The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli is barely a Century old; rather, it is quite a modern affair that began in the final years of the nineteenth century. It is worth noting that the base of this conflict is not a religious one even though the parties involved are of different religion. The two groups were fighting for land, which was referred to as Palestine. This was the identity of this area before the confrontation of 1948-1949 ( Lesch, 2008 ). This war was the first of many major instances of bloody battles between the two parties. The war has been largely attributed to the Israeli declaration of independence from European authority in May 1948. Many other intraregional and international elements also combined to bring about complex circumstances that catalyzed the war. After this war, Palestine was divided into three regions including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the State of Israel ( Flapan, 1987 ). In the end, it was the Jews who won the war, but the consequences were spread beyond the geographical area and the time in which the war took place. The war affected international policies and relations between nations and regions, some of the impacts of the war are being felt today, especially in area which was known as Palestine before 1948. This paper presents an elaborate discussion of the events that took place before, during and after the Israel-Arab war of 1948 as well as the circumstances leading up to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during that year.
In such cases, it is difficult to arrive at a settlement when one party is perceived to possess superior political power over the other. The Israeli, who are dominantly Jews, claimed that this land was given to Abraham and his descendants as God honored His commitments to him ( Lesch, 2008; Flapan, 1987 ). Additionally, the Jews aimed to use this land as a sanctuary from the anti-Semitism that many Jews were experiencing in Europe during that period. On the other hand, Arab justification to occupy the land were founded on the fact that they had resided in Palestine almost a century and constituted a majority of the population before 1948. In their assertions, they questioned the validity of Israel’s claim. According to the Palestinian Arabs of that age, it was illogical and outdated to claim land based on a biblical-era civilization.
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Additionally, if this notion was to be applied in that context, then God’s promise to Abraham is extended to Arabs because they descended from Ishmael, who is Abraham’s son. Arab nationalism was also born out of a desire among Arab communities in Asia and Egypt to cooperate politically through the Arab League. Arabs were opposed to European rule that was applied through colonization. Arabs also perceived Europeans to be on the side of Israel in the Israeli-Arab conflict and claimed that Jews aided European authorities in acquiring the oil reserves in Asia. For this reason, the Arabs opposed the UN General Assembly’s proposal for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine following the Holocaust. The Arab leaders in Palestine argued that it was unreasonable for them to compensate Jews for what they suffer at the hands of Europeans yet Jewish Palestinian natives assist European authorities to oppress Arabs in Asia. Thus, many studies hold that the contrast in Arab and Jewish nationalism was a significant cause of the Jewish-Arab war of 1948 ( Lesch, 2008 ). Arab communities all over Asia and Egypt had identified Europeans and Jews as their common enemies and joined forces to fight them both.
The Land and the People
During the second half of the 19th Century, people all over the world started identifying themselves with their countries of origin and hence began demanding national rights. Among these rights, the most proclaimed was the right to self-rule, also referred to as sovereignty ( Lesch, 2008 ). Israelis and Palestinian Arabs also began to embrace nationalism, and each of them started setting their own national agenda.
In the case of Israelis, Jews, especially those who resided in Europe, mobilized themselves to acquire a land where they may converge through settlement and immigration. They came to a conclusion that they would occupy Palestine despite the fact that it was occupied by Palestinian Arabs at that time. Their argument was that Palestine was the ancestral land of Jews. By the end of that Century, thousands of Jews had settled in Palestine ( Lesch, 2008 ). By 1948, many of the Jews in Palestine lived in four cities including Tiberias, Safed, Hebron and Jerusalem. Thousands of them had left Europe and were attracted to the study of religion. Since Europe had previously provided numerous opportunities for earning income and economic situation in Palestine was not favorable, many Jews there depended on funds provided by world Jewry. In this way, they were attached to the land not because of their sense of nationalism but for religious reasons. Many Jews in Palestine led a more secular lifestyle and were inclined to the “modern Jewish nation.”
