Civil war of 1947-1948 in Palestine agent

The Civil war of 1947-1948 in Palestine agent (also called war palestino-Zionist) covers the period of the November 30th 1947, shortly after the vote of the Plan of division to the May 14th 1948 which marks the end of the British mandate on the Palestine.

This period constitutes the first phase of the Guerre of Palestine of 1948 during which the Jewish community and the Arab community of Palestine clash while the British, who are supposed to guarantee safety there, organize their withdrawal and intervene only punctually.

The following phase, the Israeli-Arab Guerre of 1948-1949 will start the May 15th, with the creation of Israel and the entry in war of the armies of several close Arab States.

The article reports in an exhaustive way the various episodes and key events of the period of the Civil war. A synthesis is at the end of this one.

Historical context

Since 1920, Palestine is under control and administration British but the country is the object of a combat between nationalisms Jew Zionist and Palestinian Arabic which oppose one the other like with the " occupant" British.

The Palestinian fight culminates with the Grande revolt of 1936-1939. Carried out by the Palestinian nationalists, she is opposed at the same time to the Zionism, the British presence in Palestine and to the Palestinian politicians asserting itself of a nationalism panarabe. British repression is bloody and the violent reaction of the organizations Zionists. In its term, the Palestinian nationalists obtain however British a Draconian reduction in the Jewish immigration represented by the White paper of 1939. But the consequences are heavy. The revolt made nearly 5000 died Arab side and 500 Jewish side. Different the paramilitary organizations Zionists was reinforced and the majority of the members of the Palestinian political elite were stopped and constrained with the exile. Among those, the chief of the Arab High committee, Hadj Amin Al-Husseini takes refuge in Nazi Germany, where he seeks a support for his cause.

After the Second world war, following the drama of the Shoah, the movement Zionist attracts sympathy. In Palestine, the groups of the right-hand side Zionist lead to their tower a violence campaign against l'" occupation" British punctuated of many attacks. The Palestinian nationalists reorganize but remain very late compared to the Zionists. However, the weakening of the colonial powers reinforced the Arab countries and the Arab Ligue recently formed takes again on its account the Palestinian nationalist claims and is used to them as spokesperson.

The diplomacy does not manage to reconcile the points of view. The February 18th 1947, the British announce the abandonment of their mandate on the area. The November 29th 1947, the General meeting of the United Nations votes a Plan of division of Palestine with the support of the great powers, but not that of the British and against the worldwide Arab.

Nobody at the time doubts that the war is inevitable, in particular from the layout of the borders but neither the Arabs, nor the Jews are not prepared at this time with this one.

Release of the civil war (November 30th, 1947 - April 1st, 1948)

As of the shortly after the adoption of the plane of division by UNO, the demonstrations of joy of the Jewish community are counterbalanced by the demonstrations of Arab opposition in all the country and as of on February 1st, the Arab High committee issues a 3 days general strike.

A “wind of violence” goes quickly and spontaneously to settle, heralding the “civil war”.

Rise of violence

In all the mixed zones where the two communities live, Jerusalem and Haïfa in particular, increasingly violent attacks, reprisals and against-reprisals follow one another. The isolated shootings evolve/move in pitched battles; the attacks against the traffic are transformed into ambushes. Increasingly bloody attacks occur, which answer in their turn of the riots, the reprisals and other attacks.

For example, the December 30th, to Haïfa, of the members of the Irgoun launch two bombs in a crowd of Arab workmen making the tail in front of a refinery, killing 6 of them and by wounding 42. Crowd in anger keep silent in reprisals 39 Jews before the British soldiers do not restore the calme.^, In reprisals, the December 31st, of the soldiers of the Palmach and the Carmel brigade attack the village of Balad-Al-Sheikh and Hawassa. According to various historians, they make there between 21 and 70 dead.

The February 22nd, with Jerusalem, the men of Hadj Amin Al-Husseini organize using British deserters triple car bomb attack which aims at the offices of the newspaper The Palestine Post, the market of the street Ben Yehuda and the back-yard of the offices of the Jewish Agency, respectively making 22,53 and 13 dead Juifs as well as hundreds of blessés.^, The February 29th, in reprisals, the Lehi mine the way of railroad Cairo - Haïfa in the north of Rehovot, causing death of 28 British soldiers and by wounding 35. He reiterates the operation the March 31st close to Césarée, causing death of 40 people and by wounding 60, for the majority of the Arab civilians.

Over the period of December 1947 and January 1948, one counts nearly 1000 dead and 2000 wounded. End March, a report/ratio makes state of more than 2000 died and 4000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average higher than 100 died and 200 wounded each week. And this, on a total of 2.000.000 inhabitants.

War of the roads and blockade of Jerusalem

Geographical location of the Jewish zones

Apart from the coastal area, the storage areas of the Yichouv in Palestine are very dispersed. The communication between the most developed central zone and the peripheral zones is carried out by road links. Even sometimes these connections constitute a all the more easy target as the majority cross or skirt Arab localities, of the entirely Arab zones.

