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The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine.
After ...
. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
forces conquered territory and established the State of Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
, and over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. By the end of the war, the State of Israel had captured about 78% of former territory of the mandate, the Kingdom of Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian t ...
had captured and later annexed the area that became the West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, and Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
had captured the Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Green Line demarcating these territories. It was the first war of the
The peasant-led
On 29 November 1947, the
The first phase of the war took place from the United Nations General Assembly vote for the Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947 until the termination of the British Mandate and Israeli proclamation of statehood on 14 May 1948. During this period the Jewish and Arab communities of the British Mandate clashed, while the British organised their withdrawal and intervened only occasionally. In the first two months of the Civil War, around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured, and by the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. Yoav Gelber (2006), p.85 These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.
From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised. A number of 
To counter this, the
During this time, paramilitary groups 
As part of Plan Dalet, the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun captured the urban centers of
On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state in 
Over the next few days, contingents of four of the seven countries of the Arab League at that time, Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, and Syria, invaded the former British Mandate of Palestine and fought the Israelis. They were supported by the
During the truce, the Egyptians regularly blocked the passage of supply convoys to the beleaguered northern Negev settlements by firing on them, contrary to the truce terms. On 15 October, they attacked another supply convoy, and the already planned
In 1949, Israel signed separate
"The Forced Migration of Jews from Arab Countries
, Historical Society of Jews from Egypt website. Accessed April 4, 2013. From 1945 until the closure of 1952, more than 250,000 Jewish displaced persons lived in European
Selected Documents on the 1948 Palestine War
',
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is a geopolitical phenomenon involving military conflicts and a variety of disputes between Israel and many Arab world, Arab countries. It is largely rooted in the historically supportive stance of the Arab League ...
.
The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947, a day after the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which planned for the division of the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states. During this period the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence. Initially on the defensive, the Zionist forces switched to the offensive in April 1948. In anticipation of an invasion by Arab armies, they enacted Plan Dalet, an operation aimed at securing territory for the establishment of a Jewish state.
The second phase of the war began on 14 May 1948, with the termination of the British Mandate and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the civil war phase and beginning of the international phase of the ...
. The following morning, the surrounding Arab armies invaded Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
. The Egyptians advanced in the south-east while the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands. Syria and Lebanon fought with the Israeli forces in the north. The newly formed Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
managed to halt the Arab forces and in the following months began pushing them back and capturing territory.
During the war, massacres and acts of terror were conducted by and against both sides. A campaign of massacres and violence against the Arab population, such as occurred at Lydda and Ramle and the Battle of Haifa, led to the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians, with most of their urban areas being depopulated and destroyed. This violence and dispossession of the Palestinians is known today as the Nakba
The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...
(Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
for "the disaster")
*
*
* and resulted in the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem.
Background
The 1948 War came as the culmination of 30 years of friction between Jews and Arabs during the period of British rule of Palestine when, under the terms of the League of Nations mandate held by the British, conditions intended to lead to the creation of a Jewish National Home in the area were created.Jewish immigration to Palestine
Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
formed in Europe as the national movement of the Jewish people. It sought to reestablish Jewish statehood in the ancient homeland. The first wave of Zionist immigration, dubbed the First Aliyah
The First Aliyah (), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to History of Israel#Ottoman period , Ottoman Palestine (region) , Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave cam ...
, lasted from 1882 to 1903. Some 30,000 Jews, mostly from the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
, reached Ottoman Palestine. They were driven both by the Zionist idea and by the wave of antisemitism
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
in Europe, especially in the Russian Empire, which came in the form of brutal pogrom
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
s. They wanted to establish Jewish agricultural settlements and a Jewish majority in the land that would allow them to gain statehood.
The Arab inhabitants of Ottoman Palestine who saw the Zionist Jews of the first aliyah settle next to them were not associated with a national movement at the end of the 19th century. Historically, Palestine had never been administered or recognized as a distinct province by any of its Muslim rulers.
Starting in 1882, the Ottomans issued a stream of prohibitions against Jewish settlement and land purchases in Palestine. However, due to the inefficiency of Ottoman bureaucracies, these restriction had little effect. Due to bribes, the Ottoman authorities often supported the Jewish settlers in disputes over land and settlement. Benny Morris (2008), p.7-8
Until the 1910s, Zionists encountered little violence, as the Arabs lacked political awareness and were disorganized. Between 1909 and 1914, this changed, as Arabs killed 12 Jewish settlement guards and Arab nationalism, and opposition to the Zionist enterprise, increased. In 1911, Arabs attempted to thwart the establishment of a Jewish settlement in the Jezreel Valley
The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...
, and the dispute resulted in the death of one Arab man and a Jewish guard. The Arabs called the Jews the "new Crusaders", and anti-Zionist (and, occasionally, anti-Semitic) rhetoric flourished.
World War I and the Balfour Declaration
During the war, Palestine served as the frontline between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire in Egypt. The war briefly halted Jewish-Arab friction. The British invaded the land in 1915 and 1916 after two unsuccessful Ottoman attacks on Sinai. They were assisted by the Arab tribes inHejaz
Hejaz is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al Bahah, Al-B ...
, led by the Hashemites
The Hashemites (), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921–1958). The family had ruled the city of Me ...
, and promised them sovereignty over the Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was excluded from the promise, initially intended to be a joint British-French domain.
