Preparing for/Winning The 1st Arab Israeli War
1897-1949
A. Preparing for War
One day there must be war. When the World Zionist Organization held its first meeting in Basil, Switzerland in 1897 and determined “to create a publicly guaranteed homeland for the Jewish people” in Palestine, those with a knowledge of history had to know that this would not be given to them; it would have to be fought for. And that only by being victorious in a future war would the Jews ever take ownership of a land currently owned by other people. As noted, the Jewish leaders with wisdom and foresight played the long game to be ready to fight and win the war when it would almost certainly come.
Phase one – the future Jewish homeland being in more amenable hands. When the Zionists began, the homeland they had in mind (which is essentially the area I have defined as “Palestine”) was part of the Ottoman Empire. It became clear that the Jews would never be given their own land by an OE Sultan. Therefore, there were three initial conditions that had to be met for Palestine to become a homeland (read independent nation) for the Jews. This included: (1) the separation of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire; (2) the Great Powers favoring Palestine becoming a Jewish homeland; and (3) a Great Power – ideally Great Britain – being in control of Palestine. All three of those conditions were met with the UK becoming the Mandatory Power over the Mandate of Palestine in 1920.
Phase two – delay until they would be able to win. That done, the Zionists had three new crucially important steps to accomplish: #1. Increase the number of Jews so they would have significant say so in the government of the new state (ideally, Jews would be a majority). #2. Delay the establishment of the new state until enough Jews were living in it. #3 Prepare to win a war with the Arabs, which would inevitably come if the Jews were to control the new nation.
#1. Increase # of Jews. The Zionists had to do three things in this regard: (a) Convince Jews to move to Palestine from other countries; (b) provide financial backing so that the Jews who moved there could buy land and have an acceptable standard of living; and (c) overcome immigration restrictions that the Arabs and the UK would surely require. Some Jews chose to go to Palestine out of a sense of duty or purpose. However, many came out of desperation from various purges and persecutions. Finding willing immigrants, then, was not a major challenge. Supporting the immigrants who arrived was. Huge funds were necessary to purchase land from the Arabs and then build homes and infrastructure, and also to sustain the Jewish immigrants until they could support themselves. Between the end of WWI and 1939, over $400,000,000 (unadjusted for inflation) was collected from Jews around the world and sent to support the Jews settling in Palestine. What an incredible commitment! And these were funds given voluntarily by many thousands of people from across the world for a goal that was unlikely to materially benefit them. (Many Jews rightly feared that the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would exacerbate antisemitism elsewhere. And it has.)
Overcoming immigration restrictions was a constant battle. Nothing was more prejudicial to the interests of the non-Jewish population than a mass immigration of Jews into Palestine. Therefore, the British, per the League’s mandate, were constantly trying to limit the number of Jewish immigrants. Even so, the Zionists time and again were able to nullify or skirt the restrictions. Between 1919 & 1939, the Jewish population increased 8-fold to about 450K. Impressive, yet Jews were still less than 30% of the total population. By 1947 the Jewish population was up to 630K. Even so, they still represented less than one third of the population of Palestine. If they were to have a state that was mostly Jewish, they would need to significantly increase the number of Jews or decrease the number of Arabs. They did both.
#2. Delaying the plebiscite/establishment of the new nation. This was addressed previously. Ultimately, to buy time, the Jews had to resort to violence and terror.
#3. Prepare for War and then win it when it comes. The Zionists understood that when the inevitable war came, it would not only be against the Arabs in Palestine, but they would also have to fight five or more Arab nations. The Jews were not a nation, themselves, they were a small minority in a land heavily populated by their enemies and ruled by a Great Power that was determined to prevent a civil war between the two factions. A big challenge was how to recruit, train, and equip a military force capable of combating such a huge foe. Keep in mind, the total area of Palestine then was less than 10K square miles. By contrast, Louisiana is over 43K sqm. There were few remote or secret places to conduct operations.
On May 15, 1948, the day after David Ben-Gurion declared the Free State of Israel, the five Arab nations, as expected, launched attacks on Israel from three different fronts: Egypt from the south, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordon from the east, and Syria from the north. The Arab leaders thought it would be a cake walk. All totaled, the Arab invasion force was about 24,000 combatants. Egypt with 10,000 soldiers, also had 50 tanks, 60 howitzers and 90 military aircraft. The other Arab forces, combined, had a like number of tanks and artillery though few aircraft. When the Arabs attacked, the Israelis had 27,000 combatants – though they lacked enough weapons to supply all of their soldiers. They also had three tanks, a small amount of artillery, and four military aircraft.
B. The 1st Arab Israeli War of 1948-1949
This is a link to a short video on this war.
The result of the war was a humiliating and staggering defeat for the Arabs and a total victory for the Jews. No doubt, the Jews greatly exceeded the most optimistic goals they had set for themselves over the three decades that they had been preparing to fight this war. And what did they achieve? All five of the Arab nations that attacked Israel (Egypt, Iraq, Jordon, Lebanon and Syria) were defeated and signed armistices with Israel acknowledging the Arab nations’ defeat and the end of the war. Those armistices held for nearly two decades.
Land conquered. Israel held 78% of the land that had been included in the post 1922 Mandate of Palestine.
Reversed the demographics. At the end of WWI, there were about 60,000 Jews in Palestine representing 10% of the total population. Following the 1st Arab Israeli War, the population of Israel was about 1,350,000 of which Jews represented over 80% of the population and Arabs Muslims only 10%.
