The six months between the UN vote for partition in November, 1947, and the establishment of Israel in May, 1948, can best be understood as a Palestinian civil war: a bloody fight between Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs promised a war of annihilation and the Jews were at a disadvantage. David Ben Gurion ordered the Jews not to retreat from even an inch of territory allotted to them by the UN.

THE PLOT

The British announced they were would be ending the Mandate and leaving Palestine at midnight on May 14, 1948. Ben Gurion understood that a civil war would follow and that he had two challenges: defend the strategically-disadvantageous territory the Jews were allocated from the UN while also prepare for a full-scale war with the Arabs he knew was coming once the Jewish state would be declared.

The Arabs greeted the partition vote with a wave of violence and massacre against the Jews. Especially unsafe were the roads between Jewish settlements, which were made impassable thanks to Arab snipers and ambushes. More isolated Jewish villages were cut off. Although the Jewish forces generally refrained from attacking Arab villages unless those villages attacked them first, the Irgun had long given up its policy of restraint, and the Haganah was reconsidering, too. Preemptive attacks, reprisals, and the occasional terrorist attack were initiated by the Jewish forces. It was an incredibly bloody fight all around.

The Arabs also carried out massacres against Jews throughout the Middle East. Three days after the UN vote Arabs rioted in the port city of Aden, Yemen. They murdered 87 Jews, destroyed the Jewish quarter, razed businesses and synagogues, and ended a thousand years of Adeni Jewish history. There were similar stories all over, from Syria to Iraq. Meanwhile, the Arab states were egging on the civil war in Palestine, sending thousands of fighters into Palestine to keep the war going. 

The main road leading to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv was cut off by the Arabs, effectively trapping 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem without food, water, and humanitarian supplies. Jewish forces tried to retake Gush Etzion, a group of kibbutzim south of the city which had been blockaded by the Arabs. In January, 1948, the Haganah sent 35 fighters to try to sneak in. At dawn they came under attack and were quickly overwhelmed. What became known as the Convoy of 35 were all killed in the ensuing battle, a huge blow to the Jews’ morale. 

The civil war saw a mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs that continued through the Israeli War of Independence. Around 250,000-300,000 Palestinians became refugees during the civil war. The reasons were varied. Mostly they left out of fear, as the civil war raged around their homes, threatening safety. They were heavily influenced by Arab propaganda, which portrayed the Jews as bloodthirsty murderers. The Jews also expelled Arabs living in territory  of strategic importance. Tens of thousands of Palestinians followed the exodus of their political, business, social, and cultural leaders, who fled first. 

The civil war was chaotic. Arabs attacks were largely disorganized. The Jewish defense bounced from one desperate siege to the next. The United Nations refused to enforce its partition resolution. The British were not helpful in preparing an orderly and peaceful transition. Innocent civilians on all sides were facing incredible hardship and violence.

THE PEOPLE

Yitzhak Rabin: Warrior God and key commander in the Palmach. Rabin was placed in charge of the Jewish forces attempting to retake the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, to reach and supply the Jews trapped behind enemy lines.

Ghassan Kanafani: a Palestinian Arab just twelve years old when his family left Akko, he became a renowned writer of Palestinian literature. His famous short story Jaffa: Land of Oranges, recounted his experience of the exodus, and the emotional and psychological impact on Palestinians who suddenly became refugees. He was killed in 1972 by Israeli forces due to his involvement with a terrorist organization.

THE BIG IDEAS

Rather than a unified army, the Jews had four main defense groups. The biggest was the Haganah, headed by Ben Gurion. The Palmach was the special operations division of the Haganah, much smaller but with combat experience. The Irgun was the right-wing Revisionist group under Menachem Begin. And the Lehi was a small, ultra-right terrorist outfit. Although the Yishuv’s general policy was only to attack in retaliation or pre-emption, the standard proved impossible to maintain in the face of the civil war.

Haifa saw the beginning of the Palestinian Arab exodus. Between 250-300,000 Palestinians became refugees during the civil war. Some refugees were created when the Jews expelled them from strategic territory. Some were created when their own Arab leaders ordered them to leave. The majority were created because they left voluntarily but not willingly, forced to by the terrifying circumstances around them over which they had no control. They  were heavily influenced by Arab propaganda that made the Jews out to be bloodthirsty murderers.

By March, 1948, the siege of Jerusalem, had successfully isolated 100,000 Jews, who were facing starvation and thirst. Children were sent into nearby fields to search for edible plants. The Jews were unable to retake the road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and attempts to capture other strategic territory, such as Gush Etzion, also failed, at great cost. The siege posed an existential dilemma for the future Jewish state.

FUN FACTS

By the beginning of 1948, around 1,000 Arabs, 700 Jews, and 100 British soldiers had been killed in the fighting.

The Old City of Jerusalem, a deeply symbolic location, had about 1,700 Jews living there, out of 100,000 Jews in the rest of the city.

The first soldiers buried at Mt. Herzl, Israel’s national military cemetery, were the 35 members of the Convoy of 35 who fell at Gush Etzion.

© Jason Harris 2020