A abandonment story of kibbutz Saar-Hagolan in the Israeli Independence war. Military Situation On Effective Date of Cease-Fire (June 11, 1948), Arab League Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine, CIA Daily Summaries Regarding Partition and the 1948 War, CIA Evaluation of the Mideast Situation Following the 1948 War, Report to the Zionist General Council by David Ben-Gurion, Map of Military Situation at Beginning of Second Truce, Updated CIA Report on Possible Developments from the Palestine Truce, Possible Effects of a UN Arms Embargo on Israel and the Arabs, CIA Report on Possible Developments from Second Truce in 1948 War, Letter to Security Council on Armistice negotiations, Weizmann Asks Truman to Ensure Negev Remains Part of Israel, Message from MI5 Director Regarding Begin Visit to Washington, Israeli PM Ben-Gurion’s Broadcast after Invasion, The Battle For Jerusalem in the War of Independence, Haganah Intelligence Report Regarding Jerusalem, British Police Report on the Arab Evacuation of Haifa, The Founding of the Israel Defense Forces, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion Remarks on Israeli Victory, U.S. On the 18th, the Arab Legion joined the battle. 6Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter Books, 1976), p. 47; Ralph Patai, ed., Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, (NY: McGraw Hill, 1971), pp. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”11, Before leaving Palestine, the British prodded the Arabs to go to war. The entire bloc was then looted and destroyed. In the civil war, the Haganah — the Jews’ underground defense organization — together with two smaller paramilitary units, the Etzel (National Military Organization) and the Lehi (Israel Freedom Fighters), fought against loosely organized Palestinian fighters and volunteers from Arab countries. The same day the Palestine Post reported the Hurva Synagogue had been razed by Arabs. Establishing a new nation and defending it, My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help. On the day Israel declared its independence, Legion fighters murdered 127 men and women, only three villagers escaped.6 The defenders of three other kibbutzim were accorded the status of POWS and taken away. Women, noncombatants, and the wounded were to be sent to the Jewish lines on Mount Zion. 366, 370; Shlomo Slonim, “The 1948 American Embargo on Arms to Palestine,” Political Science Quarterly, (Fall 1979), p. 500. Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jewish displaced persons set their sights on aliyah, but the British government — in control of Palestine since 1917 and keen to maintain friendly relations with the Arab world — refused to admit them. Terrorism in Israel: Questions and Answers. The road to Jerusalem came under attack and the Jewish neighborhoods of the capital were cut off, unable to receive supplies, food, or water. Arab irregulars attack the city on May 16 and soon captured one-third of the Jewish Quarter. Miracle of Israel #20 - Independence and War by Destiny Films and Rabbi Berel Wein The Miracle of Israel 1945-1948 tells the inspiring true story of Jewish survival, resurgence and truimph - from the Holocaust through the miraculous establishment of the Modern State of Israel. The demand for a separate Arab state in Palestine is consequently relatively weak. Israel was left in control of 78 percent of mandatory Palestine — around 50 percent more than it had been allocated in the partition plan. Sources: 1J.C. Had the West enforced the partition resolution or given the Jews the capacity to defend themselves, many lives might have been saved. For more than a decade, scholars and writers of various stripes have been revisiting the events surrounding the first Arab–Israeli war of 1948, whose outcome heavily shaped subsequent Middle East politics. The next day, the new state was invaded by the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Ironically, Bernadotte found little enthusiasm among the Arabs for independence. Drawing on government and military archives, Israeli historians such as Benny Morris have concluded that most Palestinians fled during the fighting, afraid of imagined — or occasionally real — atrocities committed by Jewish soldiers, but that some were victims of an ad hoc Israeli policy of deportation. Ultimately, the war’s biggest losers were the Palestinians, who were prevented from establishing a state, forced to live under Israeli, Egyptian, or Jordanian rule and, in the case of more than 700,000 refugees, unable to return to their homes. The Haganah captured several major towns including Tiberias and Haifa, and temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem. 3New York Times, (December 1, 1947). 