In this configuration, the “insulation” of the 100 000 Jewish of Jerusalem and neighborhood (like the Gush Etzion, halfway on the strategic road between Jerusalem and Hebron), that of the 27 villages and establishments of the Negev and that of those of the North of the Galileo constitute a strategic weak point for the Yichouv.

The possibility of evacuating these not easily justifiable zones is considered but at Jerusalem as in all Palestine, the policy of the Haganah was fixed by Ben Gourion. It is simple. “What the Jews hold must be preserved. No Jew must give up his residence, his farm, his Kibboutz or his work without authorization. Each outpost, each colony, each village, whatever is insulation, must be occupied as if it were about Tel-Aviv even. ” In the facts, no Jewish establishment was evacuated before the invasion of May 1948. Only a dozen Kibbutzes of Galileo as those of Gush Etzion send women and children in the surer zones of the interior.

Ben Gourion gives instructions to reinforce the establishments of the Negev as men and material.

The case of Jerusalem is even more critical from the importance of its Jewish population (1/6e of the total of Yichouv) and of the great difficulty of access of the city. The road Tel-Aviv - Jerusalem long and is escarpée. It leaves the Jewish zone with Houlda then follows the buttresses of Latroun. Then, the course of the 28 kilometers between Bab-el-Wadi and Jerusalem does not take less than 3 a.m. and the road crosses or passes near Arab villages such Saris, Qastel, Deir Yassin, or Qaluniya.

Strategy of Abdel Kader Al-Husseini

Abdel Kader Al-Husseini is able at Jerusalem in December 1947 with the objective “to choke” the Jewish community of the city.

It settles in Tzurif, a village in the south-west of Jerusalem with its men: a hundred combatants who involved themselves in Syria before the war and who are used as frameworks with his army, the Jihad Al-Muqadas. It is joined by a hundred young villagers and veterans of the British army. The army passes quickly to several thousands of men and transfers his general headquarter and its center from drive to Bir Zeit, close to Ramallah. Its zone of influence extends until Lydda and Ramleh where Hassan Salameh, a veteran of the Grande Revolt of 1936-39 to the head of 1000 men, coordinates its actions with Abdel Kader Al-Husseini in the harassing of the road traffic.

The December 10th, the first attack organized occurs on a convoy between Bethlehem and Gush Etzion. Ten passengers and members of the escort are killed

The January 25th, an attack of scale takes place in the Arab village of Qastel. Following a call of Abdel Kader Al-Husseini, several villages of the North-East of Jerusalem will join the attack. Others prefer not to join fear of the reprisals to it or are excused near their Jewish neighbors asserting that the call did not relate to the attack of the convoy but the defense of the village close to Study Bureau Suriq.

The countryside for the control of the roads takes a military character growing and focuses the Arab effort of war the March 27th, an important convoy of supply of return of Kfar Etzion is taken in a ambush in the south of Jerusalem. Encircled by several Arab thousands of and with court of Ammunition S, they ask the assistance of the Britanniques after 24 hours of engagements. They must nevertheless give up Arme S and ammunition, but especially all the vehicles with the Arabs.

According to a British report/ratio, the situation of Jerusalem, where a rationing in food is already in application, risk to become desperate after the May 15th. At the same period, the situation is quite as critical for the Jews at other places of the country. The March 26th, the colonies of the Negev are insulated from impossibility of using the coastal road of the south which passes by dense zones of population arabe^,.

Assessment

The assessment of the undergone losses the last week of March is heavy for the Haganah: three large convoys were taken in ambushes, more than 100 killed soldiers and the essence of the fleet of armored vehicles is destroyed.

All in all, Jerusalem - Western " étouffe" gradually, the establishments of Galileo cannot be any more reached but via the valley of the Jordan and the road of Nahariya, both dominated by the Arab villages. Haïfa itself cannot be joined via Tel-Aviv by the principal coastal road, because a " chaîne" Arab villages dominates the northern part of it. In the south, close to Hebron, the four colonies of the Bloc of Etzion are besieged. The score of establishments of the Negev are isolated and the Pipeline which regularly supplies them with water saboté^, They also estimates to have lost sufficient men in this conflict.

The British cannot (or do not want) prevent the entry in Palestine of foreign forces. According to a special Report/ratio of the commission on Palestine:

* In the night of the 20 to the January 21st, a troop made up of 700 Syria NS, in battle dress, equipped well and having mechanized transport enters to Palestine “via TransJordanie”.

*Le January 27th, a “band of 300 men, coming from the outside of Palestine, was established in the area of Safed in Galileo and is probably responsible for the intensive attacks to the mortar and the heavy weapon of the week against the colony of Yechiam. ”

*Dans the night of the 29 to the January 30th, a troop of 950 men of the Armée with Arab release, ordered by Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, transported in 19 Arab vehicles and made up of nonPalestinian enters to Palestine “via the bridge Damiyeh and disperses in the villages of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem”.

