Background: A brief history

The two Arab camps

"The steady progress in the achievement of self-determination among the Arab peoples of the Levant; the reality of foreign, Christian imperial rule, albeit benign and constructive; the political separation of Palestine from (French-ruled) Syria-Lebanon; and the influx of Zionist immigrants with deeply held national aspirations, triggered a Palestinian Arab nationalist ‘awakening’. But almost from inception, the Palestinian Arab national movement was rent into two camps, whose growth and polarisation was the chief characteristic of the politics of Arab Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. One camp, assembled around the Husseini clan and the person of Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini, from 1921–1922 the Mufti of Jerusalem and the head of the Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) and, from 1936, chairman of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), soon demanded an immediate termination of the Mandate, the cessation of Jewish immigration and the establishment of an Arab state in all of Palestine, vaguely promising civil and religious rights for the Jews already in the country. The ‘Opposition’ camp, led by the Nashashibıs, another aristocratic Jerusalem clan, was generally more moderate, less insistent on immediate independence, and more conciliatory, at least in tone, towards the Yishuv (occasionally accepting Jewish Agency bribes in exchange for softening its criticism of Zionism). The ‘Opposition’ never really agreed to Jewish statehood in all or part of Palestine but during the late 1930s was willing to accept an at least temporary confederation of parts of Palestine with King Abdullah’s Transjordan. But the Husseinis generally set the tone of Palestinian Arab politics – toward Zionism, Britain and Transjordan – and from the mid-1930s dominated the national movement."

Arab Revolt

"The revolt began with sporadic acts of violence and a countrywide general strike. It was directed in the first instance against the British and, secondly, against what were seen as their Zionist wards. It spread from the towns to the countryside, and won for the Husseinis and their allies the unchallenged leadership of the national movement. From mid-1937, Opposition families became a target of Husseini terrorism and suppression; during late 1938–1939, the Nashashibis in effect collaborated with the British (and the Zionists) in helping to crush the revolt. But by its end, in spring 1939, the Opposition had expired as a serious political force. The crushing of the revolt vastly weakened Palestinian society, both militarily and politically, and paved the way for its defeat in 1948.

But the revolt persuaded Whitehall, beset as it was by the prospect of a multi-front war against Germany, Japan and Italy, of the advisability of maintaining tranquillity in the Middle East. Initially, the British had hoped that the dispatch to Palestine in November 1936 of the fact-finding Royal Commission headed by Lord Peel would propitiate the Arabs. But in July 1937, Peel tabled his report, proposing that the country be partitioned into a Jewish state (on 20 per cent of the land) and an Arab area (on more than 70 per cent) to be joined to Transjordan. A strip of land – including Jerusalem and Bethlehem with an outlet to the Mediterranean at Jaffa – was earmarked for continued British rule. But while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation, the AHC flatly rejected them – and in September 1937 renewed the revolt."

1939 White Paper

"Whitehall swiftly distanced itself from the idea of partition and, while crushing the revolt (the message to the Arabs was that Britain was not to be messed with), took vigorous steps to appease the Palestinians and, through them, the Arab world in general.

The main step was the publication in May 1939 by Whitehall of a new White Paper on Palestine, amounting to a repudiation of the Balfour Declaration policy that had, with ups and downs, guided British policy since 1917. The new White Paper severely curbed Jewish immigration, in effect leaving millions of Jews stranded in Europe and about to fall victim to the Nazi extermination machine, and almost completely prohibited Jewish land purchases. It also promised the Arabs, who would remain in the majority, independence within 10 years."

