The 1948 Palestine war (30 November 1947 – 10 March 1949) was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine.* Michael R. Fischbach, an American scholar of the archives of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, estimates that, in all, Palestinians lost some 6 to 8 million dunams (1.5 to 2 million acres) of land, not including communal land farmed by villages or state land.
It began as a civil war between the Arab and Jewish communities following the United Nations Partition Plan and became an international conflict with the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, the termination of the British mandate, and the entry of the armies of neighbouring Arab states into Palestine. During the war, Zionist forces conquered about 78% of the former territory of the mandate, causing the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians. Transjordan took control of the territory west of the Jordan River and Egypt occupied the coastal territory around Gaza. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the Green Line de facto borders of the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947,Benny Morris (2008), p.77 a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which planned for the division of the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states. During this period, the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence.Benny Morris (2008), pp. 77–79Tal (2003), p.41 Initially on the defensive, the Zionist forces switched to the offensive in April 1948.Morris (2004), p.13: "The Haganah stayed on the defensive, wishing not to annoy the British while it re-organised and armed for war; it knew that the real challenge would be posed not by the Palestinians but by the armies of the surrounding states. Until the end of January 1948, neither side had the upper hand. But in February and March, Arab ambushers inflicted major defeats on Haganah convoys along the roads, especially between Tel Aviv and (Jewish West) Jerusalem. It appeared to the Yishuv’s leaders that, besieged, Jewish Jerusalem – with a population of 100,000 – might fall; there were similar fears regarding several clusters of Jewish rural settlements around Jerusalem and in western Galilee. The defeats and significant casualties suffered caused the Yishuv to rethink its strategy. At the beginning of April, the Haganah switched to the offensive, at last unleashing a series of major counter-attacks."Benny Morris (2008), p.77–78 In anticipation of an invasion by Arab armies,Morris (2004), p.163: "The British evacuation, which would remove the last vestige of law and order in the cities and on the roads, was only weeks away, and the neighbouring Arab states were mobilising to intervene. The Yishuv was struggling for its life; an invasion by the Arab states could deliver the coup de grâce. It was with this situation and prospect in mind that the Haganah chiefs, in early March, produced ‘Tochnit Dalet’ (Plan D), a blueprint for securing the emergent Jewish state and the blocs of settlements outside the state’s territory against the expected invasion on or after 15 May." they enacted Plan Dalet, an operation aimed at securing territory for the establishment of a Jewish state.
The second phase of the war began on 14 May 1948, with the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel and the termination of the British Mandate at midnight. The following morning, the surrounding Arab armies invaded Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Egyptians advanced in the south-east while the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands. Syria and Lebanon fought against the Israeli forces in the north. The newly formed Israel Defense Forces managed to halt the Arab forces and in the following months began pushing them back and capturing territory.
During the war, massacres and acts of terror were conducted by both sides. A campaign of massacres and violence against the Arab population, such as occurred at Lydda and Ramle and the Battle of Haifa, led to the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians, with most of their urban areas being depopulated and destroyed. This violence and dispossession is remembered by Palestinians as the Nakba (Arabic for "the catastrophe") and resulted in the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem. Hundreds of thousands of Jews fled or were expelled from Arab states in the three years following the Arab defeat in the war, over 260,000 of which settled in Israel.Morris, 2001, pp. 259–260.Fischbach, Michael R. Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 27
Background
The 1948 war came as the culmination of 30 years of friction between Jews and Arabs during the period of British rule of Palestine when, under the terms of the League of Nations mandate held by the British, conditions intended to lead to the establishment of a Jewish National Home in the area were created.
Jewish immigration to Palestine
Zionism formed in Europe as the national movement of the Jewish people. It sought to reestablish Jewish statehood in the ancient homeland. The first wave of Zionist immigration, dubbed the First Aliyah, lasted from 1882 to 1903. Some 30,000 Jews, mostly from the Russian Empire, reached Ottoman Palestine. They were driven both by the Zionist idea and by the wave of antisemitism in Europe, especially in the Russian Empire, which came in the form of brutal pogroms. They wanted to establish Jewish agricultural settlements and a Jewish majority in the land that would allow them to gain statehood.