In fact well the troops of the Armée with Arab release enter to Palestine between the January 10th and at the beginning of March:

* the regiment Yarmouk under the orders of Adib Shishakli enters in Galileo via the Lebanon the night of the 11 to the January 12th, passes by Safed then settles in the village of Sifted. It is composed of a third of Palestinians and of a quarter of Syria NS;

* the regiment Yarmouk under the orders of Muhammad Tzafa enters to Palestine the night of the 20 to the January 21st via the bridge of Damia on the the Jordan and disperses in Samarie. It establishes its HQ in the north of Samarie, in Tubas. It is made up mainly of Palestinians and Iraq iens;

* the Hittin regiment, under the orders of Madlul Abbas settles in the west of Samarie with its HQ with Tulkarem;

* the regiment Hussein ibn Ali reinforces Haïfa, Jaffa, Jerusalem and several other cities;

* the regiment Qadassia and a unit circassienne remain in reserve with Jab' has

Qawuqji arrives as for him the March 4th with the remainder of logistics and a hundred Bosnian volunteers and installs its HQ in the village of Jab' has, on the road Nablus - Jenin. It assembles also a center of drive for the Palestinian volunteers.

Alan Cunningham, the British High commissioner in Palestine protests highly near the Jordanian government against these incursions with for only reaction seeing Alek Kirkbride complaining about “its hostile tone and its threats” to the minister Bevin. “No serious effort is made to prevent the incursion. ”

The Arab High committee trustful and is decided to be opposed to the achievement of the plan of division. In an official statement of the February 6th to the general secretary, he declares:

the Arabs of Palestine consider that any attempt of the Jews or any power or groups power to establish a Jewish State in an Arab territory is an act of aggression which one will resist by the force. (...)

the Prestige of the United Nations will be been useful better while giving up and by not imposing such an injustice. (...)

the Arabs of Palestine made the solemn declaration in front of the United Nations, God and the history which they would never subject to any power coming to Palestine to impose a partition. The only means to establish a partition is first of all to eliminate them: men, women and children.

At the beginning of February 1948, the moral one of the Jewish leaders is not high: “the distress and despair arise clearly from the notes taken at the meetings of the Mapai party”. “The attacks against the colonies and the main roads took with deprived the Jewish direction, which had underestimated the intensity of the Arab reaction” the situation of the 100 000 Jews of Jerusalem is precarious and the supply of the city is likely to be stopped.

In spite of the reverses on the ground, the Jewish forces and in particular Haganah, remain higher of number and in quality than the Arab forces, as well of the Arab High committee as of the Armée with Arab release. “Haganah remained on static positions of fear to see the British taking the defense of the Arabs in the event of offensive Zionist. It should be waited until the withdrawal of the British is sufficiently important so that any risk of intervention of the latter is isolated”.

First wave of Arab refugees

The logistical support of the Eastern bloc

See also: Problematic of the material at the time of the war of Palestine of 1948

In the context of the embargo imposed by the Western countries on the Palestinian belligerents, Jewish like Arabic, and in the context of the important lack of material, the non-observance of the Embargo and the support Czechoslovakian Logistique decided by Stalin played in the war a part of differently appreciated importance.

Motivations advanced for the choice of Stalin are the Soviet support for the plane of division and an interest to help the Czechoslovakia financially to decrease its frustration with having to give up the Marshall plan.

The width and the concrete role of this support are discussed. The advanced figures by the historians vary. Gelber speaks about “small deliveries arrived by air of Czechoslovakia (…) starting from April 1948”. The historians and the commentators (pro) Palestinian see there a support unbalanced in favor of the Yichouv since the Arab Palestinians did not profit from an equivalent support. It what the historians and commentators answer that this embargo did not relate to the sovereign Arab States which constituted the greatest threat for the Yichouv. However this embargo their is wide in May by the Safety advice of the United Nations, which causes them big problems. In several circumstances, this embargo is not respected besides by Britanniques.^,

It should be noted that the Syria buys in Czechoslovakia, near the same one manufacturing that the Zionists, of the weapons for the Armée with Arab release. These weapons do not arrive nevertheless at the combatants bus of the Jewish agents make run the boat in the Italian port of Bari. After its reinflation, the boat left for Syria in August 1948 but was intercepted by the Israeli navy which seizes the contents of it.

This point is also approached in the section Problème of the material.

Refusal of direct implication of the Arab leaders

Contrary to what can do to think their quarrelsome declarations, the Arab leaders “made very to avoid being directly” implied in the support for the Palestinian cause.