17, No. ‘Israel’ remains what it… I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine. Shelled by Hagana, the Altalena, a ship carrying arms for Etzel, burns off the Tel Aviv coast, June 22, 1948. An Indian independence activist, Gandhi’s acceptance of Muslims and non-violence lead to his assassination by a Hindu nationalist. (Wikimedia Commons). Israel’s War of Independence is the first war between the State of Israel and the neighboring Arab countries. The Arab war to destroy Israel failed. Financially, they had taken a heavy blow—$500 million. The Jewish forces repelled most Arab attacks but suffered heavy defeats, for example the loss of 35 soldiers en route to defend the Etzion bloc of settlements. By the 28th, the situation for the Jews had become dire and the Haganah asked for a ceasefire. READ: The United Nations Partition Plan (General Assembly Resolution 181). The Zionists, desperate to enable Jewish immigration and with an eye to future territorial expansion, accepted the plan. The first large-scale assaults began on January 9, 1948, when approximately 1,000 Arabs attacked Jewish communities in northern Palestine. With a sad end seemingly near, the men agreed to go out with a bang and readied themselves to make good use of every last bullet. Indeed, because of their aggression, the Arabs wound up with less territory than they would have had if they had accepted partition. The partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Israel’s longest war lasted 1 year 3 months and 10 days starting November 30, 1947. The only way left for us is war. 19Sachar, p. 452. By Jeremy Salt Source May 14 is coming up, ‘independence day’ for Zionists and the Nakba for the Palestinians. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.9. Israel’s longest war lasted 1 year 3 months and 10 days starting November 30, 1947. On May 30, the Palestine Post reported “bold city defenders yield after epic resistance.” The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published this account: Major Abdullah el-Tell recalled in his memoirs how devastating the defeat was for the Jews. When the British failed to secure a ceasefire to prevent the Jews from gaining an advantage, they tried to save the Arab forces by demanding an end to the fighting. 10John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, (London: Staughton and Hodder, 1957), p. 79. If the Arabs survived the second stage, the British believed the fighting would become a “war of attrition,” which would allow them to wear down the Jewish forces. See more ideas about Israel, Jewish history, Independence. This is the first volume in Dr. Uri Milstein's comprehensive study of Israel's War of Independence. A Nation Girds for War surveys the political and diplomatic background to Israel's War of Independence. On May 14, 1948, the eve of Britain’s departure, David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel at a ceremony in Tel Aviv. The year was 1948, when a military coalition of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq fought the first war against the newly formed State of Israel. Yet the Jews paid a high price for their victory. By this time, the Haganah had been renamed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and succeeded in stopping the Arab offensive. They believed the Arabs would use their advantage in manpower and weapons to launch a lightning strike to seize the area designated for the Arab state and the Negev, which was given to the Jewish state. As violence between Jews, Arabs, and the British mounted, Britain handed over the problem to the United Nations. As the British finally left Palestine, the surrounding countries of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded. On November 29, on the heels of the UN General Assembly’s vote in favor of partition, Jewish settlements and neighborhoods were attacked by Palestinian guerrillas. The war consisted of 39 separate operations, fought from the borders of Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula and Eilat. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, the army did not have a single cannon or tank. 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. The remaining 22 percent was split between Jordan (West Bank and East Jerusalem) and Egypt (Gaza Strip). Violence in the Holy Land broke out almost immediately after the United Nations announced partition on November 29, 1947. We use cookies to improve your experience on our site and bring you ads that might interest you. Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi and Lebanese invasion began. 62- 76. He wrote in his diary: 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. 16Sachar, p. 345. Their plight and the absence of a single country willing to give them a home made urgent the need for a Jewish state.READ: A History of Jewish Immigration to the Land of IsraelFollowing World War II, hundreds of thousands o… Israel’s War of Independence 1947 was a tense year for Israel and the region. The history of the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli war is deeply controversial. Israeli War of Independence 1948-1949. The State of Israel was now a fact. . Their plight and the absence of a single country willing to give them a home made urgent the need for a Jewish state. In human terms, the War of Independence was Israel's costliest war, with over 6,000 Israelis were killed and 15,000 wounded. 12a“Old City of Jerusalem Falls to Arabs; Jews Gain in Battle for Tel Aviv Highway,” JTA, (May 30, 1948). On February 16, 1948, the Commission reported to the Security Council: The Arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. The War of Independence changed from a civil war to a broader regional war in May. The city had been under siege for five months and had no more than 150 fighters with little training, few weapons and little ammunition. The 1948 Israeli War of Independence began when the United Nations decided to partition Palestine into separated Jewish and Arab states. 