The 1948 War by Mitchell Bard Violence in the Holy Land broke out almost immediately after the un announced partition on November 29, 1947. jamal husseini, the arab higher committee's spokesman, had told the un prior to the partition vote that the arabs would drench the soil of Israel with the last drop of their blood.1 husseini's prediction began to come true after the un announcement. The arabs declared a protest strike and instigated riots that claimed the lives of 62 Jews and 32 arabs. By the end of the second week, 93 arabs, 84 Jews, and 7 Englishmen had been killed and scores injured. From November 30-February 1, 427 arabs, 381 Jews, and 46 British were killed and 1,035 arabs, 725 Jews, and 135 British were wounded. In March alone, 271 Jews and 257 arabs died in arab attacks and Jewish counter-attacks.2 The chairman of the arab higher committee said the arabs would "fight for every inch of" Israel.3 Two days later, the "holy" men of al-azhar university in cairo called on the muslim world to proclaim a jihad ("holy" war) against the Jews.4 The first large-scale assaults began on January 9, 1948, when approximately 1,000 arabs attacked Jewish communities in northern Israel. By February, the British said so many arabs had infiltrated they lacked the forces to run them back.5 In fact, the british turned over bases and arms to arab irregulars and the arab legion. In the first phase of the war, lasting from November 29, 1947 until April 1, 1948, the arabs in Israel took the offensive, with help of volunteers from neighboring countries. The Jews suffered severe casualties and passage along most of their major roadways was disrupted. On April 26, 1948, transjordan's king abdullah said: All our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the "palestine" problem have failed. The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save "palestine."7 On May 4, 1948, the arab legion attacked Kfar Etzion. The defenders drove them back, but the legion returned a week later. After two days, the ill-equipped and outnumbered settlers were overwhelmed. Many defenders were massacred after they had surrendered.6 This was prior to the invasion by the regular arab armies that followed Israel's declaration of independence. arabs turn down partition plan and invade Israel The un blamed the arabs for the violence. The un Israel commission was never permitted by the arabs or british to go to Israel to implement the resolution. On February 16, 1948, the commission reported to the security council: Powerful arab interests, both inside and outside Israel, are defying the resolution of the general assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.8 The arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. jamal husseini told the security council on April 16, 1948: The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that 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.9 The british commander of jordan's arab legion, john bagot glubb admitted: Early in January, the first detachments of the arab "liquidation" army began to infiltrate into Israel 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 Israel.10 Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization, and weapons, the Jews began to take the initiative in the weeks from April 1 until the declaration of independence on May 14. The Haganah captured several major towns including Tveria and Haifa, and temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem. The partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Thus, Israel, the Jewish State in Israel, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Five arab armies (egypt, syria, transjordan, lebanon, and iraq), supported by volunteer detachments from saudi arabia, libya, and yemen, immediately invaded Israel. Their intentions were declared by azzam pasha, secretary-general of the arab league: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades."11 Superpowers Recognize Israel The United States, the Soviet Union, and most other states immediately recognized Israel and indicted the arabs. The United States urged a resolution charging the arabs with breach of the peace. Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko told the security council in May 29, 1948: This is not the first time that the arab states, which organized the invasion of Israel, have ignored a decision of the security council or of the general assembly. The USSR delegation deems it essential that the council should state its opinion more clearly and more firmly with regard to this attitude of the arab states toward decisions of the security council.12 The initial phase of the fighting ended after the security council threatened July 15 to cite the arab governments for aggression under the charter. But the Haganah, which had been renamed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), succeeded in stopping the arab offensive. The Bernadotte Plan During the summer of 1948, count folke bernadotte was sent by the un to Israel to mediate a truce and try to negotiate a settlement. bernadotte's plan called for the Jewish State to relinquish the Negev and Jerusalem to transjordan and to receive the western Galilee. This was similar to the boundaries that had been proposed prior to the partition vote, and had been rejected by all sides. Now the proposal