At the top of the the Arab League of October 1947, in Aley, the Iraqi general Ismail Safwat brushes a realistic portrait of the situation. It underlines the best organization and the greatest financial support available to the Jews compared to the Palestinians. He recommends the immediate deployment of the Arab armies at the borders of Palestine, the sending of weapons and ammunition to the Palestinians as well as a financial contribution with height of a million books. Its proposals are disallowed except for the financial support which however, is not followed in the facts. One votes despite everything the formation of a committee technico-soldier to coordinate the “assistance” with the Palestinians. He is based in Cairo and is directed by Sawfat which is assisted by officers Syrian and Lebanese and representatives of the Arab High committee. A delegate transjordanien is also named but it does not take part in the meetings.

In February, with the Cairo, at a meeting of the committee of Safwat, this one still repeats its requests but the Arab governments hope that the Palestinians, helped by the troops of the Armée with Arab release manage to make so that the international community gives up the plan of partition. The following council is planned for beginning April

This refusal to engage directly made that the Arab armies are not prepared with the war when the situation makes their intervention inevitable.

Problem of the material

See also: Problematic of the material at the time of the war of Palestine of 1948

If the Arab countries have of regular armies and official structures guaranteeing sources of supply out of weapons, ammunition and materials to them, it is not the case for the other protagonists of the conflict. For the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews, the situation is more delicate because the British prohibited always the possession of weapons and confiscated all that they found. One and the other thus have neither heavy weapons, nor of the possibilities given to a recognized State and bench. Their forces and their means must remain clandestine.

The Armée with Arab release is in theory financed and equipped by the Arab Ligue. A budget of 1.000.000 of Books was promised with this use following insistences of Ismail Safwat. But in practice the money does not arrive and only Syria gives a real support for the Arab volunteers. On the ground, logistics was completely neglected and their leader Fawzi Al-Qawuqji envisaged to make live the troops with the expenses of the Palestinian population.

The situation of the Jihad Al-Muqadas and the Palestinian forces is worse. They can count on no external support and do not lay out for only funds that those gathered by Hadj Amin Al-Husseini. Their armament is limited to that the combatants have personally. To mitigate this situation, they must be satisfied with weapons bought at the black-market and of the plundering of British warehouses but they do not have sufficient weapons to carry out a war.

The situation of the Jews is a little better in the sense that they have several clandestine installations of manufacture of light weapons and ammunition as of networks which allow of it the clandestine routing in Palestine but far from what is necessary to carry out a war: in November, only a combatant on three is armed and this proportion is assembled to two out of three within Palmach.

However, for David Ben Gourion, the problem is not to carry out a war but to build well an army worthy of a State. The importance that it grants to it is illustrated by a practice that it initiates and who is followed by several successors: to cumulate the posts of Prime Minister and Minister for Defense.

To arm but also equip this army, it sends agents in Europe and in the USA. The latter obtain the necessary support there: light weapons and ammunition start to arrive at the beginning of April. The heavy weapons will be operational as from June.

Until March, the Haganah combat thus the Jihad Al-Muqadas with the same lack of material that the latter and is in inferiority compared to the Armée with Arab release. As from April, it has an armament higher than the Palestinians. After May 15th, at the time of the first weeks of engagements between the Arab Israel and states, the advantage in material will lean in favor of the Arab states. From June, and in particular after the first truce, the advantage in material will lean clearly towards the Israéliens. This evolution of the situation was born following the contacts made as of and before November 1947.

Thus, from Czechoslovakia the agents of the Yichouv obtain the supply of hunters AVIA (old Messerschmitt) and later Supermarine (Spitfire S) but also of guns, machine-guns and ammunition. In stocks of the Second world war, they get all the material essential to the equipment of army as well as the vehicles necessary for transport and logistics. In France, they get armoured tanks in spite of the embargo. The Jewish agents also buy machines for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition and which are at the base of the Israeli industry of armament. In the USA, they buy some bombers and transport aircraft which must allow the routing of the weapons bought in Europe. The Balak operation intended to convey this material begins at the end of March. Ships are also chartered in various wearing of Europe so that the material can be conveyed for on May 15th. To finance all that, Golda Meir managed at the end of December to collect 25.000.000 of dollars at the time of a campaign of gathering of funds carried out near the American sympathizers to the Zionist cause. In a general way, on the 129.000.000 of dollars collected between October 1947 and March 1949 for the Zionist cause, more than 78.000.000 will be devoted to the armament.

Reorganization of Haganah

With the fact “of having brought the Jews, of Palestine and to do everything besides, personally and financially to help Yishouv”, the second great success of Ben Gourion is to transform Haganah of clandestine paramilitary organization into true army.

Ben Gourion names Israel Galili with the head of the Council of the High command of Haganah and divides this one into 6 brigades of infantry - numbered 1 to 6 - which see themselves allotting a theater of precise operation. Yaakov Dori is named chief of staff but it is Yigal Yadin which assumes for it the responsibility on the ground as a chief for the Operations. Palmach ordered by Yigal Allon is divided into 3 brigades of elites - numbered 10 to 12 - and constitutes the mobile force of Haganah.^,

The November 19th 1947, the Conscription becomes obligatory and men and women receive a military training.

