What was the 1948 war

We returned to the coastal plain without trouble, but our convoy was the last one that got through to Jerusalem safely. The next was attacked and had to turn around. In subsequent battles to open the road, the Yishuv failed and suffered terrible losses, especially at Latrun, where the road was held by irregular foreign Arab forces.

The fighters of the Palmach, the elite strike force of the Haganah, found an alternative route. By then it was already obvious that the armies of the surrounding Arab states were poised to join the war. That awareness changed the nature of the warfare completely. It could be justified on tactical grounds.

The last of the British left on May These were standing armies trained by their previous colonial masters, Britain and France, who also supplied them with planes and cannons.

We had none of those. On paper, the Arab side had a tremendous advantage in arms, training and numbers, but we had three big advantages. First of all, we knew we were fighting for our lives and the lives of our families, exactly that, with our backs to the wall. Second, we had a unified command, while the Arab forces competed with each other. Third, the Arabs were contemptuous of us. Who ever heard of fighting Jews?

And we had a certain tactical advantage by being inside the lines — we could move forces from one front to another quickly. Some of them recalled those of World War I. In the battle for Ibadis, near Kibbutz Negba in the Negev, I saw almost all our fighters die or get shot and only one heavy gun still fired. There were hours in which all seemed lost. But then, slowly, our luck began to change.

As this phase drew to a close, we were still on our feet. The fourth phase also saw hard battles, even one with bayonets. But we smelled victory. This was the stage of mass expulsions of Arabs from the cities and villages. It was clear that this was an intentional policy by the Jewish leadership. At this point I was badly wounded and quit the front lines. A small number of Arabs remained within these borders, but the forgotten fact is that not one single Jew remained in the territories conquered by the Arab side.

Luckily for us, these territories were small relative to the territories conquered by our side. Both sides engaged in ethnic cleansing before the term had been coined.

Those are the facts. Cohen, M. Fraser, T. Freedman, R. Hurewitz, J. Milton-Edwards, B. Ovendale, R. Young, J. Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing. E-IR is an independent non-profit publisher run by an all volunteer team. Your donations allow us to invest in new open access titles and pay our bandwidth bills to ensure we keep our existing titles free to view.

Any amount, in any currency, is appreciated. Many thanks! Donations are voluntary and not required to download the e-book - your link to download is below. Selina Kaur Rai. This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. Bibliography Bell, P. Schulze, K. Please Consider Donating Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing.

Rifles, other light weapons, and funds were provided by surrounding Arab states, with groups formed under the direction of Iraqi, Palestinian, and Egyptian heads. These forces had little military training and were fragmented by family, ethnic, ideological and regional loyalties. Throughout all phases of the war, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders and their forces failed to cooperate in military planning, exchange of intelligence information, and operations; the head of the Arab Liberation Army clashed severely with local Palestinian political leaders.

Severe Arab disunity and very long lines of supply and communication allowed the geographically isolated and meagerly equipped Jewish forces a chance at success. By the time the war ended, more than , Arabs had fled Palestine. Jewish forces sought to protect outlying Jewish settlements, while Arab forces successfully assaulted various Jewish quarters in cities and rural settlements throughout Palestine.

Roads between Jewish settlements were cut, while in Haifa, Acre, and Safed, Jews took control of these and other northern cities. On the other hand, by May , Jews in Jerusalem were virtually isolated from the rest of the country. Jews in neighboring states were attacked because they were considered to be sympathetic to Zionist aspirations.

By the end of the war, more than , Jews from Arab lands would be compelled to leave because of Arab antagonism toward the newly established Jewish state.

Though threatening to block the transfer of philanthropic funds from Jewish sources in the United States, the State Department failed to persuade the Zionists to postpone declaring statehood.

Despite strong opposition from the State Department for the creation of a Jewish state , President Truman recognized Israel officially moments after statehood was declared. When the official war started, Israel mobilized perhaps 30, men and women; the Arab states had combined forces in excess of that number. The Arab advantage was in the equipment and air forces at their disposal.

However, by the end of May, Israel halted an Egyptian ground attack in the south; by June 9, Israeli forces relieved the Arab siege around Jerusalem. When the first UN Truce was applied two days later, the Syrian army had gained little in the north, the Egyptians had gained a foothold in the Negev desert in the south, and the Transjordanian and Israeli armies were exhausted.

From June onwards, the UN tried to mediate and supervise a cease-fire. The UN Mediator, Count Folk Bernadotte, presented his own plan for resolution of the Palestine-Israeli conflict, disregarding both the UN partition plan and the results of the early rounds of fighting. His ideas infuriated Jews because he wanted to virtually negate the establishment of Israel.

After resubmitting revised ideas for resolving the conflict, he was killed in Jerusalem in September; his assistant the American Ralph Bunche succeeded him and mediated the armistice agreements signed at the end of the war.

Phase three of the war last from July 8 to July 18, By then, the US State Department realized that Israel would win the war or at least not go down to a crushing defeat. During the previous truce-period, Israeli and Arab forces used the lull in fighting to rearm and to reorganize.

Arab forces increased to a total of 40,, Israeli forces to 60, Equipment and ammunition were replenished on both sides. Israel obtained oil from Rumania, guns and ammunition from Czechoslovakia and France, and continued political support from Russia. During this phase, Israel consolidated its grip on the center and northern areas of Palestine, but still wanted to take the Negev desert in the south.

When the fourth phase of the war started in October, Israeli forces had climbed to 90, men and women, including 5, volunteers from abroad.