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The first Arab-Israeli War: 1948-9
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In the afternoon of May 14, the last day of the Mandate, Ben Gurion proclaims the creation of the state of Israel and signs the Declaration of Independence. On that same day Egyptian aircraft bomb Tel Aviv. On May 15, when the last British soldiers leave, Iraqi troops cross the Jordan. That night Syrian troops with thirty armoured vehicles come down from the Golan Heights, while Israeli soldiers march seven miles into Lebanon to blow up a strategic bridge. The first Arab-Israeli War has begun.
Areas of Palestine are clearly identifiable by the relative number of Jews and Arabs in each, forming the basis of the UN plan for partition. It immediately becomes of paramount importance for each side to defend and if possible to enlarge the territory allotted to it by the UN. On the Israeli side this is helped by the increasing panic felt by ordinary Palestinian villagers, many of them opting already for flight to other parts of Palestine or to neighbouring Arab countries. In other parts of the newly declared Israeli state Arabs are forcibly expelled from their villages. By the end of June more than 300,000 are refugees, to be followed soon by many others – thus beginning the problem which more than sixty years later remains a major obstacle to achieving peace in the region.
During the first two days of the war troops from Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt advance on different fronts. They number in all about 15.000 men. But Israel is by now very much better prepared for conflict than could have been expected. Six months previously, at the time of the UN resolution, its army, an enlarged version of Haganah, had numbered 4,500; now it is more than 36,000. The UN desperately tries to negotiate a truce between the sides, to give a breathing space and the opportunity to achieve a political settlement. A four-week truce (known now as the First Truce) begins on June 11.
The ceasefire itself holds for all but the last day of the four weeks, but both sides disregard its terms by taking the opportunity to prepare for its end, in particular by moving fresh troops to the front lines. The Israelis also almost double the size of their army (from about 35,000 to more than 60,00) and contrive a significant increase in their armaments and ammunition.
During the four-week truce the negotiator appointed by the UN, the Swedish Count Bernadotte, proposes a new partition plan which is rejected by both sides, so full-scale fighting resumes on July 8. But after further UN efforts a second truce begins ten days later. This time it holds longer (no time limit has been placed on it at the start) and in September Bernadotte proposes a new partition. Again it is rejected by both sides. But it also provokes a violent response from Lehi, the most extreme of the Israeli paramilitary groups. On the day after the new proposal of partition is published, September 17, they ambush and assassinate Count Bernadotte, fearing that the Knesset might accept his terms (unknown to Lehi, its members have already voted to reject it).
Five days after the assassination, on September 22, the Knesset passes into law an act, the Area of Jurisdiction, which dramatically alters the nature of the conflict. Instead of appearing to defend the area allotted to it in the various partition plans, the state is now officially fighting to extend it. The act declares that the area already captured and any land to be captured in future is annexed as part of Israel.
By the end of the war Israel's territory has been extended to the north and to the south and by the occupation of part of the West Bank. The other region of the West Bank, bordering the Jordan river, is captured during the war by the forces of Transjordan. In the south Egypt has gained control of Gaza.
But Israel's increase of territory has created an extra 600,000 Palestinian refugees, fleeing from their farms and villages. By 1952, just three years after the departure of the British, 1,400,000 people, a quarter of Israel's population, are housed in properties owned by Palestinian Arabs.
The war years have also revealed a factor that will remain a constant in the region. The Arab nations have been shown to be disorganized and weakened by mutual rivalries, while the state of Israel, less than a year old, has discovered a national cohesion, a passionate commitment by all its citizens and a military strength that will stand it in very good stead in future conflicts.
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Post-war tensions: 1967-71
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Although full-scale war has ended, the years after 1949 are never peaceful. Israel, surrounded by hostile states openly committed to its destruction, is subject to constant raids across the border from all directions and sometimes reacts with extreme cautionary reprisals.
At this stage there is no Palestinian authority to control the region. The effective authority is the Arab League, established in Cairo in 1945 with six members – Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia. In 1948, during the Arab-Israeli war, the league sets up the All-Palestine Government, a body largely symbolic since it is based in Cairo, is under the influence of Egypt, has minimal executive powers and can exercise those only in Gaza, the part of Palestine captured by the Egyptians in the war.
In April 1950 Jordan announces its annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a move strongly opposed by other members of the Arab League. The king, Abdullah I, changes the name of the country to Jordan, reflecting its extension to both sides of the river. And to create a cohesive country within its new borders Jordan offers citizenship to Palestinians. An unintended result is that the country is now effectively a safe haven for the fedayeen, militants dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
Two such groups emerge in the mid-1960s. The first of the two, founded in 1964, is the Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine, soon to be known by an acronym, Fatah, deriving from its name in Arabic. Its constitution states that one of its goals is 'the eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence'. .Its leader is Yasser Arafat who becomes – and remains for another forty years – the internationally accepted representative of the Palestinians. His influence is further emphasized when he also becomes, in 1969, the leader of another large group dedicated to the same cause – the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.
The PLO, first proposed at an Arab summit in Cairo in 1965, is designed to combine the diplomatic and financial strength of Israel's Arab neighbours, sharing the expressed intention of 'liquidating Israel' (a phrase in the founding manifesto).
These two groups, Fatah and PLO, become so powerful and dangerous in Jordan that they represent what is often described as a state within a state. From 1967, when Israel defeats Jordan and takes control of the West Bank, the crisis east of the Jordan intensifies, becoming in effect a war between militant Palestinian groups and the Jordanian army. Finally, in 1971, Jordan prevails and succeeds in expelling all Palestinian militants from the country.
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Refugees and settlers: 1967-83
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The effects on the entire region of the 1967 War are massive. Israel has been able to occupy a vast swathe of Palestinian territory, consisting of the West Bank up to the Jordan river and east Jerusalem (taken from Jordan). The taking of the West Bank means that more than a million Palestinian refugees, some from the 1948 war and some from this one, are now in territory occupied by Israel – potentially storing up terrible problems in the future.
There is initial hope by many that this situation can be used to secure international guarantees for Israel's security within the 1948 borders. The country is now in control of a vast territory, with a huge indigenous population, that can be used as bargaining power in a negotiation of land for peace. But the chance of this happening soon diminishes owing to Israel's new policy of building Jewish settlements in many parts of the occupied territory.
This policy is reinforced after 1977 when the Israeli political party Likud heads the government for the first time after nearly 30 unbroken years with Labour in power. The new prime minister is Menachem Begin. In broad terms the difference between the two Israei parties is that Labour has been left-wing and secular, judging the relationship with the Palestinians in practical terms of Israel's security. The party is therefore willing to make compromises where they coincide with that overriding purpose. Likud is more right-wing and dogmatically more religious, in the sense of seeing the Jewish homeland as the entire area described in the Bible three thousand years ago. One of Begin's first acts on coming to power is to make it government policy always to refer to the West Bank as Judaea and Samaria.
Begin's renaming of the West Bank has an immediate practical influence on Israeli policy. If this area is to be part of Israel, it makes strategic sense to build more settlements in different parts of the territory. The more scattered but well-defended settlements there are, the harder it will be for a viable Palestine state to be established. This chimes with Likud's categorical rejection of the two-state solution.
The scale and pace of settlement increases, even though President Carter warns Israel that America is strongly opposed, emphasizing that settlement in occupied territories as illegal under international law. In spite of this, Israelis are now being enticed to settle with the offer of financial benefits – cheaper houses, lower mortgage rates, tax advantages. By 1983 there are 20,000 settlers in the Palestinian territories, many of them very close to densely populated Arab areas, and a target is announced of 100,000 by the end of the decade.
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