Madam, - It is regrettable that in his riposte to Vincent Browne the Israeli Ambassador Zion Evrony (Opinion, January 19th) chose to perpetuate the old canard that the Palestinians were in some bizarre way responsible for their own violent eviction from their lands in 1948 and that their leaders were complicit in this.
This is quite simply untrue, as readers of Richard Crowley's excellent recent book No Man's Land: Despatches from the Middle East will realise. In this he quotes a very distinguished Irishman, the late Erskine Childers, a prominent UN diplomat and son of President Erskine Childers.
Dr Childers researched this situation thoroughly and discovered that in fact the BBC maintained records of all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. These records still exist and are stored at the British Museum.
He wrote an article in the Spectator magazine in 1961 in which he made the following categorical statement: "There was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948.
"There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put."
On the other hand, Childers came to the uncompromising conclusion that "from the analysis of only some of the sources of the Arab exodus, it is clear beyond all doubt that official Zionist forces were responsible for the expulsion of thousands upon thousands of Arabs, and for deliberate incitement to panic."
I trust this puts the matter to rest. - Yours, etc,
Senator DAVID NORRIS,
Seanad Éireann,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.