Recognition as nation by key other nations. By the end of 1949, Israel had been recognized as a nation by at least a dozen nations including the two most important: the USA and the USSR.
So how was this possible? (Note – no nation sent military support to Israel, though Czechoslovakia did make a handsome profit selling arms to them.)
How could the Israelis even have military training? The Jews formed militia groups going back to the early 1920’s. The main one was named Hagenah. It averaged about 21K members. It, and two other smaller militia groups, fought both Arabs and the British in Palestine gaining valuable OJT military experience. Jewish leaders strongly encouraged Jews to join and fight with the British in WWII and about 30,000 did, including 5,500 that served in the British “Jewish Brigade”. Jewish leaders realized how valuable highly trained military personnel would be for their post WW II mission.
When Ben-Gurion set about to create an effective military force to fight the Arabs, he combined British trained Jewish veterans from WW II with members of Hagenah to create the Israeli Defense Force (the IDF). The IDF was totally unified and under the command of excellent military leaders. (The Arabs were very disorganized.) Perhaps the Jews greatest asset, though, was their esprit de corps and sense of mission. The Holocaust demonstrated what was stake for them.
What I have not addressed in this segment was how the Jews were able to so substantially reduce the number of Arabs that resided in Israel following the ’48 War. There were about 850K Arabs within that border when the war began, and only about 150K when the armistices were signed. Estimates are that about 10,000 Palestinian Arab civilians died in the war. That the Israelis were able to motivate so many Arabs to abandon their homeland with such relatively little loss of life is noteworthy. You may wish to explore this on your own. This article in Wikipedia addresses this topic and is overall well worth reading.
Rather than specifying “what’s what” from my perspective on all this, I plan to use the next segment to ask probing questions. Hopefully, there will be thoughtful responses from the readers.
C. The Arabs Could Have Done as the Turks Did, But Chose Not to
As we look at the terrible set of affairs happening in Palestine today, it is worth asking the question, how should or at least how could things have turned out differently such that there would not be so much unrest there now?
Let’s consider briefly how the nation of Turkey came to be. Turkey is essentially Anatolia, which had served as the heartland of the Ottoman Empire since Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. It was the main prize that the Allies fought for – the bridge between Europe and Asia, the straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The legitimate ruler of the OE, Mehmed VI, remained on the throne as the Sultan and the 136th Caliph since Mohammed. So long as he did the bidding of the victorious Allies, their military forces stood behind him. And he did do their bidding which was always in the interests of the occupying nations but often counter to the best interests of the indigenous population of Anatolia – mainly the Turks. To make a long story short, many of the Turkish people rallied behind a Turkish leader (ultimately) named Kemal Ataturk, assembled the military might needed to defeat the military forces of both Mehmed VI and the foreign occupiers. In 1922, Turkey with Kemal Ataturk as its first president, was recognized by the League of Nations as the free and independent nation of Turkey.
My point here is that despite the designs that the French, British, Italians, and Greeks had for the heartland of the Ottoman Empire, the place where the invaluable straits between Europe and Asia traversed, the people who lived there took matters into their own hands, overthrew both an entrenched monarch and the foreign powers and created a nation of their own.
The birthplace of Islam and the original heartland of the Muslim world, Arabia, had long been part of the OE. In 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain and France, the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, led a pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The British told Hussein whatever he wanted to hear so that he would help them beat the Central Powers. ”Sure”, they said, “we are in favor of your aim to secure Arab independence and create a single unified Arab state spanning the Arab territories from Aleppo in Syria (including Palestine) to Aden in Yemen.” The Arab revolt led by Hussein, was instrumental in defeating the OE. Meanwhile, GB was issuing Balfour Declarations and signing Sykes-Picot Agreements that indicated that the Allies were not going to do what they had promised. Even so, Hussein and the other Arab leaders, trusted that the British would come through. He let down his military guard.
Of course, the British did not want oil rich Arabia to become an independent country. They reneged on their promises and shifted support elsewhere. What if Hussein had challenged the Brits and rallied the Arabs from Syria to Yemen to the cause of independence from the imperialist powers? The British had more important issues to deal with – like retaining control of Egypt, the gateway for the Suez Canal. No doubt, they would have folded in Greater Arabia (Syria, Palestine, Arabia to Yemen) just as they had in Anatolia. There would a been a new Arab nation of “Hussein Arabia” encompassing Palestine. Had this occurred, the Zionists would never have had an opportunity to play the long game and by 1948 been in a position to wrest the land from the Arabs.
However, Hussein and the Arabs chose not to exert the effort to challenge the British and seek their own independence. Instead, they trusted that GB would, in due time, hand over all those lands to them to govern and control. That was a naïve and lazy approach to take and more than any other factor, is the reason that the Jews today control Palestine and not the Arabs.
D. Big Picture Perspective – Nothing has changed since 1949.
There have been six subsequent Arab Israeli wars since the first one. The nation of Israel has managed to prevail in all of them. Israel does not claim that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are part of the state of Israel. Technically, they belong to the “Palestinians”. However, Israel has total control over all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean from the southern border of Syria to the northern border of Egypt. Does anyone really believe that the Israelis will ever relinquish control of those Palestinian territories?
In our final Session, we will address where things should go from here.
Dropbox Link to the Power Point Presentation for Session #6:
Link to Recording of Zoom presentation. Passcode: m7?i#rPc
Links to other Session Essays: https://quotesbydavid.com/history-of-palestine/