After the Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
in November 1917, it was designated as a "national home for the Jewish people", with the stipulation that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Several factors influenced the decision to support Zionism. Zionist lobbying, led by Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...
, played a significant role, along with religious and humanitarian motivations. The fact that the Arabs of Palestine supported the Ottoman fight against the Allied Powers also contributed. Additionally, the British believed that a British-backed state would help defend the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
. At that time, the Arab Hashemites did not seem opposed to Jewish rule over Palestine.
Early years of the British Mandate
After World War I, theLeague of Nations
The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine
The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British Empire, British administration of the territories of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine and Emirate of Transjordan, Transjordanwhich had been Ottoman Syria, part of the Ottoman ...
, which required it to implement the Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
. As the numbers and strength of the Yishuv
The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...
(the Jewish community in Palestine) grew, tensions between the Jewish and Arab communities deepened. Significant bouts of violence happened during the 1920 Jerusalem Riots, as well as in 1921
Events
January
* January 2
** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil.
** The Spanish lin ...
and 1929
This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
. In addition to the emerging Palestinian Arab nationalism, the violence also drew on religious inspirations, such as the accusation that the Jews intended to take over the Temple Mount
The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...
.
Despite Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, leading Palestinian families continued to sell land to Zionists throughout the period. At least one quarter of members of the Palestinian Arab Executive benefited financially from such purchases, including the mayor of Jerusalem
The Mayor of the City of Jerusalem is head of the executive branch of the political system in Jerusalem. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within Jerusal ...
and the al-Husayni family.
The Zionist leaders intermittently attempted to reach a compromise with the Arabs, but none proved possible.
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
The peasant-led 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, later known as the Great Revolt, the Great Palestinian Revolt, or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought i ...
broke out in the context of increased Jewish migration to Palestine and the plight of the rural native '' fallāḥīn''. It sparked following the murder of three Jewish drivers on April 15, 1936, whose funeral led rapidly spreading disturbances. The revolt began with a general strike
A general strike is a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions ...
among Palestinian Arabs on April 19, 1936, which escalated into intercommunal violence. The brutal suppression of the revolt by the British significantly weakened the Palestinian Arabs in advance of the 1948 war.
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
Particularly after theWhite Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British governmen ...
, the Zionist paramilitary organizations Irgun
The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...
, Lehi, and Haganah
Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
carried out a campaign of acts of terror and sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...
against British rule. Among these attacks was the 1946 King David Hotel bombing
The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on 22 July 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization I ...
carried out by the Irgun which killed 91 people.
The Arab states
Following World War II, the surrounding Arab states were emerging frommandatory
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also r ...
rule. Transjordan, under the Hashemite
The Hashemites (), also House of Hashim, are the Dynasty, royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Hejaz, Hejaz (1916–1925), Arab Kingdom of Syria, Syria (1920), and Kingd ...
ruler Abdullah I, gained independence from Britain in 1946 and was called Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
in 1949, but remained under heavy British influence. Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
gained nominal independence in 1922, but Britain continued to exert a strong influence on it until the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936
The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 (officially, ''The Treaty of Alliance Between His Majesty, in Respect of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty, the King of Egypt'') was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Egypt. The ...
limited Britain's presence to a garrison of troops on the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
until 1945. Lebanon became an independent state in 1943, but French troops did not withdraw until 1946, the same year Syria won its independence from France.
In 1945, at British prompting, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
formed the Arab League
The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
to coordinate policy among the Arab states. Iraq and Transjordan coordinated closely, signing a mutual defence treaty, while Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia feared that Transjordan would annex part or all of Palestine and use it as a stepping stone to attack or undermine Syria, Lebanon, and the Hijaz
Hejaz is a historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al-Bahah. It is thus known as the "Western Province ...
.
The 1947 UN Partition Plan
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...
adopted a resolution "recommending to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union", UN General Assembly Resolution 181(II). This was an attempt to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict by partitioning Palestine into "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem". Each state would comprise three major sections; the Arab state would also have an enclave in Jaffa
Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
, which had an Arab-majority population and provided the Arab state with a port on the Mediterranean.
With about 32% of the population, the Jews were allocated 56% of the territory (most of it the Negev
The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...
desert). It contained 499,000 Jews and 438,000 Arabs.Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
(2008), ''1948: An History the First Arab-Israeli War'', p. 47. The Palestinian Arabs were allocated 42% of the land, which had a population of 818,000 Palestinian Arabs and 10,000 Jews. In consideration of its religious significance, the Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
area, including Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...
, with 100,000 Jews and an equal number of Palestinian Arabs, was to become a , to be administered by the UN. The residents in the UN-administered territory were given the right to choose to be citizens of either of the new states. Karsh, p.7
The Jewish leadership accepted the partition plan as "the indispensable minimum", glad to gain international recognition but sorry that they did not receive more.
The representatives of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab League firmly opposed the UN action and rejected its authority in the matter, arguing that the partition plan was unfair to the Arabs because of the population balance at that time. The Arabs rejected the partition, not because it was supposedly unfair, but because their leaders rejected any form of partition. They held "that the rule of Palestine should revert to its inhabitants, in accordance with the provisions of ... the Charter of the United Nations". According to Article 73b of the Charter, the UN should develop self-government of the peoples in a territory under its administration.
