Edward Atiyah (1903-64) was born in Lebanon.

He came to England to study at Oxford University, and there met and married a Scottish woman, Jean. They had four children, including the renowned mathematician, Sir Michael Francis Atiyah and Patrick Atiyah, an academic and professor of law.[1] The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Motto: (Latin) No one provokes me with impunity1 Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official language(s) English, Gaelic, Scots2 Government  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Jack McConnell MSP Unification    - by Kenneth I 843  Area    - Total 78,772 km... Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, OM (born 22 April 1929) is a mathematician who was born in London. ... Patrick S. Atiyah QC FBA (born March 5, 1931) is an English lawyer and academic. ...

Atiyah is best known for his 1946 autobiography An Arab Tells His Story, and his 1955 book The Arabs.

Nakba Controversy

Of all his writing one quote from his 1955 book, The Arabs, about the causes for the Nakba in 1948 has caused the most controversy: Categories: Stub | 1948 Arab-Israeli War | Israeli-Palestinian conflict ...

"but apart from military defeat and the territorial loss of most of Palestine, an appalling human tragedy befell the Arab population of the country during the fighting. Seven or eight hundred thousand of the total Arab population of Palestine (of one-and-a-quarter millions) fled from the country or were driven out into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. 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 areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin.

There were two good reasons why the Jews should follow such a policy. First, the problem of harbouring within the Jewish State a large and disaffected Arab population had always troubled them. They wanted an exclusively Jewish state, and the presence of such a population that could never be assimilated, that would always resent its inferior position under Jewish rule and stretch a hand across so many frontiers to its Arab cousins in the surrounding countries, would not only detract from the Jewishness of Israel, but also constitute a danger to its existence. Secondly, the Israelis wanted to open the doors of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration. Obviously, the fewer Arabs there were in the country the more room there would be for Jewish immigrants. If the Arabs could be driven out of the land in the course of the fighting, the Jews would have their homes, their lands, whole villages and towns, without even having to purchase them. And this is exactly what happened." ("The Arabs", 1955, pp. 182-183) The Holy Land or Palestine Showing not only the Old Kingdoms of Judea and Israel but also the 12 Tribes Distinctly, and Confirming Even the Diversity of the Locations of their Ancient Positions and Doing So as the Holy Scriptures Indicate, a geographic map from the studio of Tobiae Conradi... Terrorist redirects here. ... The Deir Yassin massacre (Deir Yassin is also transliterated from Arabic as Dayr Yasin and frequently (mis)transliterated from Hebrew writings as Dir Yassin) refers to the killing of scores of Arab civilians at the village of Deir Yassin just east of Jerusalem in Palestine by Jewish irregular forces between...

Part of the above has often been used as a "proof" that Arabs caused Palestinian exodus in 1948. For example, on 16 June 1961, in The Spectator, Dr. Leo Kohn, professor of political science at Hebrew University and an ambassador-rank adviser to the Israeli Foreign Office wrote: The Palestinian exodus (Arabic: الهجرة الفلسطينية al-Hijra al-Filasteeniya) refers to the refugee flight of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. ... This article is about the British weekly magazine: there are articles on several other magazines called The Spectator such as Addison and Steeles influential literary magazine, The Spectator (1711), and the others can be found at The Spectator (disambiguation). ... The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים) is one of Israels biggest and most important institutes of higher learning and research. ...

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 abcence would be of short duration and would facilitate the impendind military operations: "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country."
From The Arabs by Edward Atiyah, formerly the Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, Penguin Books, 1955, p. 183. The Arab League or League of Arab States (Arabic: ‎), is an organization of predominately Arab states (compare Arab world). ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...

However, Edward Atiyah himself came forward to dismiss this interpretation. In an article in The Spectator 23 June, 1961, he published his reply to Kohn, his main points being: This article is about the British weekly magazine: there are articles on several other magazines called The Spectator such as Addison and Steeles influential literary magazine, The Spectator (1711), and the others can be found at The Spectator (disambiguation). ... June 23 is the 174th day of the year (175th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 191 days remaining. ...

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 areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin."
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 in the whole controversy. The Deir Yassin massacre (Deir Yassin is also transliterated from Arabic as Dayr Yasin and frequently (mis)transliterated from Hebrew writings as Dir Yassin) refers to the killing of scores of Arab civilians at the village of Deir Yassin just east of Jerusalem in Palestine by Jewish irregular forces between... A bilingual poster in Romanian and Hungarian promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s. ...

(see Broadcasts ) Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, is a collection of esseys, co-edited by Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens, and first published by Verso in 1988 ( ISBN 0-86091-887-4). ...

Bibliography (partial)

• An Arab Tells His Story An Arab tells his story : a study in loyalties ( autobiography ) London : Murray, 1946
• The Thin Line, (a crime novel, later issued as Murder, My Love , filmed by Claude Chabrol, called *Juste Avant La Nuit)1951
• Black Vanguard : Peter Davies: London, UK, 1952
• Lebanon Paradise A novel. London: Peter Davies 1953.
• The Arabs the Origins, Present Conditions, and Prospects of the Arab World, 1955
• The Crime of Julian Masters. Robert Hale, London 1959
• The Eagle Flies from England. Robert Hale, London 1960
• Donkey From the Mountains Robert Hale., London 1961 - Later issued as:
• The Cruel Fire Doubleday Crime Club 1962

Claude Chabrol (born June 24, 1930) is a French movie director and has become well-known in the 40 years since his first film, Le Beau Serge, for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher. ...

See also

• Broadcasts, by Christopher Hitchens