 Though he accepts that some such statements were issued, he believes that they were intended to stop the panic that was causing the masses to abandon their villages and that they were issued as a warning to the increasing number of Arabs who were willing to accept partition as irreversible and cease struggling against it.From his point of view, in practice the AHC statements boomeranged and further increased Arab panic and flight.According to Aharon Cohen, head of Mapam's Arab department, the Arab leadership was very critical of the "fifth columnists and rumormongers" behind the flight.