "it was a practical response to an emerging threat." Gelber also argues that the occupation and destruction of Arab villages described in the paragraph quoted in Khalidi's paper had the military purpose of preventing Arabs from cutting roads facilitating incursions by Arab armies, while eliminating villages that might have served as bases for attacking Jewish settlements. He also remarks that if Master Plan had been one dedicated to resolving the Arab question, it would have been written by Ben-Gurion's advisors on Arab affairs and by military officers under the supervision of the chief-of-staff Yigael Yadin. Henry Laurens raises several objections to the views of those he calls the "intentionalists". Like Morris and Gelber he says that Plan Dalet obeyed a military logic, arguing that if it had not been followed, the strategic situation, particularly around Tel Aviv would have been as critical as that which existed around Jerusalem during the war. Laurens cites some examples of events that indicate a contradiction in the "intentionalist" analysis. Like Gelber, he points out that