RADIO PROPAGANDA IN THE ARAB-ISRAELI WAR 1948
by John Zimmerman
The author a research analyst on
Middle Eastern affairs, is at present writing a book on the
Arab-Israeli conflict
Although the UN proposal to partition British-mandated Palestine into
an Arab and a Jewish state was not put to the vote until 29 November
1947, Arab radio stations had started their campaign of psychological
warfare two months earlier.1 On 13 September, Radio
Beirut quoted an Iraqi Independence Party statement that ` all Jews who have entered Palestine and
other Arab countries after 1914 ' must be considered illegal
immigrants ` who should be sent out
of the country.' Two days later it reported that the
Premier of Trans-Jordan had called for the evacuation of all Zionists
from Palestine. By October the tenor of these broadcasts had become
more violent. A number of Arab newspapers, it was announced, had
appealed for volunteers to fight in the impending war for Islam and
Arabism.2 Radio Damascus, on 22
October, made perhaps the most bellicose statement during this
period:
` God sent the Zionists to Palestine not to establish a Jewish home but
just to make sure they would be killed by the Arabs. Providence sent
the Zionists to Palestine to be exterminated by the Arabs.'
Two days after the meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Arab League in
Aley, Lebanon (7 October 1947), a military committee set up by them
made the following recommendations in a secret report:
l. The armies of the Arab League to be stationed near the borders of
Palestine. 2. League States immediately to purchase and store military
equipment needed by the volunteers.
3. The Arab Air forces to be stationed close to the shores of the
Mediterranean to prevent any assistance or reinforcements reaching the
Jews from overseas.3
While these proposals were being considered, Arab radio stations began
to boast of the League's military preparations for the coming
battle. On 11 October. Jerusalem's Sharq al -Adna radio announced that
Syrian planes and infantry had begun manoeuvres on her
Southwestern frontier with Palestine, while Radio Cairo reported that
Egypt had given Saudi Arabia permission to send troops through
the Sinai Peninsula, and the Arab News Agency announced that Iraqi
troops were advancing towards Palestine through Trans-Jordan.4
A Cairo broadcast of 22 October even reported the capture of Syrian
soldiers inside Palestine. All this, it should be remembered, was
taking place not only before any serious fighting between
Arabs and Jews had broken out, but also before the UN vote on
partition. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that these incursions were
undertaken as a move against the division of the country, for, as late
as 26 November, the Arab governments seemed confident that
the UN would reject partition.
Almost immediately after the decision to partition Palestine,
fighting broke out, though it was still confined in the early
phases to Palestine Arabs and Jews, the former receiving
encouragement and arms from neighbouring states.5 The
Jewish Agency attributed these attacks to Arab hirelings rather
than to the native Palestinians.6
Even though Arab armies did not join the battle until 15 May
1948, government intervention by the neighbouring states began much
earlier. Jerusalem Radio (an Arab station) reported on 10 January that
an armed force of about 600 fighters who had crossed the
Palestine-Syrian border and penetrated into Jewish colonies had
again retreated into Syria.7
The reason that Arab states preferred
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to use irregular forces was, according to John Bagot Glubb, the
commander of the Arab League, that 'the Arabs believed themselves to be a
great military people and regarded the Jews as a nation of shopkeepers
. . . They were persuaded that a force of irregulars would be
sufficient.' 8 Their number has been estimated
as between 5,000 and 7,000.
During the first stage of the confrontation, Arabs had indeed reason to
be optimistic. Syrians, as the 10 January broadcast indicated, could
penetrate into Palestine and then retreat without fear of retribution,
since the Haganah, if it attempted to pursue the guerrillas across the
border, would be accused of aggression. The borders moreover were
protected by Arab armies, whose purpose, according to Radio Cairo, was
to tighten their ring of steel around Palestine.9 Radio
Damascus (10 February 1948) ridiculed the ` feverish activity' of the UN,
which, it suggested, became active because the initiative had passed to
the Arabs, even before they had deployed their full strength.
