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$Unique_ID{bob00256}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Israel
Chapter 1C.   Events in Palestine: 1908-39}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Richard F. Nyrop}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{arab
jewish
palestine
british
zionist
jews
mandate
agency
arabs
war
see
pictures
see
figures
see
tables
}
$Date{1979}
$Log{See Table C.*0025601.tab
}
Title:       Israel
Book:        Israel, A Country Study
Author:      Richard F. Nyrop
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1979

Chapter 1C.   Events in Palestine: 1908-39

     In 1908 the Young Turk Nationalist Revolution in Constantinople seized
control from Sultan Abdul Hamid II and thus aroused hopes of independence of
various nationalities throughout the Ottoman Empire. Zionist leaders sought
approval for continued immigration and autonomy within the Turkish state.
Politically aware Arabs opposed continuation of direct Turkish rule, and this
opposition took two forms. One emerged among Arab intellectuals of Beirut and
Damascus, who enunciated the ideas of a new Arab nationalism but who first
sought autonomy within, rather than secession from, the Ottoman Empire. The
second lay in the turbulent spirit of the more remote desert tribes, who were
politically inarticulate but resentful of any outside control.

     After 1908, however, it quickly became clear to Zionists and Arabs alike
that the nationalism of the successors of Abdul Hamid was Turkish nationalism,
bent on intensified Turkification of the Ottoman domain rather than granting
local automonies. The Arab intellectuals of Beirut and Damascus were forced
into clandestine political conspiracy in the form of secret societies. The
link between them and the tribesmen of Arabia was Sharif Husayn ibn Ali, the
Arab prince of Mecca and the Hijaz region of western Arabia, who was appointed
coordinating link in 1908 by the Turkish government but was closely watched by
it. Amir Abdullah, son of Sharif Husayn, visited Lord Horatio H. Kitchener,
British Agent and Consul General in Egypt, at Cairo in February 1914 and
inquired into the possibility of British support should his father stage a
revolt against Turkey. Turkey and Germany were not yet formally allied, and
Germany and the United Kingdom were not yet at war; Kitchener's reply was,
therefore, noncommital.

     Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Kitchener was recalled
to London as secretary of state for war and, in changed circumstances, he
energetically sought Arab support for the war against Turkey. In Cairo Sir
Henry McMahon, the first British High Commissioner in Egypt, conducted an
extensive correspondence from July 1915 to January 1916 with Sharif Husayn,
two of whose sons-Abdullah, later king of Jordan, and Faisal, later king of
Syria (ejected by the French in 1920) and of Iraq (1921-33)-were to figure
prominently in subsequent events.

     In a letter to McMahon, enclosed with a letter dated July 14, 1915, from
Abdullah, Sharif Husayn specified an area for Arab independence under the
"Sharifian Arab Government" consisting of the Arabian Peninsula (except Aden)
and the Fertile Crescent of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In his letter
of October 24, 1915, to Sharif Husayn, McHamon, on behalf of the British
government, declared British support for postwar Arab independence, subject to
certain reservations and exclusions of territory not entirely Arab or
concerning which Great Britain was not free "to act without detriment to the
interests of her ally, France." As with the later Balfour Declaration, the
exact meaning was not clear, although Arab spokesmen since then have usually
maintained that Palestine was within the pledged area of independence. In any
event, on June 5, 1916, Sharif Husayn launched the Arab Revolt against Turkey
and in October declared himself "King of the Arabs."

     Meanwhile, on May 16, 1916, the British and French governments concluded
the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. Although allowing for a postwar Arab state
on the Arabian Peninsula and an ill-defined plan for an international
arrangement over Jerusalem and part of Palestine, it divided the rest of the
Fertile Crescent between the two powers.

     On December 7, 1916, David Lloyd George became British prime minister,
with Arthur James Balfour as foreign secretary. Both of them regarded
negotiations with the British Zionists, Chaim Weizmann and Lord Lionel Walter
Rothschild, as of potential value to the pursuit of British war aims.

     Weizmann, who was born in Russia in 1874 and educated in Berlin, had
moved to England in 1904 and, as a chemist, had made notable contributions to
the development of explosives. In support of the Zionist cause, his protracted
and skillful negotiations with the British Foreign Office were climaxed on
November 2, 1917, by the letter from the foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild,
which became known as the Balfour Declaration. This document declared the
British government's "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations," viewed with
favor "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish
People," and announced an intent "to facilitate the achievement of this
object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may
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."

