Why Did Israel Win the First Arab-Israeli War

In the beginning, the State of Israel’s contributions to world development was considered great; however due to social and political factors that ended in war the current aid is only a fraction of what it used to be.

The whole crowd was excited and very proud. A song called “Hatikvah” was sung by many. The official creation of the state of Israel was declared by David Ben-Gurion. David Ben-Gurion was the prime minister at the time.War had broken out, and on May 13, danger struck Israel. An air attack was ordered on Tel Aviv. Many surrounding groups attacked Israel. These groups destroyed Jewish cities and defense forces. All of these events happened very close after independence was declared. The attack was most likely planned to provoke Israel right after they were excited to get their own homeland. It was a brutal attack to intimidate and show them how they did not approve of their presence. That year, in 1948, the “Arab-Israeli War” started. The Palestinian area was invaded by five other Arab countries practically immediately after Israel was announced. Some other countries included Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Around 30 million people attack Israel (The New York Times Upfront). An extraordinary amount of Palestinian Arabs were deported to other places. This was due to the war going on. Part of the motive for this war was that Jerusalem, an very religious area located in Israel, would be managed by the UN. Some Palestinian Arabs were angry and therefore war broke out. Fortunately, most of the fighting stopped in 1949. The bordering nations accepted armistice lines. The armistice lines lasted until 1967.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one of the world’s oldest conflicts, and it is still an ongoing problem in the world. Zionists and Arabs: two groups with conflicting beliefs who both claim Israel as their own. In wake of the Holocaust the U.N decided to gift the Jews a homeland for the lives lost in the genocide. In 1947, the U.N Partition divided the land of Israel (Historic Palestine) into two separate states: Arab and Jewish. Since then, the state of Israel has been the center of conflict between the Arabs and the Zionists. As time passed the Zionists gained more land from winning the Six-Day War, and consequently the Palestinians had to live as refugees in other Arab countries. Additionally, more than 75% of the land belonged to

The Arab/Israeli conflict is a conflict between the Arabs and the Jews over a small piece of land known as the holy land which is an area in the Middle East of the Arab world. The Arabs call the land Palestine, the Jews call it Israel but both religions have strong religious links with the land. There is conflict between the two religions because they both believe that the land belongs to them.

This tension came to a climax in 1936 during Arab Revolt, leaving 300 Jews and 5,000 Arabs dead, and over 15,000 Arabs injured. After WWII, large amounts of Jews were left as refugees, and on the eve of the expiration of the League of Nations Mandate, Israel announced its independence. A day latter, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon joined forces in order to stop Israel from becoming a state. There were a total of around 15,000 killed. A Palestinian’s journal explained the brutality when they wrote, “They took about 40 prisoners from the village. But after the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry” (10). Almost one million Palestinians were forcibly relocate. The war ended in 1949 in a ceasefire.

A popular and most recent debate has been whether Israel should exist as a state. Currently, Israel is the only country in the world that has a relatively extensive Jewish population. More recently, Israel has been combatting against Palestinian soldiers in Gaza to prevent attacks on Israel coming from the Palestinian Government. This war has gone on for quite some time now; for years, actually. But how did this conflict develop? It certainly didn’t happen overnight.

“The problem is, simply put, a dispute over real estate” (Gelvin 3). This conflict has resulted in major wars during the period of time following World War II. The 1948-1949 Arab Israeli war began when Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Palestine. The second war that occurred, was the 1956 Suez Canal War, at the end of this war Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip

In 1948, Zionist forces, due to their military pre-eminence, gained control over the territory which the UN designated to the Jews in the failed partition plan. On 14 May 1948, they declared Israeli independence and established the Israeli state (Fawcett, 2005; 221). The US recognised Israel quickly as a state and soon after that the Soviet Union did the same. The Arab League, formed out of six Arab states, did not recognise Israel as a state, because they felt the land belonged to the Arabic state of Palestine, not to the Jews. Subsequently, the six Arab forces (Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria) attacked the Israeli military. The Lebanese, Syrian, Iraq and Saudi Arabian forces did not produce many offensive operations, but they managed to block the Israeli’s march. The ‘real’ fighting came from the Egyptian and Jordan forces. In the beginning, the Arabs had an advantage of weapons and air-power, whilst Israel had problems with their strategy. However, after a few months Israel was provided with war supplies from Czechoslavakia. This included both weapons for using on the mainland and aircrafts. Due to these supplies,