The Arabs were also confidently expecting support from non-Arab
sympathizers. Radio Beirut (20 December 1947) reported that 6,000
British soldiers in the Middle East and a number of ex-members of
Rommel's Africa Korps had offered to join the Arab ranks.l0
A little later; Radio Cairo (28 January 1948) could announce
the delivery of the first shipment of European armaments. Their
origin was not disclosed; they may have been supplied by the British,
who continued to subsidize Trans- Jordan's Arab Legion,11
or by Czechoslovakia, which had sold arms to the Syrians early in 1948.
Although the US had voted for partition, some Arab radio stations
believed America would supply them with arms; informed circles in
Cairo were convinced that the Palestine situation would improve because
the oil lobby and the Pentagon were trying to reverse the
decision on partition.12 During
this period, the Jews remained on the defensive, but struck back on 31
March in an action which the UN Palestine commission described as a
preventive measure to counter aggression.13 It appears
that in the early stages of the confrontation, the Arabs had
tried to goad Jews into some kind of offensive action. The Arab
tactical objective-- according to Radio Damascus (12 February
1948), was to extend Jewish forces over as wide an area as possible in
order to isolate Jewish communities `...so
that they may easily be wiped out.' The Arabs, believing in
their superior fighting ability, apparently felt that the quickest way
to victory was to provoke some kind of premature Jewish riposte.
On the day the Jewish offensive began (31 March 1948), Radio Beirut
accused the Jews of bombing Arab cities: ` Our Arab brothers will be so provoked
when Jewish planes bomb their cities that they will not be satisfied
unless they wreak vengeance ',
a charge which Haganah Radio vehemently denied
on the same day, dismissing it as an excuse to bomb Jewish centres of
popuIation. Radio Jerusalem (I June 1948) repeated these accusations
which both stations knew to be false, because emergent Israel simply
lacked the air-power to mount such raids. The Egyptian air force, on
the other hand, did bomb Tel Aviv and was none too particular where its
bombs fell.
On 15 May, the day Israel came into existence, King Abdullah of
Trans-Jordan, according to Radio Beirut, declared that the Jews had no
right in Palestine. On the following day, the Voice of Israel (formerly
Haganah Radio)14 announced:
`Although we have been forced into a
fierce war, we must not forget that within our boundaries members of
the Arab people should enjoy the rights of citizens.'
The attitudes of both sides had changed little by June. Shortly before
the first ceasefire was due to become effective, King Abdullah vowed, ` We will never agree to lift the siege of
Jerusalem '.15 Israel had a different approach to
Arab territory occupied before the first truce. The Voice of Israel (17 June 1948) said
that Jews would not relinquish Arab areas ` except on special conditions: for
instance, evacuation of the Egyptian army from the Negev, which is part
of the Jewish state, and evacuation of the Trans-Jordan Army from the
old city of Jerusalem, which is part of an international zone '.
The Arabs rejected these terms and refused to extend the ceasefire
which, agreed on 11 June, was to terminate on 8 July.
Before and after the emergence of Israel as an independent state, Arab
broadcasts from
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the Middle East attempted to construe parallels between Zionism and
communism or Jews and Communists.16 On 2 February 1948
Sharq al Adna asserted that Russia planned to infiltrate half a million
Communist agents into Palestine because Zionism was the secret ally of
communism. Radio Cairo (16.2.48) hinted ominously that ` a Jewish Communist State in Palestine .
. would have repercussions on Jews living in other Arab countries'.
Radio Damascus (31.3.48) described Zionism as the twin brother of
communism, while Radio Beirut (18.4.48) quoted King Abduliah as saying
that his army would ` fight the
Jewish Communist menace confronting the Arab world '. The
same station (31.7.48) alleged that most Jewish immigrants from East
European countries who had entered Palestine during World War II were
members of the Communist Party.
To the Moslems of the forties, the materialistic and anti-religious
doctrines of communism were anathema. The anti-Jewish riots of 1921
were due to Arab fears that immigrant Jews were Bolshevik infiltrators.
a suspicion eagerly exploited by Nazi propaganda in the Middle East
which apparently misled even Ernest Bevin, Britain's Foreign Secretary.