     Although painstakingly devised, the wording of this declaration was
interpreted differently by different people, according to their objectives and
interests. Ultimately it was found to contain two incompatible undertakings:
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews and preservation of
the rights of existing non-Jewish communities, i.e., the Arabs. This
incompatibility sharpened over the succeeding years and became irreconcilable.
Initially, however, there was no apparent substantial Arab nationalist
sentiment in Palestine. The apprehensions of Sharif Husayn and of his sons
Faisal and Abdullah (not themselves Palestinians) were allayed by assurances
that no one people in Palestine should be subject to another. Furthermore the
belief was widely held that Arabs and Jews could live there together
peacefully under some arrangement not yet set forth.

     Although the content of the Sykes-Picot Agreement was revealed in
November 1917 by the Bolshevik government in Russia, Arab misgivings as to
Allied postwar intentions on this score were allayed by British and French
reassurances and by the fact that Allied military operations in the Middle
East were progressing favorably. Jerusalem was taken by General Sir Edmund
(later Field Marshall Viscount) Allenby on December 9, 1917; Turkish forces in
Syria were subsequently defeated; and an armistice was concluded with Turkey
on October 31, 1918.

     On January 3, 1919, an agreement was signed by Faisal, chief Arab
delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, and Weizmann, representing the Zionist
Organization. It pledged the two parties to cordial cooperation, and by it
Faisal concurred with the Balfour Declaration. He wrote a proviso on the
document in Arabic, however, that his signature was dependent upon fulfillment
of Allied war pledges regarding Arab independence. Since these pledges were
not fulfilled to Arab satisfaction after the war, most Arab leaders and
spokesmen have not considered the Faisal-Weizmann agreement as having any
validity. An American group known as the King-Crane Commission was appointed
in 1919 by President Woodrow Wilson to investigate and report on the problem
of dividing territory and assigning mandates. The commission's report of
August 28, 1919, opposed unlimited Jewish immigration and a separate Jewish
state in Palestine, but it was not considered by the Paris Peace Conference
and was not widely published until 1922.

     From the Paris Peace Conference emerged the League of Nations Covenant
and the Mandate system making Great Britain the Mandatory Power for Palestine.
In 1920 Sir Herbert Samuel began his five-year term as British High
Commissioner for Palestine. The terms of the Mandate were approved by the
League Council on July 24, 1922, although they were technically not official
until September 29, 1923. The United States was not a member of the League of
Nations, but a joint resolution of the 76th Congress on June 30, 1922,
endorsed the concept of the Jewish National Home.

     The Mandate's terms recognized "the historical connection of the Jewish
people with Palestine," called upon the Mandatory Power to "secure
establishment of the Jewish National Home," and recognized "an appropriate
Jewish Agency" for advice and cooperation to that end. The Zionist
Organization was specifically recognized as that agency. Jewish immigration
was to be facilitated, while ensuring that the "rights and position of other
sections of the population are not prejudiced." English, Arabic, and Hebrew
were all to be official languages.

     Arab spokesman such as Sharif Husayn and his sons opposed the Mandate's
terms, since the overall League of Nations Covenant had endorsed popular
determination and thereby, they maintained, supported the cause of the Arab
majority in Palestine. Further the covenant specifically declared that all
other obligations and understandings inconsistent with it were abrogated.
Therefore Arab argument held that both the Balfour Declaration and the
Sykes-Picot Agreement were null and void. Arab leaders particularly objected
to the Mandate's numerous references to the "Jewish community," whereas the
Arab people, then constituting about 90 percent of the Palestinian population,
were acknowledged only as "the other sections."

     The Arabs contended that it was unjust to allow a minority to overrule a
majority; that the continuous Arab occupation of Palestine from the seventh
to the twentieth century presented a more valid claim than that of Zionism;
that one group cannot be bound by the differing religious beliefs of another
group and is under no moral compulsion to accept them; that Europe and
America, in attempting to correct social injustice in Europe, did so at Arab
expense; and that the World War I pledges to the Arabs were formal agreements
between states and thus superior to the position expressed in Balfour's letter
leading to the language of the Mandate.

     To British authority, pressed with heavy responsibilities and commitments
after World War I, the objective of Mandate administration was a peaceful
accommodation in and development of Palestine by Arabs and Jews under British
control. To the Zionist Organization, which by 1921 had a worldwide membership
of about 770,000, the recognition in the Mandate was seen as a welcome first
step. Although not all Zionists and not all Jews were committed at that time
to conversion of the Jewish National Home into a separate political state,
this conversion became firm Zionist policy during the next twenty-five years.
The patterns developed during these years strongly influenced the State of
Israel proclaimed in 1948.

