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[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

If Hamas were just fighting to end Israeli settlements and have their own state which would protect the rights of minorities living in peace then they would be the good guys.

Somehow I don't think that is all they fighting for.

[rookieglobetrotter]

I read an article where the author wrote the best solution may just be just to have one state instead of 2. Jews and Palestinians have a long history and it may be easier where there are no borders and they have to learn with each other instead of attacking each others settlements. Hopefully Obama has some good foreign policy for this situation.

[bucheon bum]

[Justin Hale]

Israel is right. If I had any say in it, Gaza (and Judea and Samaria) would've been emptied of Muslims when the land was won in the first place. Sadly, not one Arab country would have wanted the Palestinians even if this were to have been Israel's policy. After the 1948 War of Survival, where Israel singlehandedly beat 5 Arab armies in a defensive war, 800,000 Jews were booted out of several Islamic countries where they'd lived peacefully for centuries and they emigrated to the Jewish state. After yet another Big Win in the 1967 war, when Israel gained the WB&G (and Sinai, which it gave back to Egypt in 1979), it should have occurred to the Israelis to insist on doing to the Palestinians what was done to the Jews in the Muslim world - expulsion. The only reason Jews were expelled from the Muslim world is because of the latter's humiliation at being humiliated in war. The Jews who emigrated to Israel arrived literally penniless (the Muslim states confiscated all their possessions, worth $2.5 billion in 1948 dollars).

[Justin Hale]

[BreakfastInBed]

[blade]

According to Shlaim (2000) who are argues that the Israeli forces significantly outnumbered the Arabs during all stages of the conflict and during the final decisive phase by a ratio of nearly 2:1. The picture of a monolithic Arab force determined to destroy Israel is also disputed. Flapen (1987) suggests that the primary objective of King Abdollah of Transjordan (who had nominal control of the Arab forces) was not to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state but to take control of the Arab Part of Palestine, as a secret pact he had made with Golda Meir in November 1947. Ovendale (1999) further suggests that the other Arab states involved were riven by competing territorial and political ambitions, in contrast to the Jewish forces that mostly fought with a united front.

[bucheon bum]

[blade]

The 1948 War

Myth


The roots of the 1948 war go as far back as the first

recognition on the part of the Palestinians that the Zionists wished to establish a Jewish state on their land. In late 1947 the United Nations proposed that Palestine be divided into a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The UN Partition Plan recommended that 55 percent of Palestine, and the most fertile region, be given to the Jewish settlers who compromised 30 percent of the population. The remaining 45 percent of Palestine was to comprise a home for the other 70 percent of the population who were Palestinians. The Palestinians rejected the plan because it was unfair. Israel and its supporters claim that the Arabs first attacked in Janurary 1948 and then invaded Israel in May 1948.



Fact

The truth is that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet exist.



The evidence that Israel started the 1948 war comes from

Zionist sources. The History of the Palmach which was

released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972)

details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs and secure more territory than alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel). Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to "control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15" (Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).



1. Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948

2. Operation Harel, 15 April 1948

3. Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948

4. Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948

5. Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948

6. Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948

7. Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948

8. Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948



9. Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948

10. Operation Barak, 12 May 1948

11. Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948

12. Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948

13. Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948



The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.



Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the

major military operations the Zionists mounted before the

British evacuated Palestine and before the Arab forces

entered Palestine:

* Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)

* Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)

* Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)

* Salameh (1 March 1948)

* Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)

* Qana (13 March 1948)

* Qastal (4 April 1948)

* Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)

* Lajjun (15 April 1948)

* Saris (17 April 1948)

* Tiberias (20 April 1948)

* Haifa (22 April 1948)

* Jerusalem (25 April 1948)

* Jaffa (26 April 1948)

* Acre (27 April 1948)

* Jerusalem (1 May 1948)

* Safad (7 May 1948)

* Beisan (9 May 1948).

David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:

"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 530).



Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it

was alloted to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.

Late PM Menachem Begin adds: "In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into

Arab territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve [that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)

On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists started the war in 1948: "As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).



Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle Eastern Studies, XXII, January 1986, pp. 5-19).



Conclusion



In sum, it is not true that the Arabs "invaded Israel" in

1948. First, Israel did not exist at the time of the alleged invasion as an established state with recognised bounderies. When the Zionist leaders established Israel on 15 May 1948 they purposely declined to declare the bounderies of the new state in order to allow for future expansion.



Secondly, the only territory to which the new state of Israel had even a remote claim was that alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan. But the Zionists had already attacked areas that were alloted to the Palestinian Arab state.



Thirdly, those areas which the Arab states purportedly

"invaded" were, in fact, exclusively areas alloted to the

Palestinian Arab state proposed by the UN Partition Plan. The so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt to hold on to the areas alloted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian state.



Finally, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, was under

orders not to enter the areas alloted to the Jewish state

(Sir John Bagot Glubb, "The Battle for Jerusalem", Middle

East International, May 1973).



http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/snakebite/Wars.html

[bucheon bum]

So where was the part in which Israel attacked its Arab neighbors?

[bucheon bum]

BTW, I am not defending Israel here. And I suppose you weren't saying Israel attacked its neighbors first. So yeah, nevermind.

In any case, the Zionists were more astute, unified, and had a much better plan than any Arabs around them.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

How can anyone know how many soldiers were sent against Israel in 1948? It is not like the governments of that area have open records.

Also :


many of the "Israeli soldiers" weren't professional soldiers or even men.

and the while the numbers include Israeli's who were involved in logistics or support they don't include any soldiers from arab lands that were involved in logistics or other support.

[bucheon bum]

Joo, I suggest reading the sources Blade just provided. It is pretty legit. That's the story for a # of wars between Israel and the Arabs: the former were well-organized and cohesive while the latter was the opposite.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

This is what Benny Morris - one of Blades sources above says about the number of forces.