In the immediate aftermath of the UN's approval of the partition plan, explosions of joy in the Jewish community were counterbalanced by discontent in the Arab community. Soon after, violence broke out and became more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast upon each other, resulting in dozens killed on both sides. The sanguinary impasse persisted as no force intervened to put a stop to the escalating violence.
First phase: 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine
The first phase of the war took place from the United Nations General Assembly vote for the Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947 until the termination of the British Mandate and Israeli proclamation of statehood on 14 May 1948. During this period the Jewish and Arab communities of the British Mandate clashed, while the British organised their withdrawal and intervened only occasionally. In the first two months of the Civil War, around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured, and by the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. Yoav Gelber (2006), p.85 These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.
From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised. A number of Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army (ALA; , better translated as Arab Rescue Army (ARA) or Arab Salvation Army (ASA), was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war. It was set ...
regiments infiltrated Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee
Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ).
''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
and Samaria
Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...
. Yoav Gelber (2006), pp.51-56 The Army of the Holy War
The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army (; ''Jaysh al-Jihād al-Muqaddas'') was a Palestinian Arab irregular force in the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been de ...
, under Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abdul Qadir al-Husayni (; 1907 – 8 April 1948) was a Palestinian revolutionary and Arab nationalist guerrilla military leader. In late 1933, he founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle (''Munathamat al-Ji ...
's command, came from Egypt with several hundred men. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. Dominique Lapierre et Larry Collins (1971), chap.7, pp.131-153
To counter this, the Yishuv
The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...
authorities tried to supply the city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, al-Husayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah
Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. Benny Morris (2003), p. 163 The situation for those in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev
The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...
and North of Galilee was more critical.
This caused the US to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, and the Arab League
The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
began to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could end the partition. The British decided on 7 February 1948 to support Transjordan's annexation of the Arab part of Palestine. Henry Laurens (2005), p.83
While the Jewish population was ordered to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, Dominique Lapierre et Larry Collins (1971), p.163 the Arab population was disrupted by general conditions of insecurity. Up to 100,000 Arabs from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres to the east. Benny Morris (2003), p.67
Plan Dalet and second stage
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
ordered Yigal Yadin to plan for the announced intervention of the Arab states. The result of his analysis was Plan Dalet, which was put in place at the start of April, and which marked the war's second phase, in which the Haganah took the offensive.
The first operation, Nachshon, was directed at lifting the blockade on Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
. In the last week of March, 136 supply trucks had tried to reach Jerusalem; only 41 had made it. The Arab attacks on communications and roads had intensified. The convoys' failure and the loss of Jewish armoured vehicles had shaken the Yishuv leaders' confidence. The city's food and water supply was cut off. Jerusalem was on the verge of starvation in May, both food and water rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution (marketing), distribution of scarcity, scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resourc ...
had been introduced.
During this time, paramilitary groups Irgun
The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...
and Lehi, supported by the Haganah and Palmach, perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, then part of Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and childr ...
, killing at least 107 Arab villagers, including women and children, and expelled the rest of the village's residents (approximately 750 people). The event was widely publicized and had a deep effect on the Arab population's morale, greatly contributing to the Palestinian expulsion and flight.
The Hadassah medical convoy massacre was conducted by Arab forces as retaliation for Deir Yassin. 79 Jews were killed in the attack which led to a further deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations.
From April 4-15, the first Benny Morris (2003), pp. 242-243 large-scale operation of the Arab Liberation Army ended in a debacle, as they were roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek
Mishmar HaEmek () is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Jezreel Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Megiddo Regional Council. Mishmar HaEmek is one of the few kibbutzim that have not undergone privatization and stil ...
. Their Druze
The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...
allies left them through defection.
As part of Plan Dalet, the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun captured the urban centers of Tiberias
Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...
, Haifa
Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...
(See: Battle of Haifa), Safed
Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.
Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...
, Beisan
Beit She'an ( '), also known as Beisan ( '), or Beth-shean, is a town in the Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below sea level.
Beit She'an is believed to be one of the oldest citie ...
, Jaffa
Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
, and Acre
The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...
, violently expelling more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs.
The British had essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation pushed the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but their preparation was not completed, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide of the war. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion
The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...
of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I. However Abdullah did not intend to create a Palestinian state, but hoped to annex much of Eastern Palestine. Playing both sides, he was in contact with both the Israelis and the Arab League.
Preparing for Arab intervention from neighbouring states, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure the Jewish settlements of Galilee
Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ).
''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
, and Operation Kilshon. This created an Israeli-controlled front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir
Golda Meir (; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was the prime minister of Israel, serving from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and only female head of government.
Born into a Jewish family in Kyiv, Kiev, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) ...
and Abdullah I, followed by the Kfar Etzion massacre on 13 May by the Arab Legion, led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless.
Israeli historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar revealed that during the 1948 war, Israel conducted a biological warfare operation codenamed ''Cast Thy Bread'', using typhoid bacteria to contaminate wells in Arab areas to prevent reentry and deter advancing Arab forces.
Second phase: 1948 Arab–Israeli War
Arab League entry
On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions ...
, to be known as the State of Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. Both superpower
Superpower describes a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to Sphere of influence, exert influence and Power projection, project power on a global scale. This is done through the comb ...
leaders, U.S. President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
, immediately recognised the new state, while the Arab League
The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
refused to accept the UN Partition Plan, proclaimed the right of self-determination for the Arabs across the whole of Palestine, and maintained that the absence of legal authority made it necessary to intervene to protect Arab lives and property. The Palestinians' Arab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee () or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Je ...
rejected the Partition Resolution and any kind of Jewish state and refused to negotiate with "the Zionist Project."