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). [Henceforth FRUS]. (Photo: Wiki Commons) A special monument is located at the end of the trail that connects Israel’s Yad Vashem, the official memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and Mount Herzl, the national cemetery for Israeli leaders and fallen soldiers. 53739; Robert Silverberg, If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem: American Jews and the State of Israel, (NY: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1970), pp. It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the Palestinian Arabs would be quite content to be incorporated in Transjordan. 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. Its air force consisted of nine obsolete planes. . Now, the proposal was being offered after the Arabs had gone to war to prevent partition and a Jewish state had been declared. They were followed by the head of the municipal government of the Jewish quarter of the Old City and two Israeli military officers who were told that younger men would be interned “outside of Palestine” and older ones turned over to the Red Cross. When the ultimatum was ignored, Ben Gurion ordered the ship to be shelled; 16 Etzel fighters and three IDF soldiers were killed during the confrontation. On April 26, 1948, Transjordan’s King Abdullah said: On May 4, 1948, the Arab Legion, commanded by a British officer, John Bagot Glubb, attacked Kfar Etzion, a bloc of four kibbutzim. (Wikimedia Commons), In the shadow of the Holocaust, the victory of the new Jewish state over five Arab armies has sometimes been interpreted as little short of a miracle. After the creation of the IDF, it had been agreed that independent paramilitary units (the Etzel and the Lehi) would be absorbed into the new national army. Murray 2 ISRAEL’S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Background 1948 through 1949 the War of Independence was fought. That young soldier was interviewed in his eighties by Toldot Yisrael, a project telling the stories of soldiers from Israel’s War of Independence. The immediate challenge faced by the newly formed Israel Defense Forces was to rebuff the Arab attack, defending Jewish settlements until the arrival of reinforcements. Many of the casualties were refugees and Holocaust survivors, newly arrived in the country. Hurewitz, The Struggle For Palestine, (NY: Shocken Books, 1976), p. 308. In human terms, the War of Independence was Israel's costliest war, with over 6,000 Israelis were killed and 15,000 wounded. It started on the eve of the establishment of the state (May 14, 1948) and continued until January 1949. 15Mitchell Bard, The Water’s Edge and Beyond, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1991), pp. Hundreds of Jews left before the end of the British Mandate. Israel’s War of Independence was punctuated by wild aerial engagements that underscored the conflict’s confusing nature. All Rights Reserved. The Jews and Arabs both rejected the plan. By the time the war began, approximately 1,700 civilians remained in the Jewish Quarter. The defenders drove them back, but the Legion returned a week later. The first month of the war was marked by heavy fighting against Jordan’s Arab Legion in Jerusalem; by the end of May the Jordanians had conquered the Old City and expelled its Jewish inhabitants. Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism. In March alone, 271 Jews and 257 Arabs died in Arab attacks and Jewish counterattacks.2, The chairman of the Arab Higher Committee said the Arabs would “fight for every inch of their country.”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. In 1948, the world was full of transition. By the end of the second week, 93 Arabs, 84 Jews and 7 Englishmen had been killed and scores injured. Some four thousand soldiers and two thousand civilians had been killed. Yet more prosaic explanations are available. With the War of Independence still raging, the war for Israel’s survival was just beginning. The Arabs rejected it as they opposed any Jewish rule in Palestine. (KKL-JNF Photo Archive). A “Butterfly” improvised armored car of the Haganah at Kibbutz Dorot in the Negev, 1948. In March 1949, Operation Uvda saw Israeli forces complete their conquest of the southern part of the country by capturing Eilat. His name was Vidal Sassoon, the famous British-American hairstylist and entrepreneur. In a nutshell, Israel declared independence on May 14. Between November and March, the Haganah’s main challenge was to repel Arab attacks on isolated settlements, Jewish areas of mixed cities, and on the roads. Threatens Israel Over Actions Following 1948 War, Weizmann Asks Truman to Intervene with British Over Armistice with Egypt, Israel's Position on its Frontiers, Statement to the Knesset by Foreign Minister Sharett, Weizmann Explains Israeli Position at Lausanne Negotiations, © 1998 - 2021 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. “Al Quds was purged of Jews and for the first time in 1000 years no Jews remained there.” He added, “I have seen in this defeat of