End November, the tactical unit is the company and the operational unit the section. Towards March - April, the tactical unit passes on the level of the brigade. These units operate at the operational level starting from April - May at the time of the 2nd phase of the war but remains under-equipped. As of April, Haganah leads operations to the level of the brigade. Starting from July, it will carry out coordinated operations gathering several brigades and starting from October, will operate on the level of division with offensives on several faces simultaneously.

The plan Daleth (March 1948)

Offensive of Haganah (April 1st, 1948 - May 15th, 1948)

The second phase which begins in April mark the turning in the policy from the Haganah which passes from one defensive position to the offensive. The Palestinian armed groups are overcome. The head office of Jerusalem east temporarily raised and the supplied city. The Yichouv takes the control of the main roads which bind the various establishments as well as mixed localities and of Jaffa. The Palestinian company crumbles. A massive exodus engages.

At this time, the Arab forces count approximately 10000 men including 3000 to 5000 serving in the Armée with Arab release. Since the order of general mobilization launched by Ben Gourion in November, manpower of the Haganah constantly increased. The Jewish forces align in the 20000 men, better equipped, trained and organized that the Palestinian Arab forces.

Operation Nahshon (April 5th - April 20th)

Battle of Mishmar Ha' emek (April 4th - April 15th, 1948)

Mishmar Ha' emek is a Kibboutz founded Mapam in 1930 in the Vallée of Jezreel close to the road Haïfa - Megido- Jenin. It is located on what the officers of the Haganah regard as one of the most probable axes of penetration for a “major Arab attack” against the Yichouv ^,.

The April 4th, the Armée with Arab release of Fawzi Al-Qawuqji launches out to the attack of the Kibboutz with the support of its artillery (7 guns of 75 and 3 guns of 88). The attack is pushed back by the members of the kibbutzes assisted by soldiers of the Haganah. The artillery shootings which destroyed to it quasi totality of the kibbutz are stopped by a British column which arrives on the spot on the orders of the general Mac Milan and the April 7th, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji accept a 24 hours cease-fire but require the rendering of the kibbutz. The inhabitants evacuate of them the children and after having consulted Tel-Aviv refuse rendering.

The 8 or April 9th, the Haganah prepared the counter-offensive in accordance with the directives of the Plan Daleth. The operations are entrusted to Yitzhak Sadeh with order of " nettoyer" the area. The battle lasts until the April 15th. The men of Sadeh take all the villages in the neighborhoods and the Armée with Arab release must be folded up on its bases of Jabba. The majority of the inhabitants flee but when they did not flee, they are imprisoned or driven out of force towards Jenin. The villages are then shaven with the explosives. Massacres and plunderings would also have been made by Kibboutz nikim.

According to Morris, the combatants of the Armée with release are demoralized by the reports/ratios on Deir Yassin and the death of Abdel Kader Al-Husseini. During engagements, they would have been generally folded up in first giving up the villagers. Lapierre and Collins reports that Joshua Palmon, in the head of a commando of six men, would have failed to seize the invaluable pieces of artillery and depict the events as a rout for which Fawzi Al-Qawuqji finds excuses extravagant, declaring in particular that the Juifs had 120 tanks, of 6 escadrilles of bombers and hunters and that they were supported by a regiment of nonJewish Russian volunteers.

Whereas the battle is finished, the forces of the Palmach continue the operations of cleaning until the April 19th, destroying several villages and by driving out the population. Villages are also evacuated on instruction of the Arab authorities.

In May, the Irgoun carries out several operations in the area, shaving several villages and principal of the massacres. Quotas of the brigades Golani and Alexandroni attack in the same way several villages and shave them.

Battle of Ramat Yohanan and defection of the Druzes

Following the “fiasco” of Mishmar Ha' emek, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji orders with the regiment Druze of the Armée with Arab release, ordered by Shakib Wahab to carry out operations of diversions to relieve it. This last gives an opinion with its men in several Arab villages with ten kilometers in the east of Haïfa from where it sporadically tackles the traffic and Jewish establishments, of which Ramat Yohanan.

