To everyone's astonishment the Arabs were losing on nearly every front. Haifa, the leading port in the Middle East, with an Arab population of seventy thousand and a priceless oil refinery, had fallen to the Jews within thirty hours. Palestine's second port, Jaffa, an all-Arab city adjoining Tel Aviv, had crumbled into Jewish hands. Some fifty thousand Arabs had fled Jaffa.² Farther north, Safad, Tiberius, and the fortress city of Acre -- which even Napoleon could not capture from the Turks -- had all been seized by the Haganah in a series of brilliant maneuvers. What innate power motivated these sons of David? I didn't yet have the answer from the Jewish side. But with the Arabs I had been learning some of the reasons why the Jehad was daily proving such a failure.

Moustafa, however, seemed to have no worries. Toward evening one day I found him sitting on a rock. I walked up quietly and say beside him.

"Things are not going so well with us, Moustafa," I said.

"The Jews haven't tasted real Arab steel and lead yet," Moustafa said confidently. "Artour, you have seen only the work of untrained volunteers. You are making a mistake if you judge the power of the regular Arab armies from these Holy Warriors. What we are doing here is tiring the Jew, worrying him, keeping him running here and there until the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and fighters from Yemen and Saudi Arabia and the Moslem countries of North Africa join the Jehad." He paused. "Then you will see slaughter, Artour. Then you will see us march to Tel Aviv."

"How long will it take us, Moustafa?"

"Thirty days -- not thirty-one -- but thirty days to conquer Tel Aviv!"

I wasn't too sure of this, but I said insh'allah anyway.

²This flight-psychosis, which prevailed among the Arabs and ultimately resulted in the frantic exodus of many Moslems and Christians, is a difficult phenomenon to explain. It was a mass hysteria induced by poor morale and by fear of revenge and retribution for the Arab massacres and lootings from 1920 on.

Arab leaders -- particularly in the Mufti's Arab Higher Committee -- urged residents to clear the fighting areas, promising them that Palestine would be cleared of Jews within thirty days after the Mandate ended. After the Jews had been pushed into the seam Arab leaders said, Palestinians could return to their homes and at the same time share in the Jewish booty. They implied that those who refused to leave were pro-Zionist; such people were threatened with reprisals.

In contrast, I know of instances where the Jews begged the Arabs, particularly the Christian elements, to remain, guaranteeing their safety and full respect for property. These Christians, however, joined the fleeing Moslems, fearing the promised retribution following the promised Arab victory. As an instance, the Armenians, who had always got along well with Arab and Jew alike, joined the panicky Moslems, horror-stricken by the memory of the Turkish massacres.

Wealthy merchants, physicians, bankers, politicians, and other leaders were the first to leave. Later came the poorer elements until, by the time the Mandate expired, those remaining were largely only the ill and aged, the looters, and the innocents.

The exodus figure of 750,000 or more Arabs is sheer propaganda, a fictional number that cannot be supported by the facts. The populace in the country from Jerusalem north to Jericho was not disturbed by the fighting, nor were the Arabs and Christians resident in the congested areas within the quadrangle formed by Ramallah, Tulkarm, Jenin, and Nablus -- Palestinian territory now annexed by Jordan. It must also be pointed out that many of the Moslem so-called refugees were homeless, nomadic wanderers in the first place. Poor, nonrefugee Arabs, such as those in Gaza, have claimed refugee status in order to qualify for American aid.