Following the partition plan in 1947, the state of Israel was created in 1948. I will be discussing the extent to which the creation of Israel was a turning point throughout a hundred year period. The conflict can be split up into 3 different strands which include: Arab Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, Western involvement. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the regional conflict that erupts in 1948 when the newly created Arab states invade Israel and is partially resolved by 1996. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the local conflict throughout the 100 year period between the native Palestinians and the Israeli’s, it is still unresolved. Western involvement represents the foreign nations that were associated in the conflict. My main argument is that the creation of Israel was the principle turning point for the Arab-Israeli dispute strand because; it transformed a civil war to an interstate conflict. I also feel that it was the principle turning point for the Palestinian-Israeli strand because, it saw a huge change in policy and led to the dissolution of the Palestinian people with many fleeing into surrounding Arab nations, this is known as the Palestinian problem. The Suez crisis was the pivotal moment for the Western Involvement strand because it saw a new era with the start of the Cold War’s influence in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Jews biggest advantage to win the war was the fact the Palestinians could not come together in unity. "Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner. They have not looked into the future. They have no plan or approach. They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, criminal." - Jordan's King Hussein, Associated Press, Jan 1960 (Middle East Refugees). The Arab National Committee of Haifa, told to the Arab League, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963 "...our city flourished and developed for the good of both Jewish and Arab residents ... Do not destroy your homes with your own hands; do not bring tragedy upon yourselves by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens. By moving out you will be overtaken by poverty and humiliation” (Middle East Refugees). The Israelis had leadership. They knew a conflict was coming and united together. The Palestinians on the other hand acted impulsively, destroyed their own homes, and did in fact bring poverty and humiliation on themselves.

Palestine and Israel have a big fight that should of ended long ago. During the late nineteenth hundreds the standard Zionist began a movement into the promised land known as Palestine to reclaim their ancestral homeland (The Origin of..). After moving into Palestine Zionists started to create an exclusive Jewish state, however the Arab community caught on to the movement and opposed this by not allowing Jewish immigration into Palestine along with not permitting them to buy land. Thus one can see the struggle Palestine and Israel are involved in currently, which has transformed the Promised Land into a place with extreme terrorism and constant bickering between the Jews and Arabs. Now Palestine is fighting for the land that was once

After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, tensions between the newly founded Jewish state and the Arab states were at an all time high, but it wasn’t until May and June of 1967 that tensions would turn volatile. The region was in a state of anarchy with multiple states competing for power within the region. Actions by leaders of both states made the already convoluted situation harder to interpret, and would ultimately lead to one state’s action. During those months, Arab nations, more specifically Egypt, began to impose trade restrictions, massing forces upon Israel’s border, and disputing Israeli water rights on the Jordan River. These actions began to bring forth the reasons as to why Israel, while greatly outnumbered, decided

Both the Jews and the Arabs have claims to the land because of the claim of the ancient territorial rights over areas in the Middle East. The area knows as Palestine has seen many waves of invasions from the Romans and the Egyptians. After WW1 Britain and France re-drew the borders to suit their needs. The British and French have made the situation between the Arabs and the Jews worse by making too many promises without a full understanding of both of the viewpoints.

The Haganah, the Israeli Defense Forces, had more than 35,000 people in the army. More so, the men and women in the army were trained and were mostly made up of volunteers. By December of 1948 the Israeli army numbered more than 96,000.# Although a large number of soldiers does not account for Israel’s success in the War of 1948, it does play a significant role that cannot be ignored.

The date of May 15 was rapidly approaching, the day chosen for the British armed forces to vacate Palestine. Many thought that with the British troop’s departure went our fledgling state’s only hope of survival, for 5 arab nations were prepared to attack the defenseless state. There were those, on the other hand, who refused to go down without a fight. Among them were the few brave souls willing to risk everything to ensure our survival, that there would never be another Holocaust. These heroic men created the first Israeli Air Force, an asset that played an essential role in the War of 1948. The five attacking arab nations were about to be taken by surprise, as the fledgling state began to take flight.