1948 Arab-Israeli War
Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 and was invaded by five Arab states the following day. The British mandate over Palestine had become unmanageable, with a Jewish insurgency, Arab opposition to any partition, and refugees from Europe arriving on ships the Royal Navy turned back. Britain referred the question to the United Nations, which voted in November 1947 for partition into two states with Jerusalem internationalised. Jewish leaders accepted it, Arab leaders rejected it, and a civil war between the two communities in Palestine began the next day and ran for six months before any regular army crossed a border. That first phase is when much of the outcome was decided. Haganah's Plan Dalet from April 1948 secured the areas allotted to the Jewish state and the corridor to Jerusalem, and around 300,000 Palestinians left or were driven out before independence was declared. The regular armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq then entered, and the fighting ran in phases separated by United Nations truces during which both sides rearmed; Israel's arms came largely from Czechoslovakia. Israel ended the war holding about 78 per cent of the territory, Jordan held the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt held Gaza. Around 750,000 Palestinians became refugees, in what is called the Nakba, and were not permitted to return. Some 850,000 Jews left or were expelled from Arab countries over the following decades. Armistices were signed in 1949 and no peace treaty followed for thirty years. The two names for the same year say most of what needs saying. It is the War of Independence to Israelis and the Nakba, the catastrophe, to Palestinians, and every subsequent negotiation has had to begin somewhere inside that gap.
- Year: 1948 CE
- Category: Military