the Jews the heaviest blow rendered upon them, especially in terms of morale, since they were evicted from the Western Wall and from the Jewish Quarter, for the first time in 15 generations.”12b. On May 30, 1948—fifteen days after the fledgling Jewish state was invaded by the armies of five Arab nations—Milton Rubenfeld, a former stunt pilot who served in the British Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force in World War II, flew on a critical combat mission that … 7Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 322. Palestinian attacks on civilians have been a feature of life in Israel since even before the country’s establishment. Its citrus groves, for decades the basis of the Yishuv’s [Jewish community] economy, were largely destroyed.”19 Military expenditures totaled approximately $500 million. READ: The Complete Text of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, Jewish Quarter residents evacuating Jerusalem’s Old City through the Zion Gate during May 1948. The Arabs declared a protest strike and instigated riots that claimed the lives of 62 Jews and 32 Arabs. The United States urged a resolution charging the Arabs with breach of the peace. Israeli War of Independence The British position in Palestine at the end of World War II was becoming increasingly untenable. An independent Palestine was never established, and no Arab state recognized Israel’s existence. Palestinian Arabs and their allies know the events around it as the Nakba (catastrophe) — the destruction of Palestinian society, the establishment of Jewish rule in Palestine, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes. Directors: Yoav Arazi , Amit Ruderman | Stars: Ayala Shiftan , Chen Givaty , Maya Simchi , Reshef Sefer 10. The Jews suffered severe casualties and passage along most of their major roadways was disrupted. 4Facts on File 1948, p. 48. Their intentions were declared by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: “It will be a war of annihilation. Between February and July 1949, as a result of separate armistice agreements between Israel and each of the Arab states, a temporary frontier was fixed between Israel and its neighbours. And, unfortunately, it continues to this day. 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. Nevertheless, the pendulum of history has arguably never swung more widely than from the end of the Holocaust in 1945 to … Tens of thousands of additional refugees fled following the Palmach’s conquest of Haifa, Jaffa, Safed, and Tiberias. Israel War of Independence (1948 War), Second phase begins. In the first phase of the war, lasting from November 29, 1947 until April 1, 1948, the Palestinian Arabs took the offensive, with help from volunteers from neighboring countries. This is not the first time that the Arab states, which organized the invasion of Palestine, have ignored a decision of the Security Council or of the General Assembly. The Independence war was fought along the entire border of the country, from the borders of Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula and Eilat the Red sea resort city on the southernmost tip of Israel. In October, following a second UN-sponsored truce, the IDF captured the upper Galilee in Operation Hiram and, in operations Yoav and Horev, drove the Egyptian army out of the Negev by December. Five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel. Traditional Zionist accounts of the war claimed that the refugees fled at the order of the Arab leadership, to clear the way for the invading armies. Prevented by the Israeli authorities from returning home after the war and kept in squalid camps in every Arab country except Jordan, these refugees became an important catalyst for the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict into the 1950s and beyond. The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed the end of British rule and the partition of the country into Jewish and Arab states and an internationally controlled area around Jerusalem. The war consisted of 39 separate operations, fought from the borders of Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula and Eilat. 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. This was similar to the boundaries that had been proposed prior to the partition vote and had been rejected by all sides. 5, (Summer 2012), pp. READ: Israelis, Palestinians and the Clash of Nationalisms. The United Nations (UN) sponsored plan to partition Palestine was bitterly opposed by Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states bordering the territory. 18Golda Meir, My Life, (NY: Dell, 1975), pp. Some came through Jordan and even through Amman . Hagabah troops practicing during the 1948 War of Independence. In 1947, Palestine’s population of 1.85 million was approximately one-third Jewish and two-thirds Arab. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of British Palestine in the morning of 15 May. They were in reality to strike the first blow in the ruin of the Arabs of Palestine. During the Independence War, Ira Rappaport’s Israeli platoon fought the Jordanian military for Mount Zion and found themselves surrounded by hundreds with only twenty five bullets left. Following a month-long truce brokered by the United Nations, hostilities resumed in July 1948. The cost to Israel, however, was enormous. In April, of 1948, the … In Operation Dani, the IDF broke the siege of Jerusalem by capturing Lod and Ramle, two Arab towns in the Jerusalem corridor; 50,000 Palestinian refugees fled their homes. The United States, the Soviet Union and most other states immediately recognized Israel and indicted the Arabs. 