Unmasking a Zionist Misrepresentation 2

Further to my previous post on Zionist misrepresentation, you will of course be unsurprised to know that the practice is as old as the Zionist movement itself.

A particularly egregious example was perpetrated by Dr Leo Kohn, a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University (1953-1961) and the author of Israel's proposed draft constitution, in an article he wrote for the UK Spectator of June 16, 1961. It was unmasked by its victim, Edward Atiyah, the Lebanese-born British historian, novelist, and one-time secretary of the Arab League's London office, in a June 23, 1961 letter to the Spectator:

"It is a typical tactic of all propaganda that seeks to misrepresent the facts, to quote selectively and out of context; also to give, by use of a juxtaposition which I can only describe as lacking in scholarly integrity, the selected quotation a meaning which in fact is not in it.

"In the article on 'The Arab Refugees' the late Dr. Kohn asserts that 'there is also a wealth of evidence from Arab sources to show that the Arab League at an early stage of the campaign adopted a policy of evacuating the Arab population to the neighbouring countries, being convinced that their absence would be of short duration and would facilitate the impending military operations,' and then he quotes: 'This wholesale exodus was partly due to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders, that it could only be a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated. (From The Arabs, by Edward Atiyah, formerly Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, Penguin Books, 1955, p. 183.)

"My first comment on this quotation from my book is that it leaves out my very next sentence which reads: 'But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction followed by the Jewish commanders in the area they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin.' I was not afraid to say the whole truth, as it was known to me, and I stand by what I said then today, if it is taken in its entirety. I can only wish that the writer of the article had been equally prepared to accept the whole truth instead of evading or suppressing a very important part of it.

"My second comment is that there is no suggestion whatever in what I wrote that the exodus of the Arab refugees was a result of a policy of evacuating the Arab population. What I said is something quite different from the Zionist allegation that the Arab refugees were ordered or ever told by their leaders to evacuate, which is the main point at issue in the whole controversy which has been going on for some weeks now in your columns. By giving the quotation from my book as an example of 'the wealth of evidence from Arab sources to show that the Arab League at an early stage of the campaign adopted a policy of evacuating the Arab population, etc.,' the writer of the article not only misrepresents what I said but also shows the highly suspect character of his 'wealth of evidence.' - Yours faithfully, EDWARD ATIYAH"