Palestinian Jewish society

"Over the years, the Yishuv’s leaders and political parties had managed to forge the institutional tools for achieving and perpetuating statehood. Its ‘National Institutions’ almost from the first were built with an eye to conversion into institutions of state.4 By May 1948, it had a shadow government, with almost all the institutions (and, in some fields, such as agriculture and settlement, an excess of institutions) of state in place and ready to take over. The Jewish Agency (JA), with its various departments (political, finance, settlement, immigration), became the Provisional Government, the departments smoothly converting into ministries; the JA Executive (JAE) and, subsequently, the ‘People’s Administration’ (minhelet ha‘am) became the Cabinet; the Haganah became the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). By 1948, the Yishuv was in many respects functioning like ‘a state within a state’; the National Council (hava‘ad hale’umi) and the JA, together with municipalities, local councils and the Histadrut, the trades union federation, in coordination with the Mandate Government departments, provided the Yishuv with most essential services (health, education, social welfare, industrial development). The Yishuv taxed itself, the funds going to various services and goals. The Histadrut taxed its members to provide health services and unemployment allowances; the Jewish National Fund (JNF) levied taxes for afforestation, land purchase and settlement infrastructure; special taxes were instituted to purchase arms and cover the costs of immigrant absorption. As well, the Yishuv received continuous financial aid from the Diaspora, with special, large-scale emergency funding during 1947–1949."

Military preparation

"by September 1947, possessed 10,489 rifles, 702 light machine-guns, 2,666 submachine guns, 186 medium machine-guns, 672 two-inch mortars and 92 three-inch mortars. (The Haganah had no military aircraft, tanks or artillery at the start of the 1948 war.) Many more weapons were purchased, or stolen, from the withdrawing British, during the first months of hostilities. Moreover, the Yishuv had a relatively advanced arms producing capacity. Between October 1947 and July 1948, the Haganah’s arms factories poured out 3 million 9mm bullets, 150,000 mills grenades, 16,000 submachine guns (‘Sten Guns’) and 210 three-inch mortars.5

From November 1947, the Haganah, with some 35,000 members (a proportion of them women), began to change from a territorial militia into a regular army. Apart from a handful of fulltime ‘shock companies’ (the Palmah, established with British help in 1941 and numbering 2,000–3,000 troops), few of the units had been well trained by December 1947, and it was only gradually, over December 1947–May 1948, that the full membership was mobilised and placed in uniform on a permanent footing. Haganah members usually trained for 3–4 days a month, for the rest being fulltime civilians. But the organisation had a relatively large pool of British Army veterans and a highly committed, internally trained officer corps. By March–April 1948 it fielded still under-equipped ‘battalions’ and ‘brigades’; by the start of June, it had become the ‘IDF’, an army, and consisted of 11–12 brigades, including artillery and armoured units, and an embryonic air force and navy.6 By May 1948, the Haganah had mobilised and deployed 35,780 troops – 5,000–10,000 more than the combined troop strength of the regular Arab armies that invaded Palestine on 15–16 May (though the invaders were far better equipped and, theoretically, better trained).7 The Haganah’s successor, the IDF, by July 1948 had 63,000 men under arms.8

But, perhaps even more important than the numbers, which meant that by July 1948 one person in 10 (or one out of every 2–3 adult males) in the Yishuv was mobilised, was the Haganah’s organisation, from its highly talented, centralised General Staff, with logistical, intelligence and operations branches, down to its brigade and battalion formations. By April–May the Haganah was conducting brigade-size offensives, by July, multi-brigade operations; and by October, divisional, multi-front offensives. By mid-May, it had thoroughly beaten the Palestinian militias and their foreign auxiliaries; by October–December, it had beaten the invading Arab armies."

Palestinian Arab society: Divisions between elites and poor

"The Palestinian Arab defeat owed much to the society’s shortcomings and divisions. Palestinian society was poor, agriculturally based, largely illiterate,9 politically and socially primitive and disorganised, and deeply divided. The rifts in Palestinian society – between town and country, Husseinis and Nashashibis, Muslims and Christians, beduin and settled communities – were rooted in history."

