* * *
Ask the Sphinx
Although much has been written about the tactics of the supporters of partition, the behavior of the Arab states has been largely ignored. They were, in fact, actively engaged in arm-twisting to scuttle partition.
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Of the 58 member nations of the United Nations, 20 were from Latin America. These states were critical to any resolution in the General Assembly, such as partition, which required a full two-thirds vote for adoption. Despite Arab populations in their countries and the Vatican’s subtle opposition, the Latin American nations were among the staunchest advocates of partition. Only Cuba, El Salvador, and Colombia expressed opposition to the plan.
France was confronted by conflicting interests, and its vote was uncertain. On one hand, the French wanted to get the British out of Palestine, but they also had to consider the attitude of the millions of Arabs living in their colonies in Africa. Support for partition could provoke a rebellion in Africa; it might also create an ally for French supporters in Palestine.
The British position was well known because it had not changed since they had first submitted the problem to the United Nations. Great Britain would not support any solution that was not acceptable to both the Arabs and Jews. Partition was clearly unacceptable to the Arabs; therefore, British support was out of the question.
Because the United Nations was only empowered to recommend a solution, Great Britain was under no obligation to carry out the UN’s proposal. However, the member nations fully expected the British to implement their decision.
Two States, One Happy People
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to recommend the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions. France, the Soviet Union, and the United States were the major powers that supported the resolution. The crucial Latin American votes were also firmly behind the partition plan: 13 in favor, 1 against, and 6 abstentions. Cuba joined India, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece, and Afghanistan as the non-Arab nations to oppose partition. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen voted against the resolution, while Great Britain, China, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, and Yugoslavia all abstained.
The Jewish state that was created was allotted 6,120 square miles of the 10,400 in Palestine—almost 60 percent of the land. More than half of the Jewish state, roughly 3,670 square miles, consisted of the Negev desert. The state was divided into a coastal section, a northern section, and the Negev. These regions were connected by narrow corridors. The international zone of Jerusalem was connected to the Jewish state by a narrow road that ran through the heart of the Arab state.
Slightly more than 500,000 Jews and 350,000 Arabs lived in the Jewish state. Approximately 92,000 of the Arabs lived in Tiberias, Safed, Haifa, and Bet Shean, and another 40,000 were Bedouins, most of whom were living in the Negev. The remainder of the Arab population was spread throughout the Jewish state and occupied most of the agricultural land.
Storm Clouds Gather
The United Nations appointed a commission to implement their resolution. The British gave notice that they would evacuate Palestine by August 1, 1948, although they later decided to terminate the mandate earlier, on May 15.
But their pending evacuation didn’t mean that the British finally accepted the UN’s decision. They stood firmly behind their initial position that they would not impose a plan that was unacceptable to both Jews and Arabs. Not only did the British refuse to implement the UN decision, they also actively obstructed it by refusing to allow the UN Commission into Palestine until two weeks before the end of the mandate—an action that rendered the Commission ineffective.
The Arabs had made it clear from the outset of the UN debate that they would fight to prevent the partition, so it was not surprising that they opened hostilities with the Jews in Palestine immediately after the partition plan was adopted. The United Nations foresaw the inevitable hostility over the decision but refused to include in the partition resolution a provision for a military force to implement the plan. The UN Commission could only advocate political decisions and was impotent to do even that from outside Palestine.
The Least You Need to Know
Tens of thousands of Jews continued to slip through the British blockade; the brutal treatment of immigrants aboard the Exodus attracted worldwide sympathy for the Zionist cause.
The Irgun and the Lehi resorted to more heinous acts of terror in their campaign to drive the British from Palestine.
In desperation, Great Britain turned the Palestinian issue over to the United Nations.
Jews considered the UN vote in favor of partition the fulfillment of the Zionist dream, whereas Arabs regarded it as a catastrophe. The British refused to implement the decision.
Chapter 10
The Jewish War of Independence
In This Chapter
Arabs try violence to scuttle partition
Jerusalem falls under siege
Israel declares independence; Arab nations invade
Israel wins the war but gets no peace
When the United Nations finally voted, on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine, the vast majority of Jews were overjoyed. True, the Jewish state wasn’t as big as they had hoped, and its checkerboard configuration was going to be difficult to defend, but after 2,000 years, there was again going to be a Jewish state in Palestine.
Arabs, on the other hand, were clearly dismayed. Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee’s spokesman, had told the United Nations prior to the partition vote that the Arabs would drench “the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood to prevent the creation of a Jewish state.
