Chapter 6. The First Truce, 11 June to 8 July 1948, and the International Community and the War
The truce: Jews agree, Arabs deliberate
"Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on 22 May had called for a truce, to begin forty-eight hours later—while, under British threat of veto, avoiding branding the Arab states the “aggressors.” The Israelis agreed immediately. But the Arabs demurred, their generals still hoping for victory or at least to overrun more of Palestine. The British were unhappy: their Jordanian wards had occupied the territory agreed upon, more or less, in the February meeting between Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul Huda and Foreign Secretary Bevin but were now enmeshed in a war with the Jews that they might well lose. And the advance of the other Arab armies had bogged down—indeed, all were threatened with defeat, which the world might interpret as a British defeat and the Arab world as a fruit of British perfidy (the Arabs never tired of portraying the British as Zionism’s patron and ally—much as leading Zionists never relented in depicting the British as the Arabs’ patron and backer). Last, against the backdrop of the pan-Arab assault, the British feared that Zionist pressure on Washington would persuade the Americans to lift their embargo and arm the Israelis, with dire consequences for Arab arms and Anglo-American amity"
"The problem was the Arab side: all the regimes were fearful of the “street,” and each leader feared his peers; agreement to cease fire would immediately be interpreted, and vilified, as weakness if not cowardice or complicity with the enemy. The publics believed what their newspapers and leaders had told them since 15 May—that the expeditionary forces were beating the Jews and driving on Tel Aviv and Haifa. They would not understand agreement to a ceasefire. As Lebanese prime minister Riad al-Sulh—who “invited himself to tea” on 27 May with the British minister in Beirut, Houstoun Boswall—put it: “Any Arab leader who had accepted the ceasefire appeal unconditionally . . . would, in the present state of public opinion, have done so at the risk of his life. (Iraqi Director General for Foreign Affairs has told me the same thing.) Result of anything that could be interpreted by peoples as weak would be chaos with students and workmen assuming the function of government in the Arab states.” Moreover, the Arab leaders understood that a truce “would be more to the advantage of the Jews than it could be to the Arabs.”6"
Truce violations: Israeli's take the initiative
"The Arabs violated the truce by reinforcing their lines with fresh units and by preventing supplies from reaching isolated Israeli settlements; occasionally, they opened fire along the lines. Above all, the situation of Jewish Jerusalem remained precarious—because of the military threat by the Arab Legion, the shortage of supplies, and the political separation from the Jewish state, which weighed heavily on the population—and the Israeli Cabinet anticipated mass flight from the town during the truce. Ben-Gurion declared, “We must prevent panic flight with all the means at our disposal.”15 The Israelis, for their part, also moved additional troops to the fronts. But they dramatically changed the strategic situation in their favor by systematically violating the arms and military personnel embargoes, bringing in both clandestinely by air and sea."
"At the start of the truce, a senior British officer in Haifa predicted that the four weeks “would certainly be exploited by the Jews to continue military training and reorganization while the Arabs would waste [them] feuding over the future division of the spoils.”16 He was right. As one British official subsequently put it: “The Arabs lost the initiative throughout Palestine during the four weeks and the Jews were able to re-equip themselves.”17 In his memoirs, Nasser highlighted this by recalling the situation on his front, around Isdud: the Israeli side “buzzed with activity” while on the Egyptian side there was lethargy, “laxity,” and “laughter.”18 In addition, the Israelis exploited the truce for raiding and occupying sites along the lines that would give them advantage when and if fighting resumed."
"During the invasion weeks and the First Truce, the Yishuv managed to convert its pre-state “national institutions” rapidly into the agencies and offices of a full-blown state. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the military domain. The Haganah quickly made the transformation from a semilegal underground/militia into a full-fledged army and by the end of the truce was far stronger, in terms of command and control, manpower, and weaponry. The IDF’s manpower almost doubled between 15 May and 9 July, the number in uniform rising from some thirty to thirty-five thousand to sixtyfive thousand. Perhaps as many as four thousand of the new recruits were veterans of the Allied armies (British, American, Canadian, Czech) of World War II who came from abroad to help out. Most went home after the war. These veterans included specialists in the crucial specialized branches— sailors, doctors, tank men, logistics and communications experts, air- and ground crews."
The Bernadotte plan
"On 26 June the mediator set his signature to “preliminary” proposals—a “basis [for] . . . further discussion”—for a settlement. He recognized three basic facts: that
(1) Israel existed (or as he put it a few weeks later: “It is there. It is a small state, precariously perched on the coastal shelf with its back to the sea, defiantly facing a hostile Arab world”);27
(2) that the Jordanian takeover of the core area of the proposed Palestinian Arab state—the West Bank—was irreversible; and
(3) that the partition borders were dead.
But he misread the military situation. He still believed that there was a “military balance” between Israel and the Arab states, which he could capitalize on—whereas in reality, the balance had already shifted and would progressively shift further in Israel’s favor.28 Bernadotte finessed the November 1947 UN decision to establish a Palestinian Arab state (alongside Israel) and proposed that a (vague) “Union” be established between the two sovereign states of Israel and Jordan (which now included the West Bank); that the Negev, or part of it, be included in the Arab state and that Western Galilee, or part of it, be included in Israel; that the whole of Jerusalem be part of the Arab state, with the Jewish areas enjoying municipal autonomy; and that Lydda Airport and Haifa be “free ports”—presumably free of Israeli or Arab sovereignty.29 He also asserted that the refugees have the “right to return home without restriction and to regain possession of their property.”30 The proposals were transmitted to the two sides on 27 June."
"The core idea, of reducing the size of the Jewish state by transferring the Negev to the Arabs while compensating Israel with (the much smaller) Western Galilee, was rooted in the British desire that the Arabs—preferably Jordan—hold the Negev so that territorial continuity between the eastern and western Arab lands—and between Britain’s bases in Egypt and Iraq—would be maintained. This would have the added advantage of giving Jordan, Britain’s most loyal regional client, an outlet, in Gaza-Majdal, to the Mediterranean.31 Moreover, the “exchange” (roughly) reflected the military status quo, following Israel’s conquest of Western Galilee in Operation Ben-gAmi and Egypt’s (partial) conquest of the Negev. The Israelis and Soviets believed that Bernadotte’s ideas emanated from the Foreign Office, but this is not clear from the available documentation."
"A week later, the Israelis rejected the Bernadotte “plan,” especially offended by the award of Jerusalem, with its majority Jewish population, to the Arabs. But they agreed to an extension of the truce by a month. The Arabs rejected both the plan, which included, of course, acceptance of the Jewish state, and a truce extension."
"But the other Arab governments, having failed to attain their territorial objectives or the destruction of the Jewish state, and believing that the truce had favored the Jews, and egged on by opposition charges of weakness or treachery, pressed for a resumption of warfare. This or that Arab leader may have fathomed the real balance of forces—Syrian prime minister Neguib Armenazi, for example, was “personally convinced that the Arab States will all have to concede the existence of a Jewish State,” reported one British interlocutor32—but none except the Jordanians were able to translate this into policy. As IDF intelligence explained, probably quoting an (unnamed) Arab agent: “The Arab states must continue the war for reasons of national pride, otherwise there is a danger of the collapse of their political regime[s].”33 The Arabs were certain to renew the war at the end of the truce, “and possibly even before then,” concluded Israeli intelligence.34"