Predictably, Arab stations extolled the alleged exploits of the
Palestinian irregulars preceding the Arab armies. Fawzi Kawakji. the
leader of the Arab Liberation Army, broadcast over the movement's Al
Inqaz radio station ( 1 1-4-48) lurid accounts of its successes: `Black smoke biends with red fire shooting
to t the sky from burned Jewish colonies in the north and south . . .
With terror and fear the Zionists look through the windows of their
demolished forts and houses.'
In the week before the Arab armies started to invade Palestine, a
sustained effort was made to whip up enthusiasm among the Arab masses
for the impending jihad (holy
war). On 8 May, the Voice of Palestine began its broadcast with a poem
on the need to place all Jews in Arab countries under strict
supervision, proclaiming: ` Jews are
the enemies of both Moslems and
Christians . . . and the dregs of the
nations . . . Jews, those despicable cowards who, as everyone knows,
have betrayed their Prophet, those pariahs who sell their souls and
their honour for filthy lucre . . . They slay
4
children and mutilate their bodies,
and are cowardly enough to murder old and helpless Arabs.'
Similarly the New Arab Secret Radio (10.5.48) warned: ` You will perish as quickly as twigs . .
. Soon the sons of the Pharaoh . . . will come to you from the Nile
Valley and teach you the meaning of suffering and torture . . Jews, you
will soon face the brave and noble Arabs . . . Prepare yourselves to die.'
When, by June and July, the war was not going as well as the Arabs had
expected, the position of the Jewish communities in the Middle East
deteriorated and they were increasingly regarded as hostages on whom an
otherwise frustrated populace could conveniently vent its anger. Before
the intervention of the Arab irregulars in January 1948, a number of
Arab radio stations gave considerable prominence to statements in which
the Grand Rabbi of Cairo was said to have praised the Egyptian
Government, assuring it that Egyptian Jews were standing behind
their Moslem brothers; that Syrian Jews not only supported the Arab
cause but were also joining the Arab Liberation Army; and that Jews had
contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Arab war effort.17
However; by 7 June the tone had changed:
` The Jews blow up and destroy
buildings in the Jaffa Arab quarter . . Only confiscation of the Jews'
property in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt will serve. Arab buildings
will be repaired and expenses paid with money confiscated from the
Jews. Since they blow up and destroy buildings; when it is in their
interests, they will only get what they deserve.' 18
The following month, Radio Cairo (28.7.48) quoted the Arab Christian
leader, Bishop Hakim, as saying that `Arab
countries are now studying a proposal to use the money of Middle
Eastern Jews for the [Palestinian] refugees'. Neither Radio Cairo nor
any other monitored radio station denied Hakim's assertions. Nor was
this one of those merely rhetorical threats of which the Arabs are
alleged to be so inordinately fond. Eventually more than 90% of all
Oriental Jews were driven from their homelands, although the property
they had to leave behind was never put at the disposal of the
Palestinian refugees. The bulk of the Jewish stations' Arabic
transmissions addressed themselves, initially at least, to the
Palestinian Arabs. Attempts were made to discredit the Arab leadership
by implying that they were collaborating with the British. 19
Both the Arab leadership and the British, it was asserted, were bound
to bring ruin on the Palestinians by their attempts to impose perpetual
tutelage on the country. This subject was harped upon more persistently
in the hope of discouraging the Palestinians from helping the Arab
irregulars. Haganah Radio warned that outside Arab intervention would
only give the East and West an excuse to intervene. `This means that Palestine and the Arab
East ' would become merely an object of great power politics.'
On 17 July, the Voice of Israel
suggested that Arabs and Jews should get together to rid the East
of imperialism.
Similarly, on 27 March, Irgun's radio station emphasized that the Arabs
fighting in Palestine were paid agents protecting British interests. A
Stern Gang broadcast (3.6.48) stated that the British Foreign
Secretary, Ernest Bevin, was angry because he feared that the
Jewish community might serve the `Arab
worker and fellah' as an example and inspire him to
improve his condition.