was being offered after the arabs had gone to war to prevent partition and a Jewish state had been declared. The Jews and arabs both rejected the plan. Ironically, bernadotte found little enthusiasm among the arabs for independence. He wrote in his diary: The "palestinian" arabs had at present no will of their own. Neither have they ever developed any specifically "palestinian" nationalism. The demand for a separate arab state in Israel is consequently relatively weak. It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the "palestinian" arabs would be quite content to be incorporated into transjordan.13 The failure of the bernadotte scheme came as the Jews began to have greater success in repelling the invading arab forces and expanding control over territory outside the partition boundaries. The United States Holds Back Support The Jews won their war of independence with minimal help from the West. In fact, they won despite efforts to undermine their military strength. Although the United States vigorously supported the partition resolution, the State Department did not want to provide the Jews with the means to defend themselves. "Otherwise," undersecretary of State Robert Lovett argued, "the arabs might use arms of U.S. origin against Jews, or Jews might use them against arabs."14 Consequently, on December 5, 1947, the U.S. imposed an arms embargo on the region. Many in the State Department saw the embargo as yet another means of obstructing partition. President Truman nevertheless went along with it hoping it would be a means of averting bloodshed. This was naive given britain's rejection of Lovett's request to suspend weapons shipments to the arabs and subsequent agreements to provide additional arms to iraq and transjordan.15 The arabs had no difficulty obtaining all the arms they needed. In fact, jordan's arab legion was armed and trained by the british, and led by a british officer. At the end of 1948 and the beginning of 1949, british raf planes flew with egyptian squadrons over the Israel-egypt border. On January 7, 1949, Israeli planes shot down four of the british aircraft.16 The Jews, on the other hand, were forced to smuggle weapons, principally from Czechoslovakia. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, the army did not have a single cannon or tank. Its air force consisted of nine obsolete planes. Although the Haganah had 60,000 trained fighters, only 18,900 were fully mobilized, armed, and prepared for war.17 On the eve of the war, chief of operations Yigal Yadin told David Ben-Gurion: "The best we can tell you is that we have a 50-50 chance."18 The arab war to destroy Israel failed. Indeed, because of their aggression, the arabs wound up with less territory than they would have had if they had accepted partition. The cost to Israel, however, was enormous. "Many of its most productive fields lay gutted and mined. Its citrus groves, for decades the basis of the Yishuv's [Jewish community] economy, were largely destroyed."19 Military expenditures totaled approximately $500 million. Worse yet, 6,373 Israelis were killed, nearly one percent of the Jewish population of 650,000. Had the West enforced the partition resolution or given the Jews the capacity to defend themselves, many lives might have been saved. The arab countries signed armistice agreements with Israel in 1949, starting with egypt (Feb. 24), followed by lebanon (March 23), jordan (April 3), and syria (July 20). iraq was the only country that did not sign an agreement with Israel, choosing instead to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to jordan's arab legion.

NOTES

¹J.C. Hurewitz, The Struggle For "Palestine", (NY: Shocken Books, 1976), p. 308.
²Facts on File Yearbook, (NY: Facts on File, Inc., 1948), p. 231.
³New York Times, (December 1, 1947).
⁴Facts on File 1948, p. 48.
⁵Facts on File 1947, p. 231.
⁶Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter Books, 1976), p. 47; Ralph Patai, ed., Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, (NY: McGraw Hill, 1971), pp. 307-308.
⁷Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 322.
⁸Security Council Official Records, Special Supplement, (1948), p. 20.
⁹Security Council Official Records, S/Agenda/58, (April 16, 1948), p. 19.
¹⁰John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, (London: Staughton and Hodder, 1957), p. 79.
¹¹Isi Leibler, The Case For Israel, (Australia: The Globe Press, 1972), p. 15.
¹²Security Council Official Records, SA/Agenda/77, (May 29, 1948), p. 2.
¹³Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951), p. 113.
¹⁴Foreign Relations of the United States 1947, (DC: GPO, 1948), p. 1249. [Henceforth FRUS].
¹⁵Mitchell Bard, The Water's Edge and Beyond, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1991), pp. 171-175; FRUS, pp. 537-539; Robert Silverberg, If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem: American Jews and the State of Israel, (NY: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1970), pp. 366, 370; Shlomo Slonim, "The 1948 American Embargo on Arms to 'Palestine,'" Political Science Quarterly, (Fall 1979), p. 500.
¹⁶Sachar, p. 345.
¹⁷Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem!, (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1972), p. 352.
¹⁸Golda Meir, My Life, (NY: Dell, 1975), pp. 213, 222, 224.