     The Zionist Organization established in Palestine an executive office,
thus implementing the language of the Mandate prescribing such an agency. In
August 1929 the formalized Jewish Agency was established with a council,
administrative committee, and executive. Each of these bodies consisted of an
equal number of Zionist and nominally non-Zionist Jews. The president of the
Zionist Organization was, however, ex-officio president of the agency.
Thereafter the Zionist Organization continued to conduct external diplomatic,
information, and cultural activities, whereas the operational Jewish Agency
took over fundraising, activities in Palestine, and local relations with the
British Mandatory Authority (administered by the colonial secretary). In the
course of time, these became two different names for virtually the same
organization.

     Other landmark developments by the Zionist Organization and the Jewish
Agency under the Mandate included: establishment in December 1920 of the
General Federation of Labor (Histadrut HaOvdim Haklalit, known as Histadrut);
creation of a Jewish-elected assembly and the National Council in 1920 to
promote religious, educational, and welfare services; establishment of the
Chief Rabbinate in 1921; centralized Zionist control of the Hebrew school
system in 1919, opening of the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in
Haifa in 1924, and dedication of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925;
continued acquisition of land-largely by purchases by the Jewish National
Fund-increasing from 60,120 hectares in 1922 to about 155,140 hectares in
1939, and concurrent growth of Jewish urban and village centers; and
establishment in 1920 of the Haganah, the semiunderground military arm of the
Jewish Agency (see Security-A Persistent National Concern, ch. 5).

     Politically the Jewish community in Palestine under the Mandate was
divided within itself into many parties and factions differing in emphasis and
outlook, ranging from extreme Zionist nationalists to strict Orthodox Jewish
elements. Chief among these groups were the General Zionists, including many
nonparty Zionists and initially the largest of the grouping; the Mizrahi, or
religious Zionist party; and the Mapai (see Glossary), which grew out of two
earlier labor groups to become the largest party by 1933. A left-wing,
Marxist-Zionist party appeared after 1930. In 1925 a revisionist element
developed under Vladimir Jabotinsky that favored more positivist measures and
opposed Weizmann's leadership as too concilatory toward British policy. In
the heated controversy between the Haganah and the Revisionists, the Jewish
guerrilla band known as the Irgun evolved in 1937, and from it the more
extreme terrorist group, known to the British as the Stern Gang, split off in
1939.

     The formal name of the Irgun was the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military
Organization), sometimes also called by the acronym ETZEL, from the initial
letters of the Hebrew name. The Stern Gang was formally known as the Lohamei
Herut Yisrael (Fighter for Israel's Freedom), sometimes identified by the
acronym Lehi.

     Despite internal differences, the Jewish community was in fundamental
agreement as to its identity and aspirations. The Jewish Agency could point to
many accomplishments, but it was, almost from the start, in continual dispute
with the British Mandatory Authority, which was caught between conflicting
parties and denounced by both Jews and Arabs. Nevertheless by 1939 the Jewish
population in Palestine had risen sharply as a result of legal and illegal
immigration and natural increase (see table C).

[See Table C.: Population Estimates for Palestine, Selected Years, 1800-1939]

     Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine developed early and continued
throughout the Mandate period. The potential force of Palestinian Arab
nationalism, whatever its effectiveness and leadership might be, had been
underestimated. When Haj Amin al Hussein, an anti-Zionist extremist, was
appointed by Sir Herbert Samuel in 1921 as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and head
of the Supreme Muslim Council, increased intercommunal strife resulted. In
March 1921 Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, established Abdullah as
ruler of Transjordan under a separate British Mandate. The Palestine Mandate
as received by the British had included Transjordan. This division, which was
aimed, as was British support for Faisal in Iraq, at satisfying pledges to the
Arabs, aroused strong Zionist objections and did not mollify the Arabs of
Palestine; thus, violence continued.

     Churchill's memorandum of July 1, 1922, reaffirmed the Balfour
Declaration but, in the main, was directed at allaying Arab apprehensions
regarding a Zionist seizure of political power. The Zionist Organization saw
this memorandum, subsequent commission reports, government White Papers, and
regulation of immigration as evidence of the Mandatory Authority's withdrawal
from commitments and responsibilities. The Shaw and Hope-Simpson Royal
Commissions of 1929 and 1930, respectively-dispatched after outbreaks of
violence in Palestine-recognized, as did all later bodies, that the basic
problem lay in the conflicting goals of Zionist nationalism and Arab
nationalism.

