32.  IDFA 7249/1949 file 137. Members of Etkes’ family told me that not long after the establishment of the State of Israel, Etkes and his wife left for the USA (where he had spent a few years prior to his arrival in Palestine). 33.  IDFA 7249/1949, file 152, 14 March 1948 [An intelligence account from Hiram to Teneh]. Also filed elsewhere 5942/1949, file 23. 34.  IDFA 5942/1949, file 23, 16 March 1948 [An intelligence report from Hiram to Teneh]. 35.  IDFA 7249/1949 file 152. 36.  Charles Tripp argued the above in a paper concerning the Iraqi involvement in Palestine in 1948. The paper was delivered at The Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Oxford, 4 December 1998. There is still a popular saying amongst the Palestinians regarding this Iraqi lack of orders: bayn aku¯ wa-ma ¯ku ¯   al  filasti¯niyyu ¯n  inta ¯ku ¯   between  the  presence  [of  orders]  and  the  lack  [of  orders],  the Palestinians were screwed. I thank Avraham Sela, who drew my attention to this saying General Jabu¯ri¯, who headed the Iraqi forces in Palestine in 1948, argued that the accusations regarding lack of orders are baseless. They are the outcome, he further added, of competition within the Arab League and between the different Arab army forces. Nafcz Nazzal (1978) describes the same lack of Iraqi orders in the Galilee region. 37.  IDFA 2506/1949 file 85. The correspondence is in English. 38.  IDFA 6400/1949 file 66 dated 4 July, 1948—“. . .. The people of Ijzim receive small arms from T u ¯ l- Karem, through paths in the mountains that pass by Umm az-Jima¯l near Zikhron.” IDFA 6400/1949 file  66—”. . ..  No  foreign  army  in  Ijzim. . ..  Every  night  food  supplies,  ammunition,  arms  and equipment are transferred from the triangle to the village.” 39.  Mishmar Ha’emeq is a Jewish kibbutz south east of Haifa. 40.  IDFA 7249/1949 file 152 dated 4 July, 48. The reference regarding relations with Umm az-Zi¯na¯t is bewildering as Umm al-Zi¯na¯t was conquered on the 15th of May. 41.  The army translator marks that he cannot identity the word  mundel. In the Palestinian colloquial Arabic, muna¯dili¯n, meaning fighters, is often used in a derogatory manner. I thank Issam Aburaiya for this information. 42.  This passage is translated from the Hebrew translation that is kept at the IDFA. The word used for “exposed” in Hebrew was “nitgalenu.” IDFA 5942/1949 file 3. 43.  Yig’al, who had been a politician and a Member of Parliament previously and was involved with the Arab population in Israel, imposed on his account of the war his right-wing world view. In 1948 he was an army officer in charge of a unit that set up ambushes in the fields north east of T ant u ¯ra in order to prevent any assistance from arriving during the battle. He said to me that as far as he knows, over seventy people were killed.A Tantura survivor who lives in a nearby village said he recorded  the  names  of  the  dead  and  the  list  reached  95  people.  The  information  I  have  is  not sufficient to be certain what happened in T ant u ¯ra. 44.  Teddy Katz of Kibbutz Magal wrote his MA thesis (submitted to the University of Haifa) on the conquest  of  T ant u¯ra  and  Umm  az-Zi¯na¯t.  His  description  of  the  T ant u¯ra  massacre  reached  the Ma’ariv Hebrew daily newspaper, and the veterans of the Alexandroni brigade decided to sue him. The two sides signed an agreement before the trial in which Katz was to publicly denounce his findings. This led to the cancellation of the trial. 45.  Yu¯sri¯ of ’Ein H awd mentioned T ant u¯ra when trying to explain the decision to leave his own village: “There were some people who said no [to the option of surrendering]—’We do not want to stay here.’ There were other reasons as well, especially the massacre of T ant u¯ra that they had witnessed in which a hundred people were killed. So people feared they [the Jews] will come and slaughter them.” 46.  The attacking force included a unit from Alexandroni (most likely meaning a battalion); two three- inch mortars, ten men and an officer; two bizeh machines, ten men and an officer; a medical force; three  communication  devices;  fourty  Carmeli  men  who  were  brought  in  from  a  commanders’ course; thirty garrison men. Whereas the field forces (h eil sade ) were mobile and living in camps, the garrison forces (h eil mishmar ) were comprised mostly of older men, above the age of 35, who would  remain  in  their  homes  and  be  mobilized  for  local  assignments.  Therefore,  some  of  the fighters on both sides knew one another. See IDFA 6400/49, file 66, and 2506/1949, file 85. EFRAT BEN-ZE’EV 28