The Haganah and the Kibboutz ims push back the attacks easily and shave the villages from where they launched their attacks. Once their exhausted ammunition, the Druzes of Wahab are folded up on their basis of Shafa' amr with a hundred blessés.^,

The Druzes had already been in contact on several occasions with agents of the Yichouv. Following this defeat, the officers Druzes, without the knowledge of their chief, contact Moshe Dayan to offer their defection and to join the rows of the Haganah. After having referred about it to Yigal Yadin, he refuses the proposal but proposes to them to carry out operations of sabotage on the backs of the Arabs and to push their comrades with the desertion. At the beginning of May, they are 212 soldiers of Wahab who deserted. Becoming aware of the attitude of its men, Wahab meets in his turn of the Jewish liaison officers the May 9th and agrees to cooperate with the Haganah. The parts avoid clashing and Wahad creates a neutral enclave in the center of the Galileo. He does not answer the calls using Acre and avoids being present when the Haganah occupies the fortress of police force of Shafa' amr during its evacuation by the Britanniques. This attitude influences the fate reserved to the Druzes after the war. Being given the good relationships which they had maintained with the Yichouv since 1930 and in spite of their collaboration with the Arab High committee and the Arab Ligue, Ben Gourion insisted that the Druzes (as well as the Circassiens and the Maronites) profit from a particular status compared to the other Arabs.

Sit and attacks mixed localities (April-May 1948)

The Plan Daleth envisages to ensure territorial continuity in the zones allocated the Jews by the plane of division of UNO. According to this strategy, the mixed urban centres or in edge of this zone must be attacked or besieged by the Jews. Tibériade is attacked the April 10th and fall the 16. Haïfa falls the April 23rd after only one day from combat. Jaffa is attacked the April 27th but the British prevent the catch of the city who fall only after their departure. Safed falls the May 11th within the framework from the operation Yiftah, Beisan the May 13rd and Acre the May 17th within the framework of the operation Ben Ami.

The inhabitants flee in mass. On these 6 cities, it remains at the end of May only approximately that 13 000 Arab inhabitants on the 177 000 initial. The phenomenon is equivalent in the suburbs and the majority of the Arab villages of this zone.

Operation Yiftah (April 20th - May 24th)

In the North-West of Galileo, between the lake of Tibériade and Metula (zone called also " finger of Galilée") is the area under Jewish control most distant and the most isolated from centers from the coastal plain. The presence of the Lebanese border in north, the Syrian border to the east and the Arab presence in the remainder of Galileo make of it a probable target of the intervention of the Arab armies. Within the framework of the Plane Daleth, Yigal Yadin entrusts to Yigal Allon the direction of the Yiftah operation whose objectives are the control of all the area and its consolidation for the Arab attack planned for on May 15th.

Yigal Allon has 2 battalions of the Palmach under-manpower and must face the population of Safed and several dozen Arab villages. The situation is made also problematic by the presence of the British although those begin their evacuation of the area. According to its analysis, it is essential to empty the zone of the Arab presence completely to cover its backs, while the exodus would encumber the roads by which must penetrate the Arab forces.

The April 20th, it launches a campaign mixing propaganda, attacks, control of place-strong given up by the British and destruction of the conquered Arab villages. May 1st, of the Arab militiamans based in Syria and to Lebanon launch a counter-offensive against Jewish establishments but without success. The May 11th, Safed falls and the operation finishes the May 24th by the fire of the Arab villages of the valley of Hula. The Syrian forces fail in their offensive on the area and at the end of June, the zone going of Tibériade with Metula while passing by Safed will have been emptied of all its Arab population.

Operation Maccabée (May 8th - May 15th)

In continuity of the Nahshon operation and following the new blocking of the road Tel-Aviv - Jerusalem, Yigal Yadin gives the order to the 5th Guivati brigade and the 10th Harel brigade to operate in the western sector of the corridor Tel-Aviv - Jerusalem in order to make safe it. Several villages change hand on several occasions but end up being controlled by the Jewish forces.

The May 15th in the morning, a patrol of the Guivati brigade penetrates in the enclosure of the police station of Latroun. However, following the advance of the Egyptian army, the brigade receives the order to redeploy more in the south and the soldiers give up the position .

It is about a missed occasion which will be heavy of consequence in the battle for Jerusalem because the position of Latroun makes it possible to control the road between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The 6 attacks which will be carried out enters at the end of May and mid-July against Latroun will fail all and make 168 victims in the Israeli camp.

Meet between Abdallah and Golda Meir (May 10th)

The May 10th, Golda Meyerson and Ezra Danin go secretly to Amman to the palate of Abdallah to discuss the situation with him.

The position of Abdallah is difficult. On a side, its personal ambitions, the promises made with the Yichouv in November and British green light push it to consider an annexation of the Arab part of Palestine without intervention against the future Israeli State. Other, the pressure of its people in reaction to the massacre of Deir Yassin, the Palestinian Exodus and its agreements with the other members of the Arab Ligue push it to be more strongly implied in the war. It also has a strong position, with the British military support like that of the Arab Ligue.

In its newspaper, David Ben Gourion reports the report/ratio of the interview made by Golda Meyerson:

"The meeting was friendly. It seemed worried and had a horrible air. He did not deny that there had been discussion and comprehension between us around a desirable arrangement, precisely which it would take the Arab part of Palestine. (...) But Abdallah says that it could not, on May 10th, to offer to the Jews that an autonomy in a kingdom hachémite widened. He added that while it was not interested by the invasion of the zones allocated at the Jewish state, the situation was volatile. But it advanced the hope which Jordan and Yichouv would conclude an peace agreement once dust would have fallen down.

