The Lebanese newspaper, Beirut, quoted a memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee to Azzam Pasha, then Secretary General of the Arab League, as follows:
“FROM THE AREAS NOT DOMINATED BY THE JEWS, A LARGE NUMBER OF POPULATION FLED BECAUSE THEY HAD NO CONFIDENCE IN THE MILITARY DEFENSE MEASURES.”
Source: Regional Development for Regional Peace: A New Policy and Program to Counter Soviet Menace in the Middle East, Washington, DC: Public Affairs Institute, 1957