PRELUDE TO ARMED CONFLICT IN THE LAND PALESTINE.

PRELUDE TO ARMED CONFLICT:

League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922,

The parties to the Arab-Israel dispute did not agree when the problem started, but from the point of view of the British Empire and other members of the international community, the conflict had its origin in the incompatible promises made by Britain to Jews and Arabs during the First World War. 

Britain assumed the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922, and a preambular paragraph of the mandate agreement recalled the Balfour Declaration, favouring 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.' 

The task of administering Palestine in accordance with the terms of the mandate became increasingly onerous, and in 1947 Britain handed the problem to the United Nations. A special session of the UN General Assembly was held from 28 April to 15 May, and the Assembly set up a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to ascertain the facts and submit proposals for the solution of the problem. 

On 29 November 1947 the General Assembly adopted the partition resolution, which followed the proposals of the majority of members of UNSCOP, by which Palestine was to be partitioned into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with an international regime for the Jerusalem area, joined in an economic union. The city of Jerusalem, together with Bethlehem, was to be placed under international trusteeship, with the United Nations itself as the administering authority. 

The British Mandate over Palestine was to terminate not later than 1 August 1948, and British forces were to be withdrawn by that date. Britain subsequently announced its intention to end the Mandate by 15 May 1948 and to complete the withdrawal of its forces as soon as possible thereafter. The Jewish state was to comprise 56 per cent of the area of Palestine and would have a Jewish population of 499000 and an Arab population (including Bedouin) of 510 000. 

The Arab state would comprise 43 per cent of the area, with an Arab population (including Bedouin) of 747 000 and about 10 000 Jews. The international enclave would total about 68 square miles and have about 100 000 Jews and 100 000 Arabs. 1 A Palestine Commission of five members was given responsibility for implementing the partition plan, under the guidance of the Security Council (p. 73, res. (1». The partition resolution passed in the General Assembly by 33 votes to 13 (mainly Arab or other Muslim states), with 11 abstaining or absent (including Britain, China, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, and six Latin Americans). 

The Zionists had hardly dared to expect that the General Assembly would approve partition: the Arabs have always regarded partition as restineither a moral nor a legal foundation'. 'When the United Nations ... voted in favour of a Jewish State,' wrote Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first President, to Truman, 'it was motivated pre-eminently by the purpose of solving once and for all the Jewish question in Europe, to get rid of the concentration camps and of the aftermath of Hitler's holocaust. '2 The Palestinian Arabs considered that they were going to be displaced by an influx of Jews from Europe, although it was Europeans and not Arabs who had inflicted great suffering on the Jewish people. 

The partition resolution was followed almost at once by a sharp deterioration of the situation in the Middle East (or Western Asia, as it is also called). Arabs and Jews, who until then had regarded Britain as the chief enemy, now turned on each other. The former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, with Egyptian support, favoured Arab resistance to the partition plan, but not the direct intervention of Arab armies, as he thought that this would only stimulate the territorial ambitions of King Abdullah of Transjordan. The Arab Higher Committee, which claimed to speak for the Palestinian Arabs, established some 275 local groups in Palestine to take care of what was euphemistically called 'local defence'. 

The Political Committee of the Arab League met in Cairo and decided to recruit volunteers to form an army of deliverance (the Arab Liberation Army), and a training centre was established in Damascus. Arms came from the Arab countries and from Czechoslovakia. The Arab tactics were to harass the lines of communication between the main towns, especially the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and to attack isolated Jewish settlements. The Arabs believed their own propaganda and expected to encounter no difficulty in defeating the Jews. 

The first Arab irregulars from outside Palestine crossed the frontier on 9 January 1948, attacking Jewish settlements at Dan and Kefar Szold. On 15 January a group of Arab irregulars struck at a Jewish settlement at Kefar Etsyon, but was badly mauled. The next day, the Arabs avenged themselves by ambushing a Jewish platoon. 3 Although the ambushing of Jewish convoys took a heavy toll, there was as yet little dit:.ect fighting. 

The Jewish forces had, however, initiated what was to become a regular feature of Israeli policy, preceded by the 'customary theoretical debate'. David Ben-Gurion argued that the proper reply to the attacks of Arab bands was to 'counter-attack the centres of Arab population.' At first, retaliation was directed only against 'guilty' Arabs, but in practice the Jews found that it was not always possible to distinguish between innocent and guilty. Indeed, many in the Jewish forces considered that the attempt to discriminate should not be made: what was needed was a form of retaliation 'in order to impress and intimidate the Arab villagers'. 

Menachem Begin, then an Irgun leader, has written scornfully of the doctrine that reprisals should be proportionate to the injury received - 'war by mathematics', as he called it. On 15 February a Jewish assault unit penetrated Sasa, blew up 20 houses, and withdrew. 'It was meant to demonstrate that no Arab village was beyond the long arm of the Haganah' (the Jewish defence force). The same night, the Arab Liberation Army