Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam

Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam

Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam ‎ was an Egyptian diplomat, with family origins in Egypt. He served as the first secretary-general of the Arab League between 1945 and 1952.Azzam also had a long career as an ambassador and parliamentarian...

, known as Azzam Pasha, was the Secretary-General of the Arab League

Arab League

The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...

 from 1945 to 1952. He is often quoted as making a particular statement in 1948. The true source of the quotation was discovered in 2010 to have been seven months earlier than claimed.

The claim

A very well known claim, repeated by hundreds of authors, is that Azzam declared on May 15, 1948:

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

The claimed date corresponds to the first day of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i independence, when several Arab armies entered Palestine and engaged Jewish forces

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

. The source of the quotation is usually given as a press conference in Cairo, which some versions say was broadcast by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

Doubt about the claim

An Egyptian writer in 1961 maintained that the quotation was "completely out of context". He wrote that "Azzam actually said that he feared that if the people of Palestine were to be forcibly and against all right dispossessed, a tragedy comparable to the Mongol invasions and the Crusades might not be avoidable. ... The reference to the Crusaders and the Mongols aptly describes the view of the foreign Zionist invaders shared by most Arabs."

In 2010, doubt over the provenance of the quotation was voiced by Joffe

Alexander H. Joffe

-Biography:Dr. Joffe graduated from Cornell University with a B.A in History and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern archaeology from the University of Arizona.-Academic career:...

 and Romirowsky

Asaf Romirowsky

Asaf Romirowsky is a scholar of Middle Eastern studies and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. Romirowsky, an Israeli, did his military service for the Israel Defense Forces as an international relations liaison officer in the West Bank. He currently serves in the IDF reserves as an liaison...

 and by Morris

Benny Morris

Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...

.

Solution of the problem

The solution to the puzzle was reported on Wikipedia late in 2010 and from there "found [its] way into an article published by David Barnett and Efraim Karsh". Azzam's words in fact come from a time seven months earlier, when he was interviewed by the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar el-Yom. In that interview he expressed a belief that Palestine would be overrun by a large number of Arab volunteers if the Jews continued in their intention to establish a state, and hoped that wouldn't happen as it would lead to massive bloodshed.

At the time Azzam gave the interview, the United Nations UNSCOP

United Nations Special Committee on Palestine

The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was formed in May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request that the General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine"...

 commission had presented its report recommending that Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 be partitioned into an Arab State, a Jewish State, and a special regime for Jerusalem. However, no decision had been made by the UN and no Arab state had yet decided to intervene in Palestine with its regular armed forces.

Translation

According to Azzam's interviewer, he said:

"Personally I hope the Jews do not force us into this war because it will be a war of elimination and it will be a dangerous massacre which history will record similarly to the Mongol massacre or the wars of the Crusades. I think the number of volunteers from outside Palestine will exceed the Palestinian population. I know that we will get volunteers from India, Afghanistan and China to have the glory of being martyrs for Palestine.

"You might be shocked if you knew that many British have shown interest in volunteering in the Arab armies to fight the Jews.

"This fight will have three important dimensions; faith, since all fighters believe that his fight for Palestine is the short road to heaven. Second it will be a chance for looting on a grand scale. Third, no one will be able to stop the volunteers who will come from all over the world to revenge the Palestinian martyrs because they know that the battle is an honor for all Muslims and Arabs in the world.

"Another advantage the Arabs have over the Jews is accepting defeat, so if the Jews win the first battle we will win in the second, third or the last. On the other hand a single defeat of the Jews will destroy their spirit.

"The Arabs in the desert love to go to war, I remember once while fighting in the desert I was called to make a peace and the Arabs told me "how come you do that? How can we live without a war?" The Bedouin finds enjoyment in war which he can't find in peace.

"I warned the Jewish leaders whom I met in London about continuing their policy, and I told them that the Arab soldier is the strongest in the world. Once he lifts his weapon, he not put it down till he fires the last bullet in the battle, and we will fire the last bullet.

"In the end I understand the consequence of this bloody war, I see in front of me its horrible battles, I can imagine its victims but I have a clear conscience since we were called to fight as defenders and not attackers."

The quotation in English literature

Azzam's quoted first sentence, without its initial caveat, appeared in English in a Jewish Agency memorandum in February 1948. During the next few years, the same partial sentence appeared in its correct 1947 setting in several books. However, by 1952, many publications, including one published by the Israeli government, had moved its date to 1948. In this incorrect setting, it has appeared in hundreds of books and thousands of websites.