Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” Middle East Journal, Volume 3, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 373-405 Reprinted with permission of The Middle East Institute, October 2021 In this 1949 article published in Middle East…
From 1898 to 1948, Zionism evolved from an idea to a concrete reality: the actual establishment of the Jewish state, Israel. Slowly, a few immigrating Jews created facts by linking people to the land. For half a century, fortuity and fortitude made the Zionist undertaking a reality. They exhibited pragmatism and gradually constructed a nucleus for a state. Through perseverance Zionists empowered themselves.
By Moshe Naor “Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War,” Journal of Contemporary History, SAGE Publications, 2008, published with permission of the author. The 1948 Israeli-Arab War is described in most research as…
Kenneth W. Stein, “One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” in Laurence Silberstein (ed.), New Perspectives on Israeli History: The Early Years of the State, New York University Press,…
Otherwise known as Israel’s War of Independence, or, “the nakbah” or disaster to the Arab world because a Jewish state was established, the war was fought between the newly established Jewish state of Israel opposed by Palestinian irregulars, and armies from five Arab states. Official beginning of the war is usually given as May 14, 1948, the date Israel declared itself an independent Jewish state, but the war’s first of four phases began in November 1947. Lasting for two years, the war ended with armistice agreements signed in 1949 between Israel and four Arab states.
In “The Arabs and the Approaching War with Israel, 1945-1948,” Yaacov Shimoni reviews in detail the period from the early 1940s to May 1948, examining decisions made by Arab leaders toward Palestine and Zionism. He concludes that disunity among Arab states, jealousies, and disorganization plagued Arab preparations for the expected coming war with the Zionists.
Apart from the Zionist movement and the Jewish community in Palestine, the role of President Truman, however, was the most important factor enabling the establishment of the Jewish state.
In the months before the UN vote to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states in November 1947, the Jewish Agency leadership there had to overcome a series of foreign policy obstacles working against the Jewish state’s establishment.
Steady disintegration of Palestinian Arab society from 1945-1949 is detailed by five Arab and non-Arab historians citing local social cleavages, economic impoverishment, fear, indebtedness, and political dysfunction.
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