Over the next few days, contingents of four of the seven countries of the Arab League at that time, Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, and Syria, invaded the former British Mandate of Palestine and fought the Israelis. They were supported by the Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army (ALA; , better translated as Arab Rescue Army (ARA) or Arab Salvation Army (ASA), was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war. It was set ...
and corps of volunteers from Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
, Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
and Yemen
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
. The Arab armies launched a simultaneous offensive on all fronts: Egyptian forces invaded from the south, Jordanian and Iraqi forces from the east, and Syrian forces invaded from the north. Cooperation among the various Arab armies was poor.
First truce: 11 June – 8 July 1948
The UN declared a truce on 29 May, which began on 11 June and lasted 28 days. Theceasefire
A ceasefire (also known as a truce), also spelled cease-fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions often due to mediation by a third party. Ceasefires may b ...
was overseen by UN mediator Folke Bernadotte
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish nobleman and diplomat. In World War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many nations from the Nazi ...
and a team of UN Observers, army officers from Belgium, United States, Sweden and France. Bernadotte was voted in by the General Assembly to "assure the safety of the holy places, to safeguard the well being of the population, and to promote 'a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine. He spoke of "peace by Christmas" but saw that the Arab world had continued to reject the existence of a Jewish state, whatever its borders.
An arms embargo was declared with the intention that neither side would make gains from the truce. Neither side respected the truce; both found ways around the restrictions. Both the Israelis and the Arabs used this time to improve their positions, a direct violation of the terms of the ceasefire.
"The Arabs violated the truce by reinforcing their lines with fresh units (including six companies of Sudanese regulars, Benny Morris (2008), p.269 a Saudi battalion and contingents from Yemen and Morocco ) and by preventing supplies from reaching isolated Israeli settlements; occasionally, they opened fire along the lines". The Israeli Defense Forces violated the truce by acquiring weapons from Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
, improving the training of its forces, and reorganising the army. Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
, an IDF commander who would later become Israel's fifth prime minister, said, " thout the arms from Czechoslovakia... it is very doubtful whether we would have been able to conduct the war". As well as violating the arms and personnel embargo, both sides sent fresh units to the front. Israel's army increased its manpower from approximately 30,000 or 35,000 men to almost 65,000 during the truce and its arms supply to "more than twenty-five thousand rifles, five thousand machine guns, and more than fifty million bullets".
As the truce began, a British officer stationed in Haifa said the four-week-long truce "would certainly be exploited by the Jews to continue military training and reorganization while the Arabs would waste hem
A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...
feuding over the future divisions of the spoils". On 7 July, the day before the truce expired, Egyptian forces under General Muhammad Naguib renewed the war by attacking Negba.
Second phase: 8–18 July 1948
Israeli forces launched a simultaneous offensive on all three fronts: Dani, Dekel, and Kedem. The fighting was dominated by large-scale Israeli offensives and a defensive Arab posture and continued for ten days until the UN Security Council issued the Second Truce on 18 July. Israeli Operation Dani resulted in the expulsion from Lydda and Ramle of 60,000 Palestinian residents. According to Benny Morris, in Ben-Gurion's view, Ramlah and Lydda constituted a special danger because their proximity might encourage cooperation between the Egyptian army, which had started its attack on Kibbutz Negbah, and the Arab Legion, which had taken the Lydda police station. Widespread looting took place during these operations, and about 100,000 Palestinians became refugees. In Operation Dekel,Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...
was captured on 16 July. In Operation Brosh, Israel tried and failed to drive the Syrian army out of northeastern Galilee
Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ).
''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
. By the time the second truce took effect at 19:00 18 July, Israel had taken the lower Galilee from Haifa Bay
The Bay of Haifa or Haifa Bay (, ''Mifratz Heifa''), formerly Bay of Acre, is a bay along the Mediterranean coast of Northern Israel. Haifa Bay is Israel's only natural harbor on the Mediterranean.
''Haifa Bay'' also refers one of Haifa's ni ...
to the Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
.
With smuggled Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber, the B-17 dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during ...
planes acquired in violation of the international arms embargo, Israel bombed a residential neighborhood in Cairo on July 15.
18 July 1948 – 10 March 1949
At 19:00 on 18 July, the second truce of the conflict went into effect after intense diplomatic efforts by the UN. On 16 September, a new partition plan for Palestine was proposed but it was rejected by both sides.
During the truce, the Egyptians regularly blocked the passage of supply convoys to the beleaguered northern Negev settlements by firing on them, contrary to the truce terms. On 15 October, they attacked another supply convoy, and the already planned Operation Yoav
Operation Yoav (also called Operation Ten Plagues or Operation Yo'av) was an Israeli military operation carried out from 15–22 October 1948 in the Negev Desert, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Its goal was to drive a wedge between the Eg ...
was launched. Its goal was to drive a wedge between the Egyptian forces along the coast and the Beersheba
Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most p ...
-Hebron
Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
-Jerusalem road, and to open the road to the encircled Negev
The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...
settlements. Yoav was headed by Southern Front commander Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon (; 10 October 1918 – 29 February 1980) was an Israeli military leader and politician. He was a commander of the Palmach and a general in the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He was also a leader of the Ahdut HaA ...