     Greatly disturbed at the increase in Jewish immigration and land
acquisition, Palestine Arabs in April 1936 formed the Supreme Arab Committee,
later known as the Arab Higher Committee, and declared a general strike that
assumed the proportions of a rebellion. The Arab Higher Committee was
outlawed, and many of its leaders, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
were forced out of Palestine. Great Britain dispatched the Royal Commission on
Palestine (Peel Commission) to Palestine, and its report, which was issued in
July 1937, described the Arab and Zionist positions, and the British
obligations to each, as irreconcilable and the existing Mandate as unworkable.
It recommended partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with a
retained British mandate over Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem and a
corridor from Jerusalem to the coast (see fig. 5).

     In 1937 the Twentieth Zionist Congress rejected the proposed boundaries
but agreed in principal to partition. Palestinian Arab nationalists rejected
all considerations for partition. The British government approved the idea of
partition and sent a technical team to make a detailed plan. This group, the
Woodhead Commission, reversed the Peel Commission's findings and reported in
November 1937 that partition was impracticable; this view was in its turn
accepted. The British government then returned to the concept of peaceful
accommodation between Jews and Arabs and called for a conference in March 1938
in London between the Jewish and Arab representatives from Palestine and
adjoining Arab states. The Jewish Agency objected to representatives from
other Arab states on the grounds that they were not involved under provisions
of the Mandate. Arab supporters, however, approved the inclusion as a
recognition of Pan-Arabism.

     The conference failed because the Arab representatives refused to
negotiate directly with the Jewish Agency representatives. On May 17, 1939,
on the eve of World II, a British White Paper was issued extending British
rule for ten years; limited Jewish immigration and land purchases in
Palestine; and projecting a Palestinian government at the end of the ten-year
period subject to Jewish-Arab accommodation. This White Paper met a mixed Arab
reception and was rejected by the Arab Higher Committee. The Jewish Agency
rejected it emphatically, branding it as total repudiation of Balfour and
Mandate obligations. In September 1939, at the outset of World War II,
Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency, declared: "We shall fight the
war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the
White Paper as if there were no war."

The Holocaust

     The two most important events in the twentieth century to world Jewry and
to the Jewish nationals of modern Israel were the Holocaust and the
establishment of the State of Israel. It has been argued that had a sovereign
state of Israel existed in the 1933-45 period, the extent of the Holocaust
would have been much, much less. Conversely had there been no Holocaust, the
demand of the Jews for a sanctuary and homeland would undoubtedly have been
less, and the members of the UN would have been less likely to accede to that
demand.

     It is not possible to exaggerate the impact of the Holocaust on world
Jewry, either those who were contemporaries of the horror or of the
succeeding generations. The term holocaust came into general use some years
after the event. The English word derives from the Vulgate translation of the
Septuagint and that version's translation of the Hebrew world olah, from the
root meaning "to go up." The word aliyah also derives from this root. In the
context of the Holocaust, however, the root refers back to an ancient Temple
sacrifice in which the sacrifice on the altar is totally consumed by fire,
and the smoke "goes up" to God.

     The scope of Hitler's genocidal efforts, staggering as they were, may be
quickly summarized. In 1939 about 10 million of the estimated 16 million Jews
in the world lived in Europe. By 1945 almost 6 million had been killed, most
of them in the nineteen main concentration camps. Of prewar Czechoslovakia's
281,000 Jews, about 4,000 survived. Before the German conquest and occupation,
the Jewish population of Greece was estimated to be between 65,000 and 72,000;
about 2,000 survived. Only 5,000 of Austria's prewar Jewish community of
70,000 escaped. And an estimated 4.6 million Jews were killed in Poland and in
those areas of the Soviet Union seized and occupied by the Germans.

     The survivors-who in a sense were the rest of world Jewry-reacted and
continue to react in a multitude of ways. To some observant Jews the
extermination of over one-third of the people meant either that there was no
Divine Presence or that the ancient covenant with Abraham had been broken.
This explanation was unacceptable to numerous others, however, because either
response gave "Hitler the victory;" i.e., the responses rejected the
traditional and unique relationship between God and his people. Martin Buber,
one of the most respected theologians of the mid-twentieth century, sought to
provide an answer to the "Why did this happen" by suggesting that there had
been "an eclipse of God."

