David Flood
There was a letter in the Sunday Tribune (probably the best source of good journalism in this country) today - which, if the claims in it are true, painted a startling new picture about the 'history' of the situation, at least to me.

(* * represent bold, _ _ represent italics in the original text)

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READER TAKES ISSUE OVER ISRAELI HISTORY

To correct some inaccuracies in your "Road to Intifada" timeline (World News, 7 April):

a) Israel was not successful in 1949 "against all the odds and the numbers". Nor were Arab armies "threatening on all sides". This is merely Zionist propaganda which has been accepted without question. A memo from US army intelligence to the Chief of Staff dated 18 May 1948, and quoted by Jewish writer Ron David in his book _Arabs and Israel for Beginners_, stated that the combined total of *all* attacking Arab armies came to no more than 30,000 poorly armed and trained men, as against 90,000 well armed and trained Zionists under a unified command and supported by modern fighter and bomber planes.

b) you miss out the six-month period between the partition of Palestine and the Israeli declaration of independence. During that time, the Israelis were ruthlessly pursuing "Plan Dalet" a so-called "land clearing operation" designed to drive Arabs off their land and into exile. This "land clearance" did not stop at the boundary of the UN partition but continued right into the 45% of the country supposedly reserved for Arabs. It was carried out with shocking brutality.

Contrary to the received wisdom, the massacre at Deir Yassin was not an isolated excess of war, but a deliberate part of the organised ethnic cleansing of Palestine under Plan Dalet. After it was done, the Irgun sent out the order to all its commands, "As at Deir Yassin, so everywhere". It was only after six months of this and the Israeli ceasefire that the Arab nations felt constrained to take some action on behalf of the Palestinians.

c) the Israeli attack which captured the West Bank was not a "pre-emptive strike". Stephen Green in his book, _Taking Sides_, quotes extensively from US State Department sources to show that not only was the Israeli army much stronger than the combined Arab forces, but the Israelis were looking for a fight since at least 1965. Menachem Begin himself stated that "the Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him".