. The operation was a success, shattering the Egyptian army ranks and forcing Egyptian forces to retreat from the northern Negev, Beersheba, and Ashdod
Ashdod (, ; , , or ; Philistine language, Philistine: , romanized: *''ʾašdūd'') is the List of Israeli cities, sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District (Israel), Southern District, it lies on the Mediterranean ...
. Meanwhile, on 19 October, Operation Ha-Har
Operation HaHar (, ''The Mountain''), or Operation El HaHar, was an Israeli Defence Forces campaign against villages southwest of Jerusalem launched at the end of October 1948. The operation lasted from 19 to 24 October and was carried out by tr ...
commenced operations in the Jerusalem Corridor.
On 22 October, the third truce went into effect.
Before dawn on 22 October, in defiance of the UN Security Council ceasefire order, ALA units stormed the IDF hilltop position of Sheikh Abd, overlooking Kibbutz
A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
Manara. The kibbutz was now besieged. Ben-Gurion initially rejected Moshe Carmel’s demand to launch a major counteroffensive. He was wary of antagonising the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
on the heels of its ceasefire order. During 24–25 October, ALA troops regularly sniped at Manara and traffic along the main road. In contacts with UN observers, Fawzi al-Qawuqji
Fawzi al-Qawuqji (, ; 19 January 1890 – 5 June 1977) was a Lebanese-born Arab nationalist military figure in the interwar period.The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, by Gilbert Achcar, (NY: Henry Holt and Co.; 2009 ...
demanded that Israel evacuate neighbouring Kibbutz Yiftah and thin out its forces in Manara. The IDF demanded the ALA's withdrawal from the captured positions and, after a "no" from al-Qawuqji, informed the UN that it felt free to do as it pleased. On 24 October, the IDF launched Operation Hiram
Operation Hiram was a military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was led by General Moshe Carmel, and aimed at capturing the Upper Galilee region from the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) ...
and captured the entire upper Galilee, originally attributed to the Arab state by the Partition Plan. It drove the ALA back to Lebanon. At the end of the month, Israel had captured the whole Galilee and had advanced into Lebanon to the Litani River
The Litani River (), the classical Leontes (), is an important water resource in southern Lebanon. The river rises in the fertile Beqaa Valley, west of Baalbek, and empties into the Mediterranean Sea north of Tyre. Exceeding in length, the ...
.
On 22 December, large IDF forces started Operation Horev
Operation Horev was a large-scale offensive against the Egyptian army in the Western Negev towards the end of the Arab–Israeli War in 1948 and 1949. Its objective was to entrap the Egyptian Army in the Gaza Strip. The operation took place from ...
. Its objective was to encircle the Egyptian Army
The Egyptian Army (), officially the Egyptian Ground Forces (), is the land warfare branch (and largest service branch) of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Until the declaration of the Republic and the abolishment of the monarchy on 18 June 1953, it w ...
in the Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
and force the Egyptians to end the war. The operation was a decisive Israeli victory, and Israeli raids into the Nitzana area and the Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...
forced the Egyptian army into the Gaza Strip, where it was surrounded. Israeli forces withdrew from Sinai and Gaza under international pressure and after the British threatened to intervene against Israel. The Egyptian government announced on 6 January 1949 that it was willing to enter armistice negotiations. Allon persuaded Ben-Gurion to continue as planned, but Ben-Gurion told him: "Do you know the value of peace talks with Egypt? After all, that is our great dream!" He was sure that Transjordan and the other Arab states would follow suit. On 7 January 1949, a truce was achieved.
On 5 March, Israel launched Operation Uvda
Operation Uvda (, ''Mivtza Uvda'') was an operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, from 5 March to 10 March 1949. It was the last campaign undertaken by the IDF during the war and its objective was to ...
; by 10 March, the Israelis reached Umm Rashrash (where Eilat
Eilat ( , ; ; ) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port of Eilat, port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba. The c ...
was built later) and took it without a battle. The Negev Brigade
The Negev Brigade (, ''Hativat HaNegev''), originally the 12th Brigade is an Israeli Reserve duty (Israel), reserve infantry brigade under the Sinai Division, that originally served in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
History
Founding and organizatio ...
and Golani Brigade
The 1st "Golani" Brigade (, ''Hativat Golani'') is an Israeli military infantry brigade. It is subordinated to the 36th Division and traditionally associated with the Northern Command. It is one of the five infantry brigades of the regular Is ...
took part in the operation. They raised a hand-made flag (" The Ink Flag") and claimed Umm Rashrash for Israel.
Aftermath
Armistice lines
In 1949, Israel signed separate armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from t ...
s with Egypt on 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Transjordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July. The armistice lines saw Israel holding about 78% of Mandatory Palestine (as it stood after the independence of Transjordan in 1946), 22% more than the UN Partition Plan had allocated. These ceasefire lines were known afterwards as the " Green Line". The Gaza Strip and the West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
were occupied by Egypt and Transjordan, respectively. The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Established amidst the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, its primary task was initially to provide the military com ...
and Mixed Armistice Commissions were set up to monitor ceasefires, supervise the armistice agreements, to prevent isolated incidents from escalating, and assist other UN peacekeeping operations in the region.