¹⁹Sachar, p. 452.

	The War of Independence in Greater Detail The war can be divided into two distinct phases: the first began on Nov. 30, 1947, the day after the un general assembly adopted its resolution on the partition of Israel, and ended on May 15, 1948, when the british forces and administration were withdrawn from the country; the second started on the day after the british evacuation and came to an end on July 20, 1949, when the last of the armistice agreements was signed (with syria). In the first phase, the yishuv and its defense forces were under attack by the arabs in Israel, aided by irregular volunteers from arab countries. In the six weeks preceding the establishment of the State of Israel, Jewish forces took Haifa, Yafo, Tzfat, and Tveria, encircled Acco, and captured about 100 arab villages. Apart from the Latrun sector of the Jerusalem road, the Jewish armed forces could move freely on most of the major arteries of communication. Israeli flag draped around remains of an armored car destroyed in Sha'ar HaGai in Jerusalem during the War of Independence, 1948. In the second phase, the army of the newly independent Israel--officially established on May 28 as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)--fought primarily against regular troops from egypt, iraq, transjordan, syria, and lebanon, who were supported by volunteer detachments from saudi arabia, libya, and yemen. In the south, egyptian forces advanced in two columns up the coast toward Tel Aviv but were stopped by a handful of kibbutz defenders at Kfar Darom and Nirim, which they were forced to bypass. At Yad Mordechai a heroic five-day holding action allowed the IDF to strengthen its defenses nearer to Tel Aviv and successfully block the egyptian advance at Ashdod bridge. Meanwhile Jerusalem and the corridor to the west were the scenes of continuous bitter fighting. The Israelis suffered heavy losses and several serious setbacks, the most important of which were the loss of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and the failure to take Latrun at the western end of the corridor. But they emerged with West Jerusalem intact and in possession of a tenuous link with the coast when a rough dirt track dubbed the "Burma Road" was made serviceable as an alternative supply route. In the north, the syrians crossed into Israel just south of Lake Kinneret. The syrian aim was to rout the kibbutzim in the Jordan Valley and then make a lightning dash westward through the mostly arab-held territory of the Lower Galilee to Haifa. Zemah fell after stubborn fighting; Sha'ar HaGolan and Massadah had to be evacuated but Deganyah held and the syrians retired. On June 11, a truce supervised by the un went into effect. The truce ended on July 9 and hostilities were resumed. On the southern front, two IDF brigades fought continuously for eight days to contain the more powerful egyptians, break their line, and join in the defense of local kibbutzim. When the second truce came into effect on July 18, egyptian east-west communications were severed and the Israelis had a direct land connection with the Negev. The IDF's greatest offensive effort during the ten days of fighting between the two truces was directed against the arab legion on the central front. By July 12, Ramlah, Rosh HaAyin, and Lydda airport had been taken. IDF forces then moved on Jerusalem, but the second truce found the Old City still held by the arab legion. The most spectacular operation in the north during the ten days of fighting was "Operation Dekel," which culminated in the capture of Nazareth. I.D.F Homemade armor advancing to Jerusalem through the Judean Hills, October 1948. Breaches of the second truce, which went into effect on July 18, began almost from the first day. In the Jerusalem area the arab legion intensified its bombardment of the New City. In the south, the egyptians denied Jewish convoys passage through the Hatta-Karatiyya gap in their line. On October 15, the Israel army and air force turned to the offensive after the egyptians had attacked a convoy proceeding south and raided inter-kibbutz communications. In a brisk seven days' campaign known as Operation Yo'av, the road to the Negev was opened and the Negev was cleared of egyptian troops, with Be'er Sheva captured on the 21st. By October 31, the entire Galilee was clear of the arab "liquidation" army. In Operation Horev, lasting from December 22 to January 7, the egyptians were pushed into Sinai and on the afternoon of March 10, 1949, the Israeli flag was hoisted on a few mud buildings, abandoned by a transjordanian detachment, at Eilat. Between February and July, armistice agreements were signed between the warring parties. These acts officially ended Israel's War of Independence. From the Encyclopaedia Judaica CD-ROM Edition (c) Judaica Multimedia (Israel) Ltd. and Keter Publishing House. All Rights Reserved.