It didn’t take long for the blood to start flowing. After the UN announced the partition, the Arabs declared a protest strike and instigated riots that claimed the lives of 62 Jews and 32 Arabs. By the end of the second week, 93 Arabs, 84 Jews, and 7 Englishmen had been killed and scores were injured.
The first week in December, the chairman of the Arab Higher Committee said that the Arabs would “fight for every inch of their country.” Two days later, the jurists of Al-Azhar University in Cairo called on the Muslim world to proclaim a jihad (“holy war”) against the Jews.
The Jewish Underground Surfaces
A minority of the Jews were equally dissatisfied with the UN decision. Among them were the members of the Irgun and the Lehi. For instance, Irgun leader Menachem Begin insisted the partition was illegal and would never be recognized. He said Jerusalem would always be the capital and all of the land would be restored to the Jews.
Fighting in the undeclared war gradually escalated. From November 30, 1947, through February 1, 1948, 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, and 46 British were killed and many were wounded. In March alone, 271 Jews and 257 Arabs died in clashes.
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Sage Sayings
It is hard to see how the Arab world, still less the Arabs of Palestine, will suffer from what is mere recognition of accomplished fact—the presence in Palestine of a compact, well-organized, and virtually autonomous Jewish community.
—London Times editorial, December 1, 1947
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The first large-scale assaults began on January 9, 1948, when approximately 1,000 Arabs attacked Jewish communities in northern Palestine. By February, the British said so many Arabs had infiltrated that they lacked the forces to run them back. In fact, the British surrendered bases and arms to Arab irregulars and the Arab Legion, facilitating their raids and eventual invasion.
By contrast, Great Britain refused to allow the Jews to form a militia to defend themselves until the termination of the mandate. This put the Jews at a disadvantage because they were unable to form an army or legally import weapons. Meanwhile, the existing Arab states were free to import weapons to use against the Jews. The British compounded the problem by signing a treaty with Transjordan that provided the Arabs with arms while at the same time main
taining a blockade against the Jews.
The British not only prevented the Jews from obtaining arms, they also took away any arms they found in Jews’ possession. In one particularly horrific incident, which took place on February 12, 1948, the British arrested four members of the Haganah and turned them over to an Arab mob in Jerusalem, which shot one and castrated the others before hacking them to death.
Two weeks later, the Lehi launched an “all-out” attack on British troops in Jerusalem. One raid on a British troop transport near Rehovot killed 5 and wounded 35. By April, the strategic picture in Palestine had changed dramatically. The occasional Arab raids and guerilla incursions from beyond Palestine’s borders had escalated to full-scale battles. At that point, the Jews’ fight against the Arabs took precedence over their struggle against the British.
Still, the British remained a major obstacle to the Jews’ efforts to defend themselves and implement the UN resolution. In addition to the arms embargo, the British continued their human blockade. Even as their control began to slip away and Palestine slid toward war, the British prevented Jewish immigrants—who would be needed in the upcoming fight—from entering the country.
In February 1948, the British newspaper the Manchester Guardian chastised the British government for doing nothing to advance partition, which, the paper said, “has turned heavily against the Jews who cannot arm or train their soldiers as the Arabs have been able to do in the states bordering Palestine.”
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Ask the Sphinx
The total number of immigrants, legal and illegal, during the mandate period (1922–1948) was approximately 480,000. Nearly all came from Europe. By May 1948, the Jewish population in Palestine had swelled to 650,000.
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The UN’s Hands Are Tied
The United Nations blamed the Arabs for the violence. On February 16, 1948, the Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council: “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.”
It was clear the partition plan could not be carried out without the aid of military force, but it was too late to create such a force. The problem was politics, not logistics. The Russians insisted on sending a contingent to Palestine if the Americans did. Truman did not want the Russians in Palestine under any circumstances. The other member nations believed the force should include the major powers and refused to form one without them. Consequently, no agreement on a military force was ever negotiated, and Palestine was allowed to slip into a war.
Arabs Take Responsibility
The Arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. Arab Higher Committee spokesman Jamal Husseini told the Security Council on April 16, 1948: “The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
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Sage Sayings
[A]ll our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Palestine problem have failed. The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine.
—Transjordan’s King Abdullah, April 26, 1948
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Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization, and weapons, the Jews began to take the initiative in the weeks from April 1 until their declaration of independence on May 14. The Haganah captured several major towns, including Tiberias and Haifa, and temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem.