The analyzes concerning the motivations and the conclusions of this meeting are discussed.

According to Dominique Lapierre and Larry Hakes and Israeli historiography, the objective of the negotiators of the Yichouv is to propose an ultimate peace agreement and to avoid the attack of the Arab armies . At this time, the balance of power is theoretically not favorable for them but Meyerson does not manage to convince the king.

According to Morris, Abdallah reconsiders its promises of November not to be opposed to the plan of division by leaving however in Meyerson the impression which it would make peace with the Jewish State once the war in progress finished.

Avi Shlaim speaks him about a “tacit” agreement to prevent the division of Palestine with the Palestinians. It defends the thesis of a collusion between the Hachémite Kingdom and Yichouv. The historian Yoav Gelber rejects this thesis and devoted a specific work to dismount it.

Pierre Razoux indicates that “the majority of the experts estimate that it is probable” that Ben Gourion and king Abdallah had intended himself to divide the Palestine and that it is only under the pressure of the Arab countries that Abdallah was constrained to break its promise. According to him, this thesis makes it possible to explain the attitude of the British who according to this option would have answered at the same time the promises made by Balfour in Yichouv and those done with the Hachémite S at the time of Lawrence of Arabia. It stresses that “the presence (...) of detachments of the Arab Légion on May 15th close to the strategic positions held by the British takes all his direction thus”.

Ilan Pappé stresses that neither the ministers of Abdallah, nor the Arab world seem to know about the discussions between him and Yichouv, even if its ambitions on Palestine, on the other hand, are known. It also states that Sir Alek Kirkbride and Glubb Pasha think at the time at least the Secretary of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, must know about the double game of king Abdallah.

It is certain on the other hand that Golda Meyerson and king Abdallah does not find an agreement on the statute of Jerusalem: the May 13rd the Arab Légion takes Kfar Etzion located halfway on the strategic road between Hebron and Jerusalem. 127 of the 131 defenders whose 21 women are killed or massacred after their rendering. And the May 17th Abdallah orders in Glubb Pasha to launch the attack against the Holy City.

Fall of Gush Etzion (May 12th - May 13rd)

Friendly Ben operation '(May 13rd - May 22nd)

Within the framework of the Daleth Plan, Yigal Yadin envisaged to carry out an opening in the west of Galileo where several isolated Jewish establishments are. Beyond Acre and to the Lebanese border, this zone is however in the part allotted to the Arabs by the Plan of Partition and on the road planned for the entry of the Lebanese forces in Palestine.

The command is entrusted to Moshe Carmel with the head of the Carmeli brigade. It divides the operation into 2 phases. The first phase begins the May 13rd at the evening with the projection length of the coast from a column of armored vehicles and trucks of Haganah which does not meet any resistance. The forces of the Armée with Arab release present in the zone are folded up without fighting and the operation ends in the catch of Acre the May 18th. In one second phase, of 19 with the May 22nd, the forces of the 21e battalion carry out an opening to the kibbutz Yehi' amndt at the Lebanese border. Several Arab villages are conquered and destroyed in the tread.

Palestinian exodus

Preparations of the Arab League (February-May 1948)

During the last meeting of the the Arab League in February, the Arab leaders placed their conviction in the capacity at the Armée with Arab release to assist the Palestinians and to make give up the international community the plane of partition. At the top of the Cairo of the April 10th, the situation clearly developed, with death Abdel Kader Al-Husseini and unfastens it of Mishmar Ha' emek.

Again, Ismail Safwat calls some with the immediate sending of the Arab armies at the borders of the Palestine and to the need for passing from a policy of raids limited to operations of scale and for the first time, the Arab leaders will discuss the possibility of their intervention in Palestine.

Syria and Lebanon declare ready to intervene immediately but king Abdallah refuses that the forces of the Arab Légion at this time present in Palestine intervene openly in favor of the Palestinians, which irritates the General secretary by the League, Azzam Pasha which declares there that Abdallah makes only yield to the British diktat. Abdallah is declared however ready to send the Légion to assist the Palestinians after the May 15th. In answer, the Syria insists that the Egyptian army also takes part and in spite of the opposition of its Prime Minister, the king Farouk answers the Syrian request favorably but to counter the Jordanian hegemonic aimings more that to come to assistance of the Palestinians.

The April 26th, it announces officially at the Parliament transjordanien " its intention to occupy Palestine" and " invite the Jews to place itself under his jurisdiction. He also promises to protect their life. The Yichouv perceives this advertisement like a declaration of war and encourages the Westerners by diplomatic channel to make pressure on the king to prevent the intervention of it.