Jewish stations also sought to inform Arabs of the inconsistencies and
internecine feuding their leaders had to face. On the other hand,
Haganah Radio (17.3.48) told its Arab listeners that whenever it
reported corruption and rivalries it was only motivated by its ` deep respect' for the ordinary
Arab people. Corruption had indeed assumed such proportions that
even Arab broadcasts began to denounce it. According to Radio Baghdad
(9.9.48) money for the liberation of Palestine, originally entrusted to
a few highly respected and well-known men, had found its way into the
hands of a number of people who were living lavishly on it `
without doing anything for Palestine.'
The Jewish newspapers, Radio Haganah (6.4.48) asserted,
unlike their Arab competitors, would not exaggerate victories. This
policy of objective reporting apparently paid off, for Arabs were
ordered not to listen to the broadcasts. ` This is [according to Radio Haganah
(6.4.48)] because Arab leaders are
afraid of seeing the population informed as to the true state
of affairs.'
During the latter stages of the war, Jewish broadcasts broadened their
appeal to include the Arab armies as well as the Palestinians. The
Israelis sought to hasten the Arab defeat by assuring the soldiers of
honourable treatment if they surrendered. The Station of Arab War Prisoners
(11.11.48) broadcast the following appeal, allegedly signed by Egyptian
prisoners of
war, to the Arab armies:
` Rumours and reports stating that
Jewish forces kill, torture and ill-treat prisoners . . . are nothing
but lies without a grain of truth in them . . . We prisoners of war who
fell into the hands of the Jewish forces declare that we are given the
best of treatment . . We are not only treated according to the
provisions of international law, but are given better treatment than
that provided by law.'
No aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been more hotly debated than
the causes of the flight of the Palestinians. While Arabs claim the
refugees were expelled, the Israelis allege that Arab leaders ordered
them to leave their homes provisionally so that the Arab attack on
Israel could roll forward unhampered. Erskine Childers, one of the most
persuasive exponents of the Arab cause, maintained (The
Spectator, 12.5.61) that a thorough search of monitored broadcasts
failed to reveal: ` a single order or
appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab
radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948 '.
Contrary to Childers' assertion, three Arab radio stations did
broadcast messages which seemed to imply an official request to
Palestinians to abandon their homesteads temporarily.20
After the Arab defeat in Tiberias, Sharq al Adna (20.4.48) announced
that King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan had ordered `Arab forces to be sent immediately to
Tiberias to evacuate Arab refugee families '. Two days later,
following the Jewish victory at Haifa, the same station suggested the
existence of a plan when it reported: `Simultaneously the Arabs have started to
evacuate this market area by sending women and children by sea to Acre.'
Radio Damascus (26.4.48), discussing the battle of Jaffa, was even more
explicit:
-5-
`Arab reinforcements arrive
continuously in defence of the town, from which women and children are
being evacuated.'
Further evidence is lacking because of the small number of broadcasts
actually monitored.
Childers' claim that the BBC monitored ' a11 Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout
1948 ', has been contradicted by the assistant editor of the
monitoring service, who stated in a letter to the author (16.12.70): 'No one could ever claim to have monitored
every single broadcast . . . Only a selection from what is actually
listened to is transcribed, and only a selection of what is actually
transcribed is published.'
Another of Mr. Childers' assertions, that no Jewish station ` so much as hinted at any Arab
evacuation orders ', does not tally with the record. When Arab
broadcasts admitted the evacuation of Arab villages, the Haganah took
up the subject and blamed the exodus on the invading Arab irregulars.
On 21 April it accused `Arab gangs ' (the Haganah term for Arab
irregulars) of being responsible for the evacuation of Arab villages.
On 23 April it mentioned and criticized the ' evacuation of all Arab inhabitants
[from Tiberias ? ] by order of the Arab higher authorities'. On
5 May, it also drew attention to the plight of the villagers of
Sarafand who wanted to postpone their evacuation until their crops had
been harvested. The British were also blamed for the Arab exodus.
The 'Voice of Israel (9.11.48) asked the Arabs to remember ' that it was the British who advised them
to evacuate the Arab population from the areas about to be
occupied by Israeli forces '.
