"We appeal ... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the building-up of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and representation in all its ... institutions. "We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and goodwill, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land." - David Ben-Gurion in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948 On February 16, 1948, the UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council: "Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein." The Arabs themselves were unambiguous in accepting responsibility for starting the war. Jamal Husseini informed the Security Council on April 16, 1948: "The representatives of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight." As for the British commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, John Bagot Glubb, he remarked candidly: "Early in January, the first detachments of the Arab Liberation Army began to infiltrate into Palestine from Syria. Some came through Jordan and even through Amman....They were in reality to strike the first blow in the ruin of the Arabs of Palestine." Israel came into being on May 14, 1948. The five Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq immediately invaded the new microstate. # Damascus radio called on all Arabs to "undertake the liberation battle that will tear the hearts from the bodies of the hatefull jews and trample them in the dust" - quoted in TIME, June 2, p. 20 # "the surviving Jews would be helped to return to their native countries, but my estimation is that none will survive" - Ahmed Shuqeiri (later to be PLO chief) quoted in Churchill and Churchill, p. 52 # "We were racists, admiring Nazism, reading its books and the source of its thought... Whoever lived during this period in Damascus would appreciate the inclination of the Arab people to Nazism, for Nazism was the power which could serve as its champion, and who is defeated will by nature love the victor". - Sami al Jundi, leader of Syrian Baath party, "Al Baath" Beirut, 1961. From B. Lewis, "Semites and Anti-Semites" pp.147-148. # "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacare which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacares and the crusades" Arab Leugue Secretary General Azam Pasha, May 15, 1948 (quoted in "New Dimensions" Jan. '91). http://www.peacefaq.com/warindep.html