The April 30th, Egyptians, Iraqis and Jordanian dispute the command. The king Abdallah receives the honorary title of commander-in-chief and the Iraqi general Aldine Nur Mahmud the title of chief of staff but it is agreed that each army would act in a way independent on its theater of operation.

The May 4th, the Iraqi task force arrives at Mafraq. It comprises a regiment of armoured tanks, a regiment of mechanized infantry and 24 pieces of artillery, for a total of 1500 men. The Syria NS could not assemble a higher force. On their side, the Egyptians gathered two brigades, that is to say approximately 7000 men in the the Sinai.

It is only the May 8th which Foreign Office is certain Arab invasion, although the May 10th, the Lebanese one announce that they would not take part in military operations. Whereas the British officers who study the situation consider the Arab armies, except for the Arab Légion, not being prepared with the engagements to come, the Egyptian officers consider that their projection would be " a parade without the least risk and than their army will be in Tel-Aviv into two semaines". The state of preparation of the army is such as according to Lapierre and Collins, they does not even have charts of Palestine. At this time, the final plans of invasion are not established yet and the British diplomats in vain try to make reconsider the Arab leaders their decision.

The May 15th 1948, the Arab Ligue justifies the armed intervention in Palestine to guarantee the safety and the right to self-determination of its population while Azzam Pasha declares in Cairo: " this war will be a war of extermination and an imposing massacre, about which one will speak like those made by the Mongols and Croisés". The May 13rd, Ismail Safwat resigned in the general indifference.

Synthesis

As of the shortly after the vote of the plane of partition to UNO, the outburst of joies in the Jewish community are counterbalanced by the expression of dissatisfaction within the Arab community. Quickly, violence bursts and goes increasing: attacks, reprisals and against-reprisals making of tens of victims follow one another without nobody managing to control them.

As of January, under the indifferent eye of the British authorities, the operations take a more military turning with the entry in Palestine several regiments of the Armée with Arab release which are distributed in the various coastal towns and reinforce the Galileo and the Samarie. Abdel Kader Al-Husseini also arrives from Egypt at the head of several hundreds of men of the Jihad Al-Muqadas and after having recruited several thousands of others the blockade of the 100.000 Jews of Jerusalem organizes of them. The authorities of the Yichouv try to supply the city via convoys gathering until a hundred armored vehicles to force the stoppings but the operation proves increasingly impracticable and expensive in lives. In March, the tactics paid. The near total of the vehicles of Haganah were destroyed, several hundreds of combatants were killed and the blockade is operative. The situation is all the more critical as Jewish establishments of the North of Galileo and the Negev are isolated.

While the Jewish population received strict instructions obliging it to hold at all costs on all the grounds, the Arab population is subjected to the situation of insecurity than knows the country. During these first months, close to 100 000 Palestinians, mainly from the higher classes, will leave their house to take refuge in sure place abroad or Samarie.

This situation pushes the the United States to reconsider their support for the Plan of partition, but reassures the Arab Ligue on their false analysis of the capacity of the Palestinians, reinforced by the Armée with Arab release, to prevent the division. On their side, the February 7th 1948, the British choose officially the option of the support for the annexation of the Arab part of the Palestine by the Transjordanie. Success doubles by the death of the Palestinian leader Abdel Kader Al-Husseini during the engagements. During these events, the April 9th, troops of the Irgoun and Lehi perpetrate a massacre in Deir Yassin which has an significant impact on the Palestinian population.

In same time, the first operation of scale of the Armée with Arab release shows a rout with Mishmar Ha' emek and by the defection of the Druzes

Within the framework of the realization of the territorial continuity envisaged by the Plane Daleth, the forces of the Haganah, the Palmach and the Irgoun launch out to the conquest of the mixed localities. The Palestinian company crumbles. Tibériade, Haïfa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre fall, throwing on the roads of the exodus more than 250.000 Palestinians.

The Britanniques now essentially finished their withdrawal. The situation pushes the leaders of the close Arab countries to intervene but their preparation is not at the point and they could not gather the forces which could have tipped the scales. The majority of the Palestinian hopes lie in the Arab Légion of the king Abdallah de Transjordanie but this last ambitionne to annex a maximum of the territory of the Palestine agent and plays on the two tables, being in contact also with the Jewish authorities.

In preparation with the offensive, the Haganah lance successfully the operations Yiftah and Friendly Ben 'to make safe the establishments of Galileo and the Kilshon^operation, to ensure a continuous face in the sector of Jerusalem. The meeting of the May 10th between Golda Meir and Abdallah followed by the catch and the massacre of Kfar Etzion the May 13rd by the Arab Légion enable to foresee that the battle for Jerusalem will be without mercy. The May 14th 1948, David Ben Gourion proclaims the independence of the State of Israel and the war enters a third phase with the entry of the Arab armies in Palestine.

Appendices

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