Mr. Childers also contends that repeated ` stay-put ' orders were issued by
Arab stations. An A1 Inqaz broadcast of 24 April threatening severe
punishment to those who deserted is usually quoted to substantiate this
argument. However, on the previous day--the same day, it will be
recalled, on which the Haganah commented on orders to evacuate Arab
inhabitants--Al Inqaz
defiantly announced ` no-one will
remain [in Haifa] to accept
Jewish conditions '. It would be difficult to interpret this
broadcast as anything but a call to leave. Any 'stay-put ' orders, therefore,
apparently referred to territories outside the battle zone, whereas
area: within it or on the verge of surrender were to be evacuated.
An Iraqi parliamentary investigating commission assigned to report on
the 1948 war later shed some light on this subject. A section entitled
'Decisions of the Lebanon Sofar Committee '
(composed of Arab
League representatives), made the following recommendation: ` The committee advises Arab governments
to open their doors to accept Arab children,women and older people from
Palestine and care for them-should events in Palestine require it.' 21
Any examination of Arab broadcasts can leave the reader in little doubt
that their incessant atrocity propaganda accusing the Jews of
indiscriminate massacres must have contributed to, if it did not
actually cause, the Arab flight from Palestine. Radio Damascus
(16.2.48) accused Jews of murdering five children in their beds, while
Radio Beirut (13.3.48) accused
Zionists of terrorism
culminating in the shedding of innocent blood.
The massacre theme became a mainstay of Arab propaganda. On 14 April,
Radio Damascus proclaimed that such tragedies as had occurred at Deir
Yasin were only to be expected. A day later, Sharq al Adna alleged that
Jews had fiendishly tortured the inhabitants of Deir Yasin, a deed by
which ` Zionists have proved
their intention to exterminate the Arabs . . . '
This propaganda campaign based on horror was further intensified after
when 15 May when the armies of the neighbouring Arab
states marched into Palestine. Radio Al Inqaz (18.5.48) frightened its
listeners with tales of Arab corpses discovered in a Jewish
village '
shot through the
head and with savagely
mutilated bodies '. On 15 June, when , the ceasefire was
already in force. Radio Cairo accused the Israelis of attacking the
houses of peaceful Arabs. Once inside, it was
alleged„ - they ` did not
hesitate to kill women and children '. As
late as 2 August, Radio Beirut was broadcasting a statement by
Assam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, as follows:
` The Jewish authorities responsible
for the security of non-combatants encourage massacre, extermination,
deportation, looting and expropriation. Zionists have put the
clock of civilized behaviour back hundreds of years and are now
reverting to the
--p6-
savageries and bestialities practised
by Huns and Vandals.'
Radio Damascus (13.9.48) was responsible for what was perhaps the most
damaging and vicious calumny when it asserted that a UN report
had confirmed the slaughter of 20,000 Arabs by Zionists, when, on the
contrary, the report actually emphasized that ` no evidence was found to support claims of massacre and capture
'.22 The impact of these atrocity stories on
simple, bewildered and frightened people was entirely predictable; the
Palestinian Arabs, fearing for their lives, fled in panic. Kenneth
Bilby, the New York Herald Tribune correspondent, speaking of the Arab
flight from Jaffa, gives the following account:
` During the truce, Dr. Yussef
Haikel, the forty year old mayor . . . told me that hundreds of Arab men and women had been trapped in the
Manshieh and then ruthlessly slaughtered by the Jews. I never found the slightest shred of
evidence to support this contention and I examined Manshieh carefully just after the battle.
But the fact was that Haikel's story had spread like sagefire among the Arabs of Jaffa and they
needed no urging to get out.' 23
Jewish radio stations, it has been asserted, were also trying to
spread panic and confusion among the Arabs. Erskine Childers mentions
in this context that an Irgun broadcast of 27 March warned the
Arabs of the risk of typhus and cholera epidemics. The actual
broadcast merely advised them to get inoculated because these diseases
were spreading. Arab radio stations from 1947 onwards had been
apprehensive of an outbreak of epidemics which they later said, had
become endemic throughout the Arab world and Palestine.24
A broadcast by Jerusalem Radio (22.12.47) casts an interesting
sidelight on the epidemic scare. It stated that travellers
arriving from Syria needed inoculation certificates. However, since the
guerillas who crossed the frontier three weeks later would scarcely
have heeded these provisions, it may have been they who actually
brought the disease to Palestine.