Casualties
Israel lost 6,373 people, about 1% of its population, in the war. About 4,000 were soldiers and the rest were civilians. The exact number of Arab losses is unknown but is estimated at between 4,000 for Egypt (2,000), Jordan and Syria (1,000 each) and 15,000.Chris Cook, World Political Almanac, 3rd Ed. (Facts on File: 1995) According toBenny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
, Benny Morris (2008), p.406
Demographic consequences
During the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
that followed, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs
Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine.
*: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
fled or were expelled. In 1951, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees displaced from Israel was 711,000. This number did not include displaced Palestinians inside Israeli-held territory. The list of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict
Below is a list of villages depopulated or destroyed during the Arab–Israeli conflict.
1880–1946
Arab villages
A number of these villages, those in the Jezreel Valley, were inhabited by tenants of land which was sold by a variety of own ...
includes more than 400 Arab villages. It also includes about ten Jewish villages and neighbourhoods, resulting in no Jews left in or being able to return to the Arab-controlled territory.
The causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus are a controversial topic among historians. The Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...
problem and the debate around the right of their return are also major issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
. Palestinians have staged annual demonstrations and protests on 15 May of each year.
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, around 10,000 Jews were forced to evacuate their homes in Palestine or Israel. The war indirectly resulted in the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim lands. Largely because of the war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Jews who lived in the Arab states were intimidated into flight, or were expelled from their native countries, most of them reaching Israel. The immediate reasons for this exodus were both the popular Arab hostility, including pogroms and anti-Jewish governmental measures, as well as the desire of many Jewish people to join the newly established State of Israel. In the three years following the war, about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, where they were absorbed, fed and housed mainly along the borders and in former Palestinian lands.Benny Morris, ''Righteous Victims'', chap. VI. Beginning in 1948, and continuing until 1972, an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews migrated to Israel.Malka Hillel Shulewitz, ''The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands'', Continuum 2001.Ada Aharon"The Forced Migration of Jews from Arab Countries
, Historical Society of Jews from Egypt website. Accessed April 4, 2013. From 1945 until the closure of 1952, more than 250,000 Jewish displaced persons lived in European
refugee camps
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displac ...
. About 136,000 of them immigrated to Israel. More than 270,000 Jews immigrated from Eastern Europe, mainly Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
and Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
(over 100,000 each). Overall 700,000 Jews settled
A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settli ...
in Israel, doubling its Jewish population.
Historiography
Since the war, differenthistoriographical
Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...
traditions have interpreted the events of 1948 differently; in the words of the New Historian
The New Historians are a loosely defined group of Israeli historians who have challenged traditional versions of Israeli history and played a critical role in refuting some of what critics of Israel consider Israel's foundational myths, includin ...
Avi Shlaim
Avi Shlaim (, ; born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent. He is one of Israel's " New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Isr ...
, "each side subscribes to a different version of events." In the Israeli narrative, the war is Israel's War of Independence. In the Palestinian narrative, the War of 1948 is inextricable from the Nakba
The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...
, the Zionist movement is one of settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by Settler, settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers.
Settler colonialism is ...
, and the Israelis are seen as conquerors and the Palestinians as victims. The different narratives of 1948 reflect these different perceptions.
An issue affecting the historiography of 1948 is access to sources and archives, which may have been destroyed, appropriated, censored, or otherwise made unavailable to some or all researchers. Linguistic barriers represent another hurdle, as most research is published exclusively in the author's native language and is not translated.
The historiography of 1948 is tied to political legitimacy in the present and has implications for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
. According to Avraham Sela
Avraham Sela () is an Israeli historian and scholar on the Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
...
and Neil Caplan:A major reason for this grip of the past over the present is the unfulfilled quest of both Israelis and Palestinians for legitimacy, in one or more of the following three senses: (a) each party's sense of its own legitimacy as a national community entitled to its own sovereign state; (b) each party's willingness to grant legitimacy to at least part of the competing national narrative of the other; and (c) the international community's extension of legitimacy to the competing rights and claims of Israelis and Palestinians.The narratives of 1948 have also had implications for
Palestinian refugees
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...
.
Israeli narratives
Being the victors, the Israelis "were able to propagate more effectively than their opponents their version of this fateful war", in the words of Avi Shlaim. Only in 1987 was that narrative effectively challenged outside the Arab world.Zionist narrative
Avi Shlaim gives the conventional Zionist narrative or the "old history" of the 1948 war as follows:The conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine came to a head following the passage, on 29 November 1947, of the United Nations partition resolution that called for the establishment of two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the U.N. plan despite the painful sacrifices it entailed, but the Palestinians, the neighboring Arab states, and the Arab League rejected it. Great Britain did everything in its power toward the end of the Palestine Mandate to frustrate the establishment of the Jewish state envisaged in the UN. plan. With the expiry of the Mandate and the proclamation of the State of Israel, seven Arab states sent their armies into Palestine with the firm intention of strangling the Jewish state at birth. The subsequent struggle was an unequal one between a Jewish David and an Arab Goliath. The infant Jewish state fought a desperate, heroic, and ultimately successful battle for survival against overwhelming odds. During the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled to the neighboring Arab states, mainly in response to orders from their leaders and despite Jewish pleas to stay and demonstrate that peaceful coexistence was possible. After the war, the story continues, Israeli leaders sought peace with all their heart and all their might but there was no one to talk to on the other side. Arab intransigence was alone responsible for the political deadlock, which was not broken until President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem thirty years later.According to Shlaim, this narrative is "not history in the proper sense of the word", as most of the literature on the war was produced—not by professional academic historians—but rather by participants in the war, politicians, soldiers, and state-sponsored historians, as well as by sympathetic journalists, chroniclers, and biographers. It also portrays Israelis as morally superior, lacks political analysis, and gives undue weight to "the heroic feats of the Israeli fighters." This nationalist narrative was taught in Israeli schools and used for gaining legitimacy internationally.