The Partition Plan
The conflict between Jews and Arabs concerning the Palestinian land went a notch higher in the years following World War II, prompting the United Nations to formulate a way forward for Palestine. It was the British who recommended such a course, but with the expectation that the United Nations would not be successful in resolving the issue. The UN gathered several representatives, who they considered to be impartial to the Israeli-Arab conflict, and sent them to Palestine to evaluate the situation. This committee deliberated the most effective ways of resolving the conflict for several months amid disagreements among themselves. Finally, the majority proposed a partition to satisfy both parties. By the beginning of 1947, Jews made up about one-third of the population in Palestine as compared to four decades earlier when they constituted only one-ninth of the population. Jews owned nearly 7% of the land, which represented about 20% of arable land ( Lesch, 2008 ).
In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly decided on a partition which would divide Palestine into two states ( Lesch, 2008 ). One state was to be occupied by the Jews while the other one was to be occupied by the Arabs. It is important to understand that the states were not entirely occupied by the designated group. For instance, there were several Arab settlements in the Jewish state. The partition only served to create a majority of a population in one state and a majority of the other population in the other state. The Jewish state was accorded a larger share of the land since it was expected that more Jews would arrive in Palestine from Europe in the following several years. The United Nations also planned that Bethlehem and Jerusalem would grow into international zones.
The Jewish leadership accepted the terms provided by the United Nations, although only publicly. They were hopeful that a situation would arise in the near future to enable them to expand their borders. The Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, were more open concerning their opinion concerning the United Nations’ proposal. This group, as well as Arabs from nearby states, labeled the proposed partition as an international treachery mainly because the plan gave the Jews a larger portion of the Palestinian land regardless of the fact that Jews made up only one-third of the Palestinian population ( Lesch, 2008 ). Some of the Arab leadership pointed the blame to the British, who had allowed a large settlement of Israelis during the previous century, had the British rejected the settlement of Jews in Palestine those many years before then the issue of Jewish statehood would not be under discussion.
The Israel-Arab War of 1948
Only a few days after the implementation of the United Nations partition plan, war broke between the Jewish and Arab Palestinians. The Arab military seemed considerably unprepared for the war as it was poorly ordered, trained and armed. The Jewish, on the other hand, seemed to have predicted the war. Their military was well ordered, trained and had superior weapons ( Lesch, 2008 ). By April 1948, the Jewish army had taken over control of the entire Jewish territory in Palestine and began intruding the Arabian one. Eventually, several sections of the Arabian territory were secured by the Israeli.
In May that year, the British departed from Palestine, meaning there was no longer any external authority apart from the United Nations that would help resolve the conflict in Palestine. As a result, the Jewish military, also referred as the Zionist army, proclaimed the State of Israel ( Flapan, 1987 ). Surrounding Arab nations including Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, then attacked Israel, with the claim that they were “saving” Palestine from the Zionist army. This invasion somewhat surprised the Zionist military in its timing and scope. In fact, the outcome of the war was unpredictable in April and May when the war was at its climax. However, the Israelis obtained more powerful weapons from Czechoslovakia and overpowered their enemies ( Morris, 1997 ). As soon as the Arab forces left the Jewish territory, the Zionists started invading the Arab territory in Palestine again; only this time, they did it with more intensity.
Eventually, after one year of fighting, Israel and the Arab nations resolved to end the war by signing armistice agreements. What was previously referred to as Palestine was finally divided into three portions. Each portion was governed by a particular authority, and the boundaries that separated them were the 1949 armistice lines, also referred to as the “Green Line” ( Pelcovits, 1993 ). The total geographical area of the State of Israel was slightly more than three-quarters of Palestine despite an inferior population size as compared to the Arab group ( Flapan, 1987 ). Egypt took over the Gaza Strip, while Jordan took control of the hill country situated towards the center of Palestine as well as East Jerusalem. Thus, the proposed partition by the United Nations that projected the existence of the Palestine Arab state never came to fulfillment.