Mr. Childers contends that Jewish radio stations contributed their
share to the Arab exodus by focusing attention on the flight and panic
of Arabs.25 Interestingly, none of these broadcasts have
been quoted in sufficient detail to allow the reader to appreciate the
point they were trying to make, namely that the Arab panic was caused
by Arab irregulars. The looting of Arab shops in Jaffa by Iraqi
soldiers, described at some length by Radio Haganah (5.5.48) was
confirmed by the London Economist (2.10.48): ` The Iraqis and Syrians . . .seized a
chance to loot locally, particularly in Christian Arab houses and then
make a getaway with their spoils.' John Glubb, the commander of
the Arab Legion, was somewhat ambivalent in his attitude to what he
regarded as strange bedfellows; to him they were just ` bandits and enthusiasts.' 26
SimilarIy, a leading Palestinian, Nimr al Hawari, and the Iraqi
Parliamentary Investigating Commission confirm that the irregulars
frequently prevented Palestinians from taking part in the battle,
accusing them of being Israeli spies. According to Nimr al Khatib, an
Arab writer, the explanation is that
` Most of the volunteers [in Jaffa] treated the local population as
defeated; they collected their arms and sold them; confiscated their
cars and sold them too. Things came to such a pass that people were
more afraid of their defenders than of the Jews.27
The various Jewish radio stations in their Arab broadcasts predictably
repudiated allegations of deliberate outrage, but, not so predictably
in view of what has been accepted as a Zionist policy objective, they
also tried to persuade the Arabs to stay. The BBC mentioned in the
preface to its monitored broadcasts (March 1948) that ` the Arabs were told that the Jews intended to set up a democratic government
in their territory with fair representation for the Arabs' and that ` the Jews' sympathy with the Arabs in
general and their desire to co-operate were featured in many of Haganah's Arabic
transmissions '. On 6 April, Radio Haganah, emphasizing Jewish
goodwill, asserted: ` It is not
strange to see Jewish forces protect Arab belongings ', and on
24 April it appealed:
`Arabs, we do not wish to harm you .
. . we only want to live in peace...Be assured that through Arab-Jewish
co-operation miracles can be achieved...Our
-7-
present appeal comes from the bottom
of our hearts, truly and faithfully.'
These broadcasts continued after the Arab invasion of 15 May, The Voice
of Israel {25.7.48) asked Arabs not to delay registration which would
enable each family to draw its full ration allowance. Even as late as
11 November, it still promised that Arabs ` who remain in the State of Israel can be certain the government
will look after them and take care of their interests '.
Another approach used by the Israeli propaganda services was to warn
Palestinians of the fate awaiting them if they fled to their Arab
neighbours; Egypt, Radio Haganah alleged, was threatened by famine. On
the eve of the Arab invasion (14.5.48), Radio Haganah contrasted the
introduction of martial law in Arab countries with the abrogation in
Israel of all legislation restricting the freedom of speech. Propaganda
along this line was stepped up during and after the first ceasefire (11
June to 8 July). The Voice of Israel (?2.6.48). for instance. enlarged
on the treatment meted out to refugees by Syria and a month later (21
July) it accused the Iraqis of compelling local peasants to man front
line defences against their will. Reverting to the ` unwanted refugee '
theme, the Voice of Israel (22.7.48) reported that refugees thronging
the streets of Beirut had
shouted. ` We
are hungry', and suggested (4.8.48) that ` no-one in Arab countries wants to
harbour refugees '. Still plugging this line. it commented
(26 November) on rallies of Palestinian refugees in Syria demonstrating
for better rations.