"But it is well to recognise that there was also a parallel process at work during the 19th century, namely the immigration to Palestine of tens of thousands of Maghrebi (North African), Egyptian, Bosnian, Kurdish and Caucasian peasants and beduin tribes, either on their own volition or by Ottoman design. Many of these immigrants established new villages, particularly in the less populated lowlands of the Galilee and in the Coastal Plain. The names of some of the villages bore testimony to these immigrant waves; for example, there were a number of Kafr Misrs (‘Misr’ is Egypt in Arabic) and two ‘Kirads’ (indicating Kurdish origins). Later, the relative prosperity and order of Mandate Palestine drew thousands of additional Arab immigrants from the neighbouring countries, especially to the large towns"

"The Palestinian national movement took root mainly among the urban elite and middle classes, but over the decades of British rule, in which there was a major growth in education and literacy, the national idea began to filter down to the urban and peasant masses. The fact that each bout of anti-Zionist (and anti-British) rioting during the Mandate (1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936–1939) was larger than its predecessor reflected the growth and spread of political consciousness among the masses. In the course of the Mandate, in part as a result of improvements in education, the politicisation of the urban elites and growing middle class, and the threatening Zionist enterprise, villagers became increasingly politicised...

But, by and large, the villager still maintained primary allegiances to family, clan and village; those were the focuses of his interest. Rural society was based on the village rather than the district or the country. And the experience of 1936–1939, in which villages were sucked into the maw of the revolt and devastated thereby, sufficed to cure many of political activism.15 As late as the 1940s, for most villages and villagers politics and the national struggle were remote, playthings of sophisticated city folk. As one Arab memorialist from the Galilee village of Mi‘ilya put it, ‘The Mi‘ilyan’s world was his village – the land and the people. Matters of national or even regional politics were the concern of [only] one or two people in the village.’16"

Palestinian Arab society: Economy

"The enormous growth in transportation affected agriculture, commerce and industry. Commercial ties with Europe were channelled through chambers of commerce and an efficient banking network had developed in the towns by the end of World War II. The war was crucial; the credit of the largest Arab bank, the ‘Arab Bank’, grew between 1941 and 1945 eighteenfold, and deposits twentyfold. Industry, too, had begun to develop.19

Some 30–35 per cent of the urban Arabs were employed in light industry, crafts and construction, 15–17 per cent in transportation, 20–23 per cent in commerce, 5–8 per cent in professions, 5–7 per cent in public service and 6–9 per cent in other services. By the late 1940s, Palestinian Arab society was in the throes of rapid urbanisation. British rule and, particularly, the onset of World War II had triggered a small measure of industrialisation. Yishuv intelligence identified the beginnings of a change from ‘the typical primitive workshop’ economy to ‘modernisation’. Sweet and chocolate factories and three glass factories were established; there was a significant growth of the textile industry; and a modern cigarette plant was set up in Haifa.20 By the end of the Mandate, there were in Arab Palestine some 1,500 industrial workshops and small factories employing altogether 9,000 workers with an average of 5–6 employees per workshop. (By contrast there were 1,900 industrial workshops and plants in Jewish Palestine, employing 38,000 workers, an average of 19–21 workers per plant.) Other Arabs worked in Jewish-owned plants and in British-run plants and services. Altogether, the Arab proletariat numbered some 35,000, with 5,000 employed by oil companies and 8,000 in the government railway service. During the war, tens of thousands were employed by the government in public works and 30,000 in British Army camps (though most of these were laid off in the immediate post-war years).21"

Palestinian Arab society: Divisions between elites

"In the late 1940s, 28 of the 32 members of the AHC were from the ‘Ayan; the remaining four were bourgeoisie; none were peasants or proletarians. Some 24 were of urban extraction, and only four or five originated in the countryside. The wide gulf of suspicion and estrangement between urban and rural Arab Palestine was to underlie the lack of coordination between the towns and their rural hinterland during the hostilities. The elite families had no tradition of, or propensity for, national service and their members did not do military service with the Turks, the British or neighbouring Arab armies. Almost none of the military leaders of the 1936–1939 rebellion were from the ‘Ayan. It was mainly a peasant rebellion, with the town dwellers restricting themselves largely to civil protest (demonstrations, riots and a general strike) and, at a later stage, to inter-factional terrorism.23"