The Aftermath of the 1948 War
The Israel-Arab war of 1948 brought about many undesirable outcomes. For instance, it led to the destruction and loss of many lives on both sides of the conflict. It was not only the soldiers who participated in the actual fight who died but also many innocent people were killed ( Lesch, 2008 ). One of the most tragic incidents that occurred during this war was the Deir Yassin massacre which claimed the lives of 245 Arabs. In their reaction to these killings, the Arabs killed 77 Jewish nurses and physicians.
Another important consequence of the war is that more than 700,000 Palestinians were left homeless and ended up being refugees ( Morris, 1987 ). Some of the other studies on this war tend to present different statistics for the number of refugees, so it is difficult to arrive at the most accurate number of refugees ( Lesch, 2008 ). Additionally, it is also hard to tell the circumstances leading to the existence of so many refugees over such a short period. Many Arab refugees argued that they were ejected from their homeland as part of a Jewish strategy to remove other communities from Palestine. On the other hand, the Jews hold that Arab Palestinians left the region from instructions from Arab military and political powers. However, one official Israeli military report compiled after the war states that more than three-quarters of Arabs who left Palestine in the first eight months following the war did so out of fear of being attacked by Jewish soldiers, several direct expulsions, and psychological campaigns intended to frighten Arabs into departing from Palestine. Several studies have found that the largest fraction of refugees following this war left Palestine through direct expulsions ( Lesch, 2008; Morris, 1987 ). The most significant expulsion during this period affected more than 50,000 Arabs, who were forced out of Ramle and Lydda. Contrary to the Israeli report, only 5% of the refugees left Palestine after receiving instructions from Arab political and military leaders.
The Arab defeat exposed the weakness of the Arab League as Arab nations demonstrated a lack of unity in objectives. For instance, King Abdullah of Jordan was willing to support the establishment of a Jewish state in return for the extension of the Jordanian territory ( Lesch, 2008 ). This showed how Arab nations were divided in principle. Hence the Arab League was rendered unstable.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
A lot of bloodsheds accompanied the ethnic cleaning of Palestine. The Zionist leadership allowed the UN to take over the war and started by dividing the country. This decision was not so appealing to the Arab World as they wanted to keep Palestine as a unitary state and preferred solving of disputes by negotiation which would take longer. It took nine months for the British government to finalize on this decision. The cleansing started in December 1947 after the Partition Resolution which was agreed upon in November the same year. It all began with attacks on the Palestine dwelling places as an act of revenge for the assault on vehicles and shops burnt as they opposed the involvement of the United Nations. These first attacks caused eviction of almost 75,000 Palestine’s. (Bard, 2015)
Arab volunteer army on 9th January 1948 entered in Palestine, and there was small battle engagement over settlement and routes with the Jewish troupes. The Jews won the ambush and left retaliation and started cleansing where in a single day they went out five Palestinian villages. Other series massacres followed after that most notable being the Deir Yassin massacre. The American administration started to discredit the UN works as increasing the bloodshed other than maintaining peace. They offered a 5 -year trusteeship and a cease-fire operation, but both deals were turned down by the Zionist leadership. (Miller & Samuels, 2009)
The Jewish officials under Ben Gurion wanted to occupy a significant geographic and fertile environment of the Palestine to increase their jurisdiction and their wealth. Despite the UN partition plan allocating the Eastern Valleys and lower Galilee to the Jews, they felt it was not enough. Ben who often met with the war cabinet consisting of Jewish soldiers who had previously served in the British army started to deliberate on how to occupy the whole country despite the UN Partition Plan agreement. The plan was to create a strong military force which would topple any group that could come on their way to prevent them from evicting the Palestinians.
To be able to occupy the greater part of Palestine, the Jewish officials had a negotiation agreement with King Abdullah of Jordan. This negotiation played a pivotal role in preventing the Arab army from defending the Palestinians since the strong Jordan army had become allies to the Jews. Abdullah and the Zionist leadership came into an agreement after the Second World War to divide the Palestine amongst themselves at the expense of the Indigenous residents. The UN Resolution 181 consisted of these negotiations. In exchange for not joining other Arab military organizations against the Jews, the King was promised the West Bank despite the place having Jewish Biblical sites like the city of Hebron.