171175; FRUS, pp. At the end of 1948 and beginning of 1949, British RAF planes flew with Egyptian squadrons over the Israel-Egypt border. The initial phase of the fighting ended after the Security Council threatened July 15 to cite the Arab governments for aggression under the Charter. Around noon on January 7, 1949, two patrolling Israeli Air Force (IAF) pilots in Supermarine Spitfires spotted a column of black smoke rising from the Al-Auja–Rafah area of the Sinai Desert. The war had its roots in waves of Zionist immigration to the Land of Israel, beginning in the 1880s and peaking in the 1930s and ’40s, with the flight of Jews from the Holocaust. More than 6,000 Israelis — 1 percent of the population — were killed. Many in the State Department saw the embargo as another means of obstructing partition. Based on newly declassified material, it describes how the Jewish Defense functioned in the 1948 War of Independence and reveals the internal functions among the … The war also intensified divisions within the Jewish population. In fact, they won despite efforts to undermine their military strength. Jewish forces paid a high price for the survival of their homeland. The war had its roots in waves of Zionist immigration to the Land of Israel, beginning in the 1880s and peaking in the 1930s and ’40s, with the flight of Jews from the Holocaust. Israel's War of Independence is the first war between the State of Israel and the neighboring Arab countries. Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee’s spokesman, had told the UN prior to the partition vote the Arabs would drench “the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood.”1, Husseini’s prediction began to come true after the UN announcement. READ: A History of Jewish Immigration to the Land of Israel. The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1947–49 Palestine war. 17Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem!, (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1972), p. 352. “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. In fact, Jordan’s Arab Legion was armed and trained by the British and led by a British officer. The UN Palestine Commission was never permitted by the Arabs or British to go to Palestine to implement the resolution. The War of Independence was over. During the summer of 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte was sent by the UN to Palestine to mediate a truce and try to negotiate a settlement. 12bMaoz Azaryahu and Arnon Golan, “Photography, Memory, and Ethnic Cleansing: The Fate of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, 1948 – John Phillips’ Pictorial Record,” Israel Studies, Vol. In January of the same year, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Copyright © 2002-2021 My Jewish Learning. Otherwise known as Israel’s War of Independence, or, “the nakbah” or disaster to the Arab world because a Jewish state was established, the war was fought between the newly established Jewish state of Israel opposed by Palestinian irregulars, and armies from five Arab states. Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein. In November, the UN voted in favor of the Partition Plan, and Israeli-Arab clashes immediately ensued. By mid-May, the Haganah had routed the Arab forces and was in control of the major cities and more than 100 Palestinian villages. Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library. An overview of the Jewish state and its many accomplishments and challenges. After three days, the ill-equipped and outnumbered settlers were overwhelmed and surrendered. 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. The British also considered intervening by invoking its defense treaties with Egypt and Jordan if Israel attacked either country. The Declaration of Independence is "a contingent document, stitched together, written against a deadline." Thus, Israel, the Jewish State in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Ammunition was extremely short and all Jews, concentrated in three houses, were exhausted.”. See more ideas about independence war, israel, war. READ: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Palestinian Arabs fleeing their Galilee villages as Israeli troops approach, Oct. 30, 1948. 8Security Council Official Records, Special Supplement, (1948), p. 20. The Jews won their war of independence with minimal help from the West. 14Foreign Relations of the United States 1947, (DC: GPO, 1948), p. 1249. The War of Independence was concluded by the signing of armistice agreements between Israel and the surrounding Arab states. Worse yet, 6,373 Israelis were killed, nearly one percent of the Jewish population of 650,000. In April 1948, in anticipation of the British departure, the Haganah launched Plan D, an offensive program for the expansion of Jewish-controlled territory.
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