"During the 1930s, the elite families set up formal political parties. In 1935 the Husseinis established the Palestine Arab Party, which became the Arabs’ main political organisation. Earlier, in 1934, the Nashashibis had set up the National Defence Party. In 1932 Awni ‘Abd al Hadi of Samaria set up the Istiqlal Party, which was pan-Arab in ideology, and in 1935, Jerusalem mayor Dr Husayn Khalidi set up the Reform Party. The early 1930s also saw the establishment by Ya‘qub Ghusayn of the Youth Congress Party and the Nablus-based National Bloc Party. The proliferation of parties tended to dissipate the strength of the Opposition. But the parties for the most part existed on paper and were powerless. All opposed Zionism and, in varying degrees, British rule, and aimed at Arab statehood in all of Palestine (though the Istiqlal did not espouse separate Palestinian statehood). The parties had no internal elections or western-style institutions, and no dues, and were based on family and local affiliations and loyalties. Families, clans and villages rather than individuals were party members, with semi-feudal links of dependence and loyalty determining attachment. Few ‘Ayan families managed to remain neutral in the Husseini–Nashashibi struggle.25"

"All the parties, representing both over-arching factions, initially made common cause in 1936 in backing and leading the revolt. Differences were set aside and party activity was stopped. Representatives of the six parties constituted the AHC on 25 April 1936 to coordinate the struggle nationally. On the local level, the parties set up National Committees (NCs) in each town to run the strike and other political activities, but as the strike gave way to widespread violence, the traditional enmities re-surfaced, with the Nashashibis and their allies re-emerging as the Opposition. The Nashashibis came to represent and lead those Arabs who came to regard the revolt as fruitless. The Husseini response, of intimidation and assassination, decimated the ranks of the Opposition; terrorism, extortion, rapine and brigandage against villagers and town dwellers by the armed bands and the inevitable search and destroy operations against the rebels by the British military alienated much of the population. By late 1938–1939, it had grown tired of the fight. Villages turned against the rebels and, with Opposition and British intelligence backing, anti-rebel ‘peace bands’ were formed.

The outcome of the rebellion, apart from the political gains embodied in the 1939 White Paper, was that several thousand Arabs were killed, thousands were gaoled, and tens of thousands fled the country; much of the elite and middle class was driven or withdrew in disgust from the political arena. Husseini–Nashashibi reconciliation became inconceivable; implacable blood feuds were born, with telling effect for the denouement of 1947–1948.

In suppressing the rebellion, the British outlawed the AHC, arresting or exiling its members, some of whom fled to Germany and served the Axis during World War II. The Palestinians remained politically inactive during the war years, political parties and factions reconstitut-ing themselves only 1944–1945. The AHC also re-emerged, with the Husseinis dominant. In early 1946 the rifts reappeared and in March 1946 the Arab League stepped in and appointed a new AHC composed only of Husseinis and their allies. Its leading members were Amin al Husseini (president), Jamal Husseini (deputy president), Husayn Khalidi (secretary), Ahmad Hilmi Pasha and Emil Ghawri. The Opposition was left out in the cold."

Palestinian Arab society: Divisions between Christians and Muslims

"Another divisive element built into Palestinian society was the Muslim–Christian rift. The Christians, concentrated in the towns, were generally wealthier and better educated. They prospered under the Mandate. The Muslims suspected that the Christians would ‘sell out’ to the British (fellow Christians) or make common cause with the Jews (a fellow minority). Indeed, Christians took almost no part in the 1936–1939 rebellion. Sometime in 1946–1947, HIS compiled a list of prominent Christians ‘with a tendency to cooperation with the Jews’. There are 'few such Arabs among the Muslims, and many among the Christians’, wrote HIS.