If, according to some historians of the 1948 war, Israeli attitudes
towards Palestinian Arabs changed from first desiring them to stay to
finally wanting to be rid of them, such a change is certainly not
reflected in Israel's Arab language broadcasts. They continued to
compare the Arab's assured position under Israeli law with the
hardships and deprivations he would encounter as an unwelcome refugee
in neighbouring countries: Nor did Arab propaganda deviate
from its original approach; it continued to retail vile atrocities
allegedly committed by Jews and to outline the terrible disasters which
were soon to overtake them. The choice presented to the Palestinians by
this kind of propaganda, of either being massacred by implacable
enemies or starved to death by besieging friends, was not designed to
persuade them to stay.
NOTES
1. All references to radio broadcasts are taken from the Daily Report of the Central
Intelligence Agency`s Federal Broadcasting Branch and British
Broadcasting Corporation's Summary
of World Broadcasts, Part IV.
2. Radio Beirut. 14 October
1947.
3. Robert John and Sami Hadawi, The
Palestine Diary (New York, 1970), Vol. n, pp. 282-283. The
chairman of the committee was Iraq's General Ismail Safwat Pasha.
4. Radio Beirut 22 October
1947.
S. On 16 December 1947 The New York
Times reported that trained Palestinians from Syria had slipped
back across the frontier. On 2 December the same newspaper had stated
that each month about 400-500 men had been undergoing military training
in Damascus for the past five months. It would be reasonable to assume
that many of these volunteers were Syrian.
6. 1 Ibid, 4 December 1947.
7. On 29 January Radio Baghdad
announced that 3,000 Arabs were readyto cross into Palestine to ' launch a bitter fight for rescuing
Palestine. It will surpass all other battles by its severity. '
8. John Glubb A Soldier
With The Arabs (New York: Harper, 1958); see also
Edgar O'Ballance, The Arab-
Israeli War, 1948 (New York: Praeger. 1957). p. 35.
9. Radio Cairo 15 December.
1948
10. On ex-Germans fighting for the Arabs see also the Summary of World Broadcasts, 26
January 1948,. No. 35; p. 61 , Radio Cairo, 19 February 1948.
11. See O'Ballance, p. 78; George Kirk, The Middle East 1945-50 (London,
1954), p. 282, note 2; see also Sharq al Adna 30 March 1943.
12. Radio Damascus. 23
December 1947 and 6 May 1948 also he proposal made by the Egyptian
Minister of War; Summary of
World Broadcasts. 28 January 1948; and Sharq al Adna - 14 February, 1948.
13. A/532, p. 10
14. Up to 15 May the Voice of
Israel had been known as Haganah
Radio.
15. Sharq al Adna 7 June 1948.
16. Most Arab stations during this period did not differentiate between
a Zionist and a Jew.
17. Radio Cairo 3 December
1947; 19 January 1948; Sharq al Adna
8 December, 1947; 4 June 1948; see also New York Times 6 June 1948 and Radio Damascus, 13 December 1947.
18. Sharq al Adna 7
June 1948.
19. Haganah Radio. 4, 8 April
1948.
20. These are reproduced in the Daily
Report but not in the Summary
of World Broadcasts.
21. A Hebrew version of the report, was published in 1954 under the
title of Me Ahorei ha
Pargod (From Behind the
Curtain). Addendum 8• pp. 49-50.
22. UN document S/934, 28 July 1948. `
23. Kenneth Bilby, New
Star in the East
(New York: Doubleday, 1950), p. 30.
24. See e.g. Sharq al Adna,
16 October, 6 November 1947; Radio
Cairo, 8 August 1948; Radio
Beirut, 9 August 1948.
25. Erskine Childers, ' The Other Exodus ', The Spectator, 12 May 1961.
26. Glubb, p. 79.
27. As a Result of the Catastrophe [in
Arabic], P. 33 quoted in Gabbay; A
Political Study of the Arab-Jewish Conflict (Geneva, 1959), p.
92.
8--
Zimmerman, J. (1973/1974). Radio propaganda
in the Arab-Israeli war 1948.
Weiner
Library Bulletin, 30/31, 2-8
THE WIENER LIBRARY BULLETIN
from THE WIENER LIBRARY INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
4 DEVONSHIRE STREET
LONDON W1W 5BH
referenced here: http://www.israelradio.org/history/pal-clan.html
http://www.iarc.org/~4z5to/HLCRBM.php