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Israel
Prelude to Statehood
The British position in Palestine at the end of World War II
was becoming increasingly untenable. Hundreds of thousands of
Jewish Holocaust survivors temporarily housed in displaced persons
camps in Europe were clamoring to be settled in Palestine. The
fate of these refugees aroused international public opinion against
British policy. Moreover, the administration of President Harry
S Truman, feeling morally bound to help the Jewish refugees and
exhorted by a large and vocal Jewish community, pressured Britain
to change its course in Palestine. Postwar Britain depended on
American economic aid to reconstruct its war-torn economy. Furthermore,
Britain's staying power in its old colonial holdings was waning;
in 1947 British rule in India came to an end and Britain informed
Washington that London could no longer carry the military burden
of strengthening Greece and Turkey against communist encroachment.
In May 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry unanimously
declared its opposition to the White Paper of 1939 and proposed,
among other recommendations, that the immigration to Palestine
of 100,000 European Jews be authorized at once. The British Mandate
Authority rejected the proposal, stating that such immigration
was impossible while armed organizations in Palestine-- both Arab
and Jewish--were fighting the authority and disrupting public
order.
Despite American, Jewish, and international pressure and the
recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the
new Labour Party government of Prime Minister Clement Atlee and
his foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, continued to enforce the policy
articulated in the White Paper. British adamancy on immigration
radicalized the Yishuv. Under Ben-Gurion's direction, the Jewish
Agency decided in October 1945 to unite with Jewish dissident
groups in a combined rebellion against the British administration
in Palestine. The combined Jewish resistance movement organized
illegal immigration and kidnapping of British officials in Palestine
and sabotaged the British infrastructure in Palestine. In response
Bevin ordered a crackdown on the Haganah and arrested many of
its leaders. While the British concentrated their efforts on the
Haganah, the Irgun and Lehi carried out terrorist attacks against
British forces, the most spectacular of which was the bombing
of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946. The latter
event led Ben-Gurion to sever his relationship with the Irgun
and Lehi.
By 1947 Palestine was a major trouble spot in the British Empire,
requiring some 100,000 troops and a huge maintenance budget. On
February 18, 1947, Bevin informed the House of Commons of the
government's decision to present the Palestine problem to the
United Nations (UN). On May 15, 1947, a special session of the
UN General Assembly established the United Nations Special Committee
on Palestine (UNSCOP), consisting of eleven members. The UNSCOP
reported on August 31 that a majority of its members supported
a geographically complex system of partition into separate Arab
and Jewish states, a special international status for Jerusalem,
and an economic union linking the three members. Backed by both
the United States and the Soviet Union, the plan was adopted after
two months of intense deliberations as the UN General Assembly
Resolution of November 29, 1947. Although considering the plan
defective in terms of their expectations from the League of Nations
Mandate twenty-five years earlier, the Zionist General Council
stated willingness in principle to accept partition. The League
of Arab States (Arab League) Council, meeting in December 1947,
said it would take whatever measures were required to prevent
implementation of the resolution.
Despite the passage of the UN partition plan, the situation in
Palestine in early 1948 did not look auspicious for the Yishuv.
When the AHC rejected the plan immediately after its passage and
called for a general strike, violence between Arabs and Jews mounted.
Many Jewish centers, including Jerusalem, were besieged by the
Arabs. In January 1948, President Truman, warned by the United
States Department of State that a Jewish state was not viable,
reversed himself on the issue of Palestine, agreeing to postpone
partition and to transfer the Mandate to a trusteeship council.
Moreover, the British forces in Palestine sided with the Arabs
and attempted to thwart the Yishuv's attempts to arm itself.
In mid-March the Yishuv's military prospects changed dramatically
after receiving the first clandestine shipment of heavy arms from
Czechoslovakia. The Haganah went on the offensive and, in a series
of operations carried out from early April until mid-May, successfully
consolidated and created communications links with those Jewish
settlements designated by the UN to become the Jewish state. In
the meantime, Weizmann convinced Truman to reverse himself and
pledge his support for the proposed Jewish state. In April 1948,
the Palestinian Arab community panicked after Begin's Irgun killed
250 Arab civilians at the village of Dayr Yasin near Jerusalem.
The news of Dayr Yasin precipitated a flight of the Arab population
from areas with large Jewish populations.
On May 14, 1948, Ben-Gurion and his associates proclaimed the
establishment of the State of Israel. On the following day Britain
relinquished the Mandate at 6:00 P.M. and the United States announced
de facto recognition of Israel. Soviet recognition was accorded
on May 18; by April 1949, fifty-three nations, including Britain,
had extended recognition. In May 1949, the UN General Assembly,
on recommendation of the Security Council, admitted Israel to
the UN.
Meanwhile, Arab military forces began their invasion of Israel
on May 15. Initially these forces consisted of approximately 8,000
to 10,000 Egyptians, 2,000 to 4,000 Iraqis, 4,000 to 5,000 Transjordanians,
3,000 to 4,000 Syrians, 1,000 to 2,000 Lebanese, and smaller numbers
of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni troops, about 25,000 in all. Israeli
forces composed of the Haganah, such irregular units as the Irgun
and the Stern Gang, and women's auxiliaries numbered 35,000 or
more. By October 14, Arab forces deployed in the war zones had
increased to about 55,000, including not more than 5,000 irregulars
of Hajj Amin al Husayni's Palestine Liberation Force. The Israeli
military forces had increased to approximately 100,000. Except
for the British-trained Arab Legion of Transjordan, Arab units
were largely ill-trained and inexperienced. Israeli forces, usually
operating with interior lines of communication, included an estimated
20,000 to 25,000 European World War II veterans.
By January 1949, Jewish forces held the area that was to define
Israel's territory until June 1967, an area that was significantly
larger than the area designated by the UN partition plan. The
part of Palestine remaining in Arab hands was limited to that
held by the Arab Legion of Transjordan and the Gaza area held
by Egypt at the cessation of hostilities. The area held by the
Arab Legion was subsequently annexed by Jordan and is commonly
referred to as the West Bank (see Glossary). Jerusalem was divided.
The Old City, the Western Wall and the site of Solomon's Temple,
upon which stands the Muslim mosque called the Dome of the Rock,
remained in Jordanian hands; the New City lay on the Israeli side
of the line. Although the West Bank remained under Jordanian suzerainty
until 1967, only two countries--Britain and Pakistan--granted
de jure recognition of the annexation.
Early in the conflict, on May 29, 1948, the UN Security Council
established the Truce Commission headed by a UN mediator, Swedish
diplomat Folke Bernadotte, who was assassinated in Jerusalem on
September 17, 1948. He was succeeded by Ralph Bunche, an American,
as acting mediator. The commission, which later evolved into the
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization-Palestine (UNSTOP),
attempted to devise new settlement plans and arranged the truces
of June 11-July 8 and July 19-October 14, 1948. Armistice talks
were initiated with Egypt in January 1949, and an armistice agreement
was concluded with Egypt on February 24, with Lebanon on March
23, with Transjordan on April 3, and with Syria on July 20. Iraq
did not enter into an armistice agreement but withdrew its forces
after turning over its positions to Transjordanian units.
Data as of December 1988
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