The Arab inhabitants of Ottoman Palestine who saw the Zionist Jews of the first aliyah settle next to them were not associated with a national movement at the end of the 19th century. Historically, Palestine had never been administered or recognized as a distinct province by any of its Muslim rulers.
Starting in 1882, the Ottomans issued a stream of "restrictive orders" against Jewish settlement and land purchases in Palestine. However, as a result of its perceived insignificance and the inefficiency of Ottoman bureaucracies, these restrictions had little effect. Due to bribes, the Ottoman authorities often supported the Jewish settlers with "entry permits and their extension, land deals, [and] building rights."
Until the 1910s, Zionists encountered little violence, as the Arabs lacked political awareness and were disorganized. Between 1909 and 1914, this changed, as Arabs killed 12 Jewish settlement guards and Arab nationalism, and opposition to the Zionist enterprise, increased. In 1911, Arabs attempted to thwart the establishment of a Jewish settlement in the Jezreel Valley, and the dispute resulted in the death of one Arab man and a Jewish guard. The Arabs called the Jews the "new Crusaders", and anti-Zionist (and, occasionally, anti-Semitic) rhetoric flourished.
World War I and the Balfour Declaration
During the war, Palestine served as the frontline between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire in Egypt. The war briefly halted Jewish-Arab friction. The British invaded the land in 1915 and 1916 after two unsuccessful Ottoman attacks on Sinai. They were assisted by the Arab tribes in Hejaz, led by the Hashemites, and promised them sovereignty over the Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was excluded from the promise, initially intended to be a joint British-French domain.
After the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, it was designated as a "national home for the Jewish people", with the stipulation that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Several factors influenced the decision to support Zionism. Zionist lobbying, led by Chaim Weizmann, played a significant role, along with religious and humanitarian motivations. The fact that the Arabs of Palestine supported the Ottoman fight against the Allied Powers also contributed. Additionally, the British believed that a British-backed state would help defend the Suez Canal. At that time, the Arab Hashemites did not seem opposed to Jewish rule over Palestine.
Early years of the British Mandate After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine, which required it to implement the Balfour Declaration. As the numbers and strength of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) grew, tensions between the Jewish and Arab communities deepened. Significant bouts of violence happened during the 1920 Jerusalem Riots, as well as in 1921 and 1929. In addition to the emerging Palestinian Arab nationalism, the violence also drew on religious inspirations, such as the accusation that the Jews intended to take over the Temple Mount.
Despite Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, leading Palestinian families continued to sell land to Zionists throughout the period. At least one quarter of members of the Palestinian Arab Executive benefited financially from such purchases, including the mayor of Jerusalem and the al-Husayni family.Morris (2001), p.111
The Zionist leaders intermittently attempted to reach a compromise with the Arabs, but none proved possible.
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
The peasant-led 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine broke out in the context of increased Jewish migration to Palestine and the plight of the rural native fallāḥīn. It sparked following the murder of three Jewish drivers on April 15, 1936, whose funeral led rapidly spreading disturbances.Benny Morris (2001), p.128 The revolt began with a general strike among Palestinian Arabs on April 19, 1936, which escalated into intercommunal violence. The brutal suppression of the revolt by the British significantly weakened the Palestinian Arabs in advance of the 1948 war.Benny Morris (2001), p.121
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
Particularly after the White Paper of 1939, the Zionist paramilitary organizations Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah carried out a campaign of acts of terror and sabotage against British rule. Among these attacks was the 1946 King David Hotel bombing carried out by the Irgun which killed 91 people.
The Arab states Following World War II, the surrounding Arab states were emerging from mandatory rule. Transjordan, under the Hashemite ruler Abdullah I, gained independence from Britain in 1946 and was called Jordan in 1949, but remained under heavy British influence. Egypt gained nominal independence in 1922, but Britain continued to exert a strong influence on it until the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 limited Britain's presence to a garrison of troops on the Suez Canal until 1945. Lebanon became an independent state in 1943, but French troops did not withdraw until 1946, the same year Syria won its independence from France.
In 1945, at British prompting, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen formed the Arab League to coordinate policy among the Arab states. Iraq and Transjordan coordinated closely, signing a mutual defence treaty, while Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia feared that Transjordan would annex part or all of Palestine and use it as a stepping stone to attack or undermine Syria, Lebanon, and the Hijaz.
The 1947 UN Partition Plan