History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression by David Meir-Levi

Author:David Meir-Levi [Meir-Levi, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2009-05-13T02:53:00+00:00

THE 1948 WAR

As early as the fall of 19 4 7, when the end of the British Mandate was clearly in sight, the Arabs began sporadic attacks against the Jews, who responded in kind. With this early "prewar" violence, tens of thousands of Arabs fled Galilee and the coastal plain. Their numbers were so great that a special Arab summit in Beirut in September 19 4 7 urged all Arab nations to open their doors to these refugees.

The Jewish war of survival began in earnest after the UN endorsed the partition plan on November 29, 1947. Arab mobs and paramilitary forces attacked Jewish settlements across the country. The Jewish response in this first stage of the war was mostly defensive, repelling Arab attacks, but with heavy loss of life. Since the British were officially still in charge until May 14, 1948, no Arab state directly intervened at this time. However, they all sent in thousands of paramilitary fighters. The Haganah, the Jews' defense force, was hampered by the British Mandatory force, which confiscated Jewish weapons (and sometimes turned them over to Arabs) and arrested Haganah activists. Two paramilitary Jewish forces, Irgun and Lehi, carried out attacks against British and Arab targets, giving the British justification for reprisals.'

The war went into its second phase on May 14, 1948, with the termination of British control and the creation of the State of Israel. Freed from British obstruction, seven Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco) invaded at once. At the same time, the Haganah began a series of counterattacks. Because of the Haganah's success, the Arab forces agreed to a ceasefire on June ii, 1948.

The Jews utilized this ceasefire to strengthen their positions. The Arab states did the opposite. Their distrust of one another impelled them to keep the majority of their forces on their own borders, in case one neighbor decided to use the confusion of war to enhance its territorial claims at the expense of another.

By the time of the second ceasefire, January 2, 1949, the Israelis had recaptured almost all lost territory, and the Haganah had carried the war to Arab territory, driving Arab armies and irregulars out of much of the territory that the UN had designated as Arab Palestine. In doing so, Israeli forces did not "steal" any land, nor did they violate any international laws or norms. Since Israel later offered to return captured territory during the armistice talks of 1949 (see below), it is false to suggest that Israel fought this war to capture Arab land.

When the fighting was over, approximately 7 2 5, 0 0 0 Arabs had fled. Some anecdotal Arab accounts offered a candid explanation as to why: "We feared that they would do to us what we would have done to them had we won." Considering the massacres of Jews by Arabs in Hebron, Gush Etzion, and the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter, it is understandable that the Arabs would project their own bloody fantasies onto Israel.

At this time,

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