New Historians
The standard Zionist narrative of the war remained unchallenged outside the Arab world until the war's fortieth anniversary, when a number of critical books came out, including Simha Flapan's ''The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities'' (1987),Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
's ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem'' (1987), Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( ; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director ...
's ''Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948–51'' (1988), and Shlaim's ''Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine'' (1988). These writers came to be known as New Historians or "post-Zionists".'''' According to Shlaim, the new historians disagreed with the Zionist narrative on six main points: British policy with regard to the Yishuv at the end of the Palestine Mandate, the military balance in 1948, the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem, the nature of relations between Israelis and Jordanians during the war, Arab aims in the war, and the reasons peace remained elusive after the war.
Among their most vitriolic critics was Shabtai Teveth
Shabtai Teveth (; 1925 – 1 November 2014) was an Israeli historian and author.
Teveth was born in 1925 and grew up in the worker' quarters at the Migdal Tzedek quarry, where his father worked, near Petah Tikva. He began working as a journali ...
, biographer of David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
, who published "The New Historians", a series of four weekly full-page articles attacking the new historians, in Haaretz
''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
May 1989. Teveth claimed that the new historiography was flawed in its practice and that it was politically motived, that it was pro-Palestinian and aimed to delegitimize the State of Israel.
Neo-Zionist narratives
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( ; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director ...
identifies a turn in predominant Israeli narratives about 1948 in September 2000. In the climate of the Second Intifada
The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
and in the Post-9/11
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy. Some ...
period, "not only were Israel’s brutal military operations against the Palestinians during the new intifada seen as justified, but so was their systematic expulsion in 1948." Evidence of the expulsions, massacres, and war crimes of 1948 brought to light by the New Historians could no longer be ignored, but writers of what Pappé calls a "neo-Zionist" narrative justified these as necessary or unavoidable. In this period, the focus of Israeli historical writing on 1948 shifted largely from its human impact back to its military aspects. Neo-Zionist writers were given selective access to top-secret material, to which writers critical of Zionism would not have been given access, and much of their work was published by the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Among those Pappé associated with the neo-Zionist perspective were Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
(who had become more outspokenly defensive of Zionism by this time), , Mordechai Bar-On, Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber (; born September 25, 1943) is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
He was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1943 and studied world and Jewish his ...
, Tamir Goren, , Alon Kadish, and , as well as the journal ''Techelet''.
Palestinian narratives
Unlike Israeli narratives that shifted over the decades, Palestinian narratives of 1948 have been more or less constant, focusing on Palestinians' indigenous rights to Palestine, Palestinian victimhood, dispossession, displacement, exile, statelessness, and more "unrequited grievances against colonialism and Zionism." The term 'Nakba
The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...
' to describe the Palestinian catastrophe in the war of 1948 was coined in Constantin Zureiq's 1948 book '' Ma'na an-Nakba''. Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber (; born September 25, 1943) is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
He was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1943 and studied world and Jewish his ...
identifies Arif al-Arif's six volume written in Arabic in the 1950s as thorough and notable.
Palestinian narratives have focused on countering the dominant Zionist narrative; the preëminent Palestinian historian of 1948 Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...
has dedicated much of his career to disproving the official Israeli narrative that the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight
In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled. Expulsions and attacks against Palestinians were carried out by the ...
was voluntary.
Rashid Khalidi
Rashid Ismail Khalidi (; born 18 November 1948) is a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He served as editor of the '' Journal of Palestine St ...
and other historians hold that "there is no established, authoritative Palestinian master narrative." They attribute this to, among other reasons, the dispersed and fragmented state of the Palestinian community and the loss, destruction, or appropriation by Israel of relevant documents and libraries. Without access to much in the way of archival materials, Palestinian historians have made use of oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from
people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...
.
Arab narratives
In the narratives of the wider Arab-Muslim world, 1948 is seen as an "Arab debacle", representative of the region's social and political decline from its "glorious distant past". The official narratives of Arab states on 1948 tended to be apologetic with the goal of defending their political legitimacy, while theArab nationalists
Arab nationalism () is a political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, the Arabic language and Arabic literatur ...
wrote with a focus on distilling and extracting historical lessons to galvanize Arab society, politics, and ideology in preparation for the next conflict with Israel—neither approach bridled itself too much with historical accuracy.
United States narratives
The American journalist Joan Peters' 1984 book '' From Time Immemorial'' had a massive impact on how 1948 was understood in popular and political narratives in the United States.Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( ; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director ...
asserts the neo-Zionist narrative was pushed in the United States most passionately by Michael Walzer
Michael Laban Walzer (born March 3, 1935) is an American Political theory, political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of the left-win ...