The other step made to ensuring a successful ethnic cleansing was the building of a strong military. The Jewish officials wanted to create a military capable of occupying the better part of Palestine after the British able to prevent other Arab military from invading and taking over the area they had already occupied. During the 1948 war, the Jewish army had 50, 000 troops, with a 30,000 fighting troop and the rest were back up. On the other hand, the other side had poorly equipped and outnumbered troop of 10,000 Palestinian army giving the Jewish army an upper hand. (Simon, 2008)
On May 1946, a newly formed Israel army came into being which had been formed with Country’s community Party playing a significant role in its formation, received a shipment of rounds of ammunition from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. This made the Jewish army so strong in comparison with the Palestinians and the Arab troops. The Jewish military had two active groups namely; the Irgun and the Stern Gang. These two groups played a pivotal role in the ethnic cleansing, and their troops occupied the villages. The Hagana, a part of the Irgun had an intelligence unit service established in 1933 aimed at eavesdropping on the British helping the Arab troops and participated in identifying the Palestinians who were either executed or sentenced to long imprisonment when then the ethnical cleansing started. These forces helped Ben Gurion to occupy the Mandatory state and acquire most of the Palestinian property.
The Jewish official declared the state in 1948 and was acknowledged by the then existing superpowers the USA and the USSR. Ben Gurion was very confident in his army, and he believed that they would starve the Haffa and Jaffa Arabs. It however, proved challenging for the Zionist troops to keep it together at all times, for example, defending all the areas Jews had settled in Palestine and securing free access to supply to the Jewish parts of the Jerusalem. On other occasions, the Palestinians tried to organize a resistance against the fast-rising population of Jews in their land, but their weapons and the army could not match those of the Jewish military.
The Zionist leaders were consistent in their aim to evacuate all Palestinians from the targeted Jewish state from Herzl Down to Ben Gurion regime. There were constant discussions on how to reduce the Palestinians, and one way was to increase the Jewish immigrant to ensure the majority population comprised of the Jews. They were strongly against the UN Partition Resolution on realizing that the Jewish states had only 40% Jews. They felt that the population was supposed to be allowed to rise to at least 80% of the population for it to be viable and acceptable.
On November 1948, Ben-Gurion suggested that ethnical cleansing offered a better solution to ensure that the Jewish state was free from Palestinians. He suggested that all the Palestinians within the Jewish state be arrested or expelled.
Many Arabs became refugees between 1947 and 1948. There were only around 756,000 Arabs who were left in Israel who were to reside there permanently. The Arabs had been given a chance by the Jews to leave in peace those that were defiant had their villages burnt. The Jewish forces were keen on the places they occupied to ensure they maintained a clear line of communication to the outside. (Bard, 2015)
References
Bard, M. (2015). History & Overview of the Palestinian Refugees . Jewishvirtuallibrary.org . Retrieved 16 March 2017, from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-palestinian-refugees
Flapan, S. (1987). The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (Hardcover). Pantheon .
Lesch, D. W. (2008). The Arab-Israeli conflict: a history . Oxford University Press, USA.
Miller, J. & Samuels, D. (2009). No way home: The tragedy of the Palestinian diaspora . The Independent . Retrieved 16 March 2017, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/no-way-home-the-tragedy-of-the-palestinian-diaspora-1806790.html
Morris, B. (1987). The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-1949 (Vol. 1948). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, B. (1997). Israel’s Border Wars, 1949‐1956.
Pelcovits, N. A. (1993). The long armistice: UN peacekeeping and the Arab-Israeli conflict, 1948-1960 . Westview Pr.
Simon, S. (2008). Israeli-Palestinian Crisis Guide: Transcript - Council on Foreign Relations . Cfr.org . Retrieved 16 March 2017, from http://www.cfr.org/publication/CGME_transcript.html
