Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 11. The Palestine War of 1948. Israel created, Palestine erased.
In 1948 the Jewish forces in Palestine declared themselves to be the state of Israel. The Israelis joyously call this their independence war but Palestinians see it as the Nakhba, the catastrophe that deprived them of their homeland and sent most of them into exile.
What many people do not realize is that this was not one war but three. There was the Zionist-British War, the Zionist-Palestinian War, and the Israeli-Arab War. These wars were very different from each other. Understanding these differences is very important.
A legitimate question is, why did the Zionist forces win this series of wars, especially the Palestine War of 1948? I break this into two questions: Why did the Jews win? Why did the Palestinians lose? As with most of life, the answers are not easy.
If you do not have a map of the UN Partition Plan of 1947, Resolution 181, you might want to download one. It outlines the proposed partition of Palestine (and the creation of a federation). The map, which usually also illustrates the population concentrations of Jews and Palestinians, is extremely useful in understanding what happened.
And if you have Tessler or some other book on this conflict, you will note there is quite a bit that I did not have time to include, such as the negotiations among the great powers over alternatives. You might want to go through this for your own interest.
This was a talk I recorded for my students.
Welcome to class.
ps. If you go to Deep Blue (see separate podcast if you are confused) you can find my paper on The Palestinian Refugees of 1948. This is a valuable resource.
pps. There are two other podcasts connected to this one. One is on what happened in the aftermath of 1948. The other is entitled The Palestinian Situation After 1948. these are a part of this lecture.