, and by Anita Shapira
Anita Shapira (; born 1940) is an Israeli historian. She is the founder of the Yitzhak Rabin Center, professor emerita of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, and former head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv Univ ...
and Derek Penslar with their 2003 ''Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right.''
In popular culture
A 1960 movie '' Exodus'' starringPaul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and activist. He was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Paul Newman, numerous awards ...
as Haganah
Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
rebel Ari Ben Canaan, a decorated former captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship. He smuggles 611 Jews out of a Cyprus camp run by the British and onto the ship for an illegal voyage to Mandatory Palestine. An American epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale
Epic(s) ...
historical drama
A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...
film about the founding of the State of Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger ( ; ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian Americans, Austrian-American film and theatre director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the the ...
, the screenplay was adapted from the 1958 novel of the same name by Leon Uris
Leon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 – June 21, 2003) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books, including '' Exodus'' (published in 1958) and ''Trinity'' (published in 1976).
Uris was a co-founder of the Write ...
.
A 1966 movie ''Cast a Giant Shadow
''Cast a Giant Shadow'' is a 1966 American action film based on the life of Colonel Mickey Marcus, and stars Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, Yul Brynner, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra and Angie Dickinson. Melville Shavelson adapted, produced and di ...
'' starring Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
as US Colonel Mickey Marcus
David Daniel "Mickey" Marcus (February 22, 1901 – June 10, 1948) was a United States Army colonel, later Israel's first general, who was a principal architect of the U.S. military's World War II civil-affairs policies,Ossad, Steven L."Out of t ...
(1901–1948) who commanded units of the fledgling Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. One of the well known Israeli Machal soldiers, becoming Israel's first modern general (Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
: Aluf
( or "first/leader of a group" in Biblical Hebrew) is a senior military rank in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for officers who in other countries would have the rank of general, air marshal, or admiral. In addition to the ''aluf'' rank, fo ...
). He was killed by friendly fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy or hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while ...
.
A 1966 movie ''Judith (1966 film)
''Judith'' is a 1966 drama film directed by Daniel Mann from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on a story by Lawrence Durrell. An international co-production of Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States, the film stars Sophia ...
'' starring Sophia Loren
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (; born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren ( , ), is an Italian actress, active in her native country and the United States. With a career spanning over 70 years, she is one of the ...
as Judith Auerbach Schiller, a Jewish former wife of a former German tank commander, General Gustav Schiller, who is teaching the Arabs battle tactics while in Palestine shortly before the end of the British mandate, the Haganah
Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
are unable to locate him but hopes that she can identify him. Judith and colleagues are smuggled into Damascus, and after days of searching, they find Schiller. As they are about to capture him, Judith shoots and wounds him. Schiller is smuggled back to Palestine and interrogated.
A 2015 PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
, '' A Wing and a Prayer'', depicts the Al Schwimmer-led airborne smuggling missions to arm Israel.
The 2021 historical drama
A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...
film ''Farha'' tells the story of a Palestinian girl during the 1948 displacement of Palestinians from their homeland.
See also
* Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war * List of battles and operations in the 1948 Palestine war *List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
This is a list of modern conflicts ensuing in the geographic and political region known as the Middle East. The "Middle East" is traditionally defined as the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia), Levant, and Egypt and neighboring areas of Arabia, An ...
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
* * *Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber (; born September 25, 1943) is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
He was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1943 and studied world and Jewish his ...
, ''Palestine 1948'', Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2006,
* Efraim Karsh
Efraim Karsh (; born 6 September 1953) is an Israeli and British historian who is the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Since 2013, he has served as professor of political ...
, ''The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948'', Osprey publishing, 2002.
* Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...
(ed.), ''All that remains''. .
* Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...
, Selected Documents on the 1948 Palestine War
',
Journal of Palestine Studies
The ''Journal of Palestine Studies'' (JPS) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal which has been published since 1971. It is published by Taylor and Francis on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies.
History and profile
The journal ...
, 27(3), 79, 1998.
*
* Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
, ''1948'', Yale University Press, 2008,
* Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
, ''Righteous Victims'', Vintage Books (reprint edition), 2001,
* Benny Morris
Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
, ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949'', Cambridge University Press, 2004,
* Ilan Pappe Ilan may refer to:
Organization
*ILAN, Israeli umbrella organization for the treatment of disabled children
Given name
* Ilan (name), a Hebrew/Israeli name
* Ilan Bakhar, a retired Israeli footballer
* Ilan Araújo Dall'Igna, a Brazilian football ...
, ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld Publications, 2006,
* Eugene Rogan & Avi Shlaim
Avi Shlaim (, ; born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent. He is one of Israel's " New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Isr ...
, ''The War for Palestine — Rewriting the history of 1948'', Cambridge University Press, 2001.
* David Tal, ''War in Palestine, 1948. Strategy and Diplomacy'', Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, 2004.
*Williamson, Bruce. "Caught in the Middle: Air Combat Between Israel and the RAF, 1948". ''Air Enthusiast 115'', January–February 2005, pp. 2–10
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palestine War
1948 Palestine war,
1948 Arab–Israeli War
History of Palestine (region), 1948 Palestine war
1948 in Israel
1947 in Mandatory Palestine
1948 in Mandatory Palestine
1948 in the West Bank Governorate
1948 in All-Palestine (Gaza)
Ethnicity-based civil wars, 1948 Palestine war
1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight
Wars of independence, 1948 Palestine war