Comrade Joseph Massad: " American officials understood this very well. Indeed, Robert McClintock, a member of the US delegation to the UN, observed on May 4 - 11 days before the Arab armies intervened - that the Security Council would soon be confronted with the question as to "whether Jewish armed attack on Arab communities in Palestine is legitimate or whether it constitutes such a threat to international peace and security as to call for coercive measures by the Security Council". McClintock further observed that if Arab armies entered Palestine, this would lead the Jewish forces to claim "that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside Palestine which is the cause of [the] Arab counter-attack". "