Jewish Jerusalem Faces Strangulation
According to the United Nations’s resolution, Jerusalem was to be an international city apart from the Arab and Jewish states demarcated in the partition resolution. After the outbreak of violence, the 150,000 Jewish inhabitants were under constant military pressure. The 2,500 Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade that lasted 5 months before they were forced to surrender on May 29, 1948. Prior to the surrender and throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical.
Meanwhile, irregular Arab forces began to make an organized attempt to cut off the highway linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem—the city’s only supply route. The Arabs controlled several strategic vantage points, including the villages of Kastel and Deir Yassin, which overlooked the highway and enabled them to fire on the convoys trying to reach the beleaguered city with supplies.
The Irgun decided to attack Deir Yassin on April 9, while the Haganah tried to capture Kastel. This was the first major Irgun attack against the Arabs. Previously, the Irgun and the Lehi had concentrated their attacks against the British.
The Legend of Deir Yassin
Approximately 100 members of the two Jewish splinter groups carried out the assault. According to Menachem Begin, a small open truck fitted with a loudspeaker was driven to the entrance of the village before the attack to broadcast a warning to civilians to evacuate the area, which many did. The warning was probably never issued, however, because the truck with the loudspeaker rolled into a ditch before it could broadcast its warning.
When the Jews approached the village, residents opened fire on the attackers. The battle was ferocious and took several hours.
The Jewish attackers left open an escape corridor from the village, and more than 200 residents left unharmed. After the remaining Arabs feigned surrender and then fired on the Jewish troops, some Jews killed Arab soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. Arab men disguised as women were found among the bodies.
Reports at the time said more than 200 Arabs were killed. However, a study by Bir Zeit University, based on discussions with each family from Deir Yassin, arrived at a figure of 107 Arab casualties. The Irgun suffered 41 casualties, including 4 dead.
The killings of civilians along with combatants, combined with the relatively large number of dead, provoked the Jewish Agency to express its horror and disgust. It also sent a letter expressing the agency’s shock and disapproval to Transjordan’s King Abdullah.
The Arabs began to refer to the battle as a “massacre.” The Arab Higher Committee hoped exaggerated reports about a bloodbath at Deir Yassin would shock the population of the Arab countries into bringing pressure on their governments to intervene in Palestine. Instead, the immediate impact was to stimulate a new Arab exodus from Palestine.
Nowhere to Run
The Palestinians knew, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, that the Jews were not trying to annihilate them. Otherwise, they would not have been allowed to evacuate Tiberias, Haifa, or any of the other towns captured by the Jews. Moreover, the Palestinians could find sanctuary in nearby states. The Jews, however, had no place to run had they wanted to. They were willing to fight to the death for their country. It came to that for many because the Arabs were interested in annihilating the Jews. Just four days after the reports from Deir Yassin were published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital, killing 77 Jews, including doctors, nurses, patients, and the director of the hospital. Another 23 people were injured. Despite attacks such as this against the Jewish community in Palestine, in which more than 500 Jews were killed in the first 4 months after the partition decision alone, Jews did not flee.
On May 4, 1948, the Arab Legion attacked Kfar Etzion, a Jewish community about 12 miles southeast of Jerusalem. The defenders drove them back, but the Legion returned a week later. After two days, the ill-equipped and outnumbered Jewish settlers were overwhelmed. Many defenders were massacred after they surrendered. In all, 148 people were killed, including the settlement’s Palmach defenders (see Chapter 8). Only four people survived.
Israel’s Independence Day
The UN partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Thus, Israel, the Jewish state in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Israel’s Declaration of Independence
enunciated the new state’s commitment to the principles of freedom and equality:
The State of Israel…will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice, and peace…will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed, or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education, and culture…. we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to…play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship…
The day after Israel declared its independence, five Arab armies—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq—invaded Israel. The United States, the Soviet Union, and most other states immediately recognized Israel and condemned the Arab action.
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Sage Sayings
This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.
—Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League
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Five Against One
At the time of the invasion, the 5 Arab armies, despite their large populations, were composed of only 80,000 men. Israel had 60,000 trained fighters, a third of whom had combat experience, but on May 12, only 18,900 Jewish soldiers were fully armed and prepared for war.
In addition, the Arabs held the superior terrain and were capable of cutting the Jewish state in half. Arab cities that could be used as bases of operations were only minutes from the heart of Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem was already under siege. In the south, nothing could stop Egyptian forces from streaking across the Negev.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict Page 19