The reason for this is that the Christians suffered a great deal under the Muslims and see a blessing in Jewish immigration to the country and to the Middle East as a whole . . . But there are few willing to express their opinion publicly for fear of the reaction of the Muslims.27"

"According to HIS, relations between the communities were

not good, though outwardly appearances of coerced friendship were maintained. The relations between the lower and middle classes were worse than among the rich. In fact, there was no contact (apart from commercial relations) between the communities . . . The Christians had participated in the 1936–37 disturbances under duress and out of fear of the Muslims."

"And in Haifa, a mere month before the passage of the UN partition resolution, a meeting of Haifa Christian notables had resolved to set up a Christian militia to

protect the lives and property of the Christians. Outwardly the call for recruits would be to prepare for attacks by the Jews, but in truth they want to defend themselves against attacks that the Muslims might launch against them if a situation of anarchy prevails during the withdrawal of the British army.34"

"Already in early November 1947, according to HIS, some Christians were ‘trying to flee the country’. The reason was that

the Christians in Nazareth, among them most of the high officials in the district administration, live in fear for their property and lives (in this order) from the Muslims. The Husseini terror has recently grown worse and large amounts of money are extorted from the Christians.35"

"It is likely that the majority of Christians would have preferred the continuation of the British Mandate to independence under Husseini rule; some may even have preferred Jewish rule. All were aware of the popular Muslim mob chant: ‘After Saturday, Sunday’ (meaning, after we take care of the Jews, it will be the Christians’ turn). To compensate, Christian community leaders repeatedly went out of their way to express devotion to the Palestinian national cause"

"During the first weeks of war, Christian–Muslim relations deteriorated against the backdrop of Jewish–Arab violence and Muslim suspicions that the Christians were collaborating or might collaborate with the Jews. HIS in Jerusalem reported:

The Christians continue to complain about bad behaviour by the Arabs [sic] towards them. Many of them wish to leave their homes. The gang members [i.e., Arab irregulars] indeed threaten to kill them after they finish with the Jews.’36"

Palestinian Arab society: Weak institutions and national consciousness

"Arab society was highly sectorial and parochial. It was backward, disunited and often apathetic, a community only just entering the modern age politically and administratively. In some fields (land-purchasing, militia organisation), its leaders tried to copy Zionist models, but the vast differences in the character of the two populations and levels of consciousness, commitment, ability and education left the Arabs radically outclassed. The moment the Yishuv quantitatively reached what proved a critical mass, the outcome – in hindsight – was ineluctable.

Before 1948, much of the Arab population had only an indistinct, if any, idea of national purpose and statehood. There was clarity about one thing only – the Jews aimed to displace them and they had to be stymied or driven out; they were less enthusiastic or united over wanting the British out. On the whole, save for the numerically small circle of the elite, the Palestinians were unready for the national message or for the demands that national self-fulfilment imposed upon the community, both in 1936–1939 and, far more severely, in 1947–1948. Commitment and readiness to pay the price presumed a clear concept of the nation and of national belonging, which the Arabs, still caught up in a clan-centred, a village-centred or, at most, a regional outlook, by and large lacked. As late as the 1940s, most of them still lacked a sense of separate national or cultural identity distinguishing them from, say, the Arabs of Syria."

"This absence of political consciousness and commitment (as well as the lack of educated personnel) provides a partial explanation for the failure to establish self-governing institutions. And even in the one field where the Arabs enjoyed ‘self-governing’ institutions based on some form of elections (albeit irregularly held, in 1926, 1934 and 1946, and with very limited, propertied suffrage) – the municipalities – they failed to function as well as the selfsame institutions in the Yishuv. Budgets give an idea of scope of operations. (Arab) Ramle, with a population of some 20,000 in 1941, had an annual budget of P£6,317. Jenin, a far smaller town, had a budget of P£2,320; Bethlehem, with a population of over 10,000, P£3,245; Nablus, with a population in 1942 of about 30,000, P£17,223; and Jaffa, with an overwhelmingly Arab population of about 70,000 in 1942, P£90,967. By comparison, all-Jewish Petah-Tikvah, with a population of 30,000, had a budget of P£39,463 in 1941; Tel Aviv, with 200,000, in 1942 had a budget of P£779,589."

"The only body that resembled a national ‘government’ ( à la the JA) was the AHC. But it functioned only spasmodically, during 1936–1939 and 1946–1948, and its members – the Palestinian Arab ‘Cabinet’ – by and large operated from outside the counry during late 1937–1948. The Mufti was the nominal ‘president’ and the day-to-day running was in the hands of his cousin Jamal Husseini. During 1947–1948 the AHC had six departments that theoretically oversaw various areas of political endeavour: A Lands Department (headed by Mustafa Husseini), responsible for purchasing land and preventing Jewish purchases; a Finance Department (headed by ‘Azzam Taunus), in charge of expenditure and fund-raising; the Economic Department (headed by Yassin al-Khalidi), responsible for commercial ties, imports and exports and the ‘Boycott Committee’ (headed by Rashid al-Khatib), which supervised the boycott of Jewish goods and services; the Department for National Organisation (headed by Rafiq Tamimi), responsible for sports agencies and paramilitary youth associations; the Department of Prisoners and Casualties (headed by Muhammad Sa‘id Gharbiya and Salah Rimawi), responsible for caring for those killed, hurt or imprisoned while serving the nation and their families; and the Press Department (headed by Mahmoud Sharkas), an information or propaganda body responsible for media coverage and relations with journalists. This structure failed to cover other important areas of government (health services, education, transportation, foreign affairs, defence) and what was covered, was covered poorly, according to the HIS:

In truth, chaos reigned in most of the departments and the borders between them were generally blurred. [Each] official interfered in his colleague’s affairs, there was little [taking of] responsibility and public criticism was legion, while, moreover, the selection of the officials and departmental heads was improper [i.e., marred by corruption and nepotism].

By late January 1948 only one department – the Treasury – was still functioning.39

In effect, in most areas, the Palestinians remained dependent on the Mandate administration. Consequently, when the administration folded over winter and spring 1947–1948, and the towns, villages and roads were engulfed by hostilities, Arab Palestine – especially the towns – slid into chaos. Confusion and even anarchy characterised the distribution and sale of food, the delivery of health care and the operation of public transport and communications. Law and order collapsed. Palestine Arab society fell apart. By contrast, the Yishuv, under the same conditions of warfare and siege, and with far less manpower and no hinterland of friendly states, proved able to cope."

Military preparation

"More important in the ‘militarisation’ of Arab Palestine was the establishment by the Husseinis of the Futuwa (youth companies), in which youngsters were trained in military drill and the use of weapons. The movement, modelled after the Nazi youth organisations,40 never amounted to much though it supplied some of the political cadres who organised the general strike of 1936 and the terrorism later in the rebellion. The Futawa were re-established after World War II but never numbered more than several hundred youths under arms.

A larger organisation was the Najjada (auxiliary corps), set up in the post-war period, largely at Opposition initiative, with its centre in Jaffa. In summer 1946 it had 2,000–3,000 members and was led by Muhammad Nimr al Hawari; its officers were mainly Palestinians who had served in the British Army. The organisation lacked arms. In the run-up to the 1948 war, the Husseinis tried to gain control of the Najjada, in the process destroying it.41 In the end, the Palestinians entered the war without a national militia.

During the 1948 War, Palestinian military power rested on a handful of mobile armed bands, each numbering several hundred irregulars, on town militias, and on individual village ‘militias’."

"Under the Mandate, the Palestinians had relied on (mostly Jewish) government doctors and medical institutions; the lack of medical services was to plague the Palestinians through the ensuing war.46

Palestinian efforts to acquire weaponry during the last months of 1947 were hindered by the Husseini–Nashashibi divide, by poverty, and by a general unwillingness to contribute to the national cause, itself a reflection of the low level of political consciousness and commitment. From mid-1947, as the United Nations decision drew near, the Palestinian leaders began to levy taxes and ‘contributions’ to finance the impending struggle. Taxes were imposed on cigarettes (one mil per packet) and on bus tickets (five mil per ride). But, ‘it appears that the Arab public was not participating enthusiastically and by 1.11.1947 only P£25,000 were raised. It was clear that such a sum could not suffice to finance the activities of the AHC, which steadily increased.’47 During the first month of the war, HIS monitored dozens of cases of local Arab leaders and armed bands extorting ‘contributions’; the will to give was absent. For example, on 29 December 1947 the mukhtars of ‘Arab al Satariyya and Yibna village in the lower Coastal Plain were reported to be exacting, ‘with pressure and threats’, P£5 per head to finance arms purchases.48 The Palestine Arabs had no arms production capacity."

"A British military intelligence assessment from July 1947 estimated that an embryonic Jewish state would defeat the Palestinian Arabs, even if they were clandestinely assisted by one or two of the Arab states.56 The Arab League Military Committee, based in Damascus, in October 1947 reached similar conclusions:

A. The Zionists in Palestine – organisations and parties, political, military and administrative – are organisationally on a very high level. These institutions can immediately transform into a Zionist government possessing all the means necessary for governing.

B. The Jews today have large forces, in terms of manpower, armaments and equipment . . .

C. The Jews have enormous economic resources in the country and outside it . . .

D. The Jews have a great ability to bring reinforcements and equipment from overseas in great quantities.

As for the Palestinian Arabs:

A. Currently the Palestinian Arabs do not have enough forces (manpower, weapons and equipment), to withstand in any [acceptable] way the Zionist organisations.

B. In the areas where a Jewish majority is in control live today 350,000 Arabs – in isolated villages and blocks threatened with destruction, should the Zionists carry out wide-ranging operations.

A month later, two days before the passage of the UN partition resolution, General Ismail Safwat, the Iraqi chairman of the League Military Committee, reported to the Iraqi chief of staff that ‘most of the [Palestinian] Arabs cannot today in any way withstand the Zionist forces, even though numerically the Arabs are superior . . .’57 Thus all observers – Jewish, British, Palestinian Arab, and external Arab – agreed on the eve of the war that the Palestinians were incapable of beating the Zionists or of withstanding Zionist assault. The Palestinians were simply too weak."

The Arab World

"The Palestinian Arabs believed that succour would come from the Arab world around them, but the rifts within Palestinian society were matched by the rifts between the Palestinians and those who came to ‘help’ them. The Yishuv had financial help from Western, primarily American, Jewry; the Arabs, despite continuous efforts, enjoyed no such steady, reliable aid from the Arab states or the Muslim world. Indeed, the rejection by the Arab governments and armies of local and national Palestinian pleas for money, arms and reinforcements in late 1947 and early 1948 was merely a continuation of what had gone before. Cumulatively, it engendered among the Palestinians a sense of abandonment, which underlay their despair through 1948"

"On 14 May, the State of Israel was declared and the British left – and, on 15–16 May, the armies of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq invaded Palestine. Their declared aim was to help the Palestinians and, if possible, to thwart the establishment of the Jewish state and to occupy both Jewish and Arab parts of Palestine. The secretary general of the Arab League, ‘Azzam Pasha, spoke of a massacre of the Jews akin to the Mongols’ pillage of Baghdad in the 13th century. In Jordan’s case, the principal aim of the invasion was to occupy as much as possible of Arab Palestine with the aim of annexation."

Chapter 2: The idea of 'transfer' in Zionist thinking before 1948