     As the years passed and as a new generation emerged in Israel, an
assessment of the meaning of the Holocaust became increasingly widespread and
accounted in part for the renewed interest in the writings and teachings of
Pinsker and Ahad Ha-Am. Crudely put, it meant "never trust the gentiles." For
some Israeli Jews this took the form of what is sometimes called the Massada
complex, referring to the fight to the death in a suicide pact of all the
defenders of Fort Massada in A.D. 73 (see table B, Preface). In some respects
this reading of past events has led to disputes between Israeli Jews and
those in other parts of the world, particularly those in the United States.
American Jews wish to believe and therefore assert "It could never happen
here." Many Israeli Jews, remembering not only the Holocaust but also the
various terrorist attacks and the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and
1973, insist that it can happen anyplace. The memory of the Holocaust and the
perceived threat of annihilation from surrounding countries has continued to
provide the unifying elements to hold together Israel's Jewish community,
which has been sharply divided on numerous social, religious, and economic
issues.

World War II and Establishment of the State of Israel: 1939-49

     Ben-Gurion's statement of 1939 set the tone for Jewish Agency policy and
operations during the years of World War II. Thousands of Jewish volunteers
served in the British Army, and on September 14, 1944, the separate Jewish
Brigade was established. Palestinian Arab volunteers also served, and the
British-officered Arab Legion of Transjordan played a role in Allied
operations in Iraq and Syria. In Palestine the Jewish Agency promoted
increased immigration in response to wartime pressure. In opposition, the
Mandatory Authority sought to implement provisions of the 1939 White Paper
by promulgating strict land transfer regulations and by regulating or
attempting to regulate immigration.

     Zionist policy and objectives were clarified in May 1942 at a conference
of Zionist parties held in the Biltmore Hotel, New York City. This
conference was called at the initiative of Ben-Gurion, who had come to the
United States to elicit the support of American Jews. It adopted a resolution
known thereafter as the Biltmore Program, which in turn was approved by the
Zionist General Council in November 1942. Its provisions called for unlimited
Jewish immigration into Palestine and control of immigration affairs by the
Jewish Commonwealth, the word commonwealth thus replacing homeland. Weizmann,
who had previously rejected an official commitment of this kind as
inopportune, supported the resolution.

     In 1943 confirmation regarding Nazi persecution in Europe was obtained,
and the Irgun and Stern groups stepped up harassment of British forces in
Palestine in an attempt to secure unrestricted immigration and the prompt
establishment of the State of Israel. Zionist leaders, especially Ben-Gurion,
foresaw an ultimate end to the Mandate and estimated that they would then be
engaged not only by the Arabs of Palestine, but also probably by the armies
of neighboring Arab states, and that guerrilla methods would not be adequate.
Preparations to enlarge and upgrade the armed forces were undertaken.

     The end of World War II in Europe disclosed the scope of the Jewish
plight. Immediately the Allied Powers in Europe were confronted with the
refugee, or displaced person, problem, which included large numbers of Jews.
In Great Britain the Labour Party came to power in July 1945. Ernest Bevin,
the new foreign minister, resumed implementation of the 1939 White Paper;
limited Jewish immigration to Palestine; and in January 1946 recognized
Transjordan as a sovereign state with residual British influence. In the
postwar atmosphere these actions were resented by the Zionists, and Palestine
became an armed camp.

     The Jewish Resistance Movement was formed in an attempt to unite or at
least coordinate the disparate Haganah, Irgun, and Stern military units.
Reprisals and courterreprisals between Jews and the Mandate authorities and
between Arabs and the Mandate authorities continued. The Arab League was
formed in 1945, and the Arab Higher Committee reappeared to oppose renewals of
immigration. There were, however, comparatively few Jewish-Arab clashes at
this time. The Arab Higher Committee contended that its main objectives were
elimination of the Mandate and withdrawal of British power, after which the
Jewish Agency could be defeated.

     In May 1946 the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry unanimously declared
its opposition to the White Paper of 1939 and proposed, among other
recommendations, that the immigration of 100,000 European Jews be authorized
at once. The Mandatory Authority rejected this report, specifying that
admission of 100,000 new immigrants was impossible while armed organizations
in Palestine were fighting the Mandate Authority and disrupting public order.
Resistance and terrorism intensified, and the Twenty-second Zionist Congress,
meeting in Geneva in December 1946, named Ben-Gurion as executive chairman and
defense minister of the Jewish Agency. Under his leadership, the training,
arming, and expansion of the Haganah were accelerated in Palestine.

     On February 18, 1947, Bevin informed the House of Commons of the
government's decision to present the problem of Palestine to the UN, and on
May 15, 1947, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly
established the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP),
consisting of eleven members. The UNSCOP reported on August 31 that a majority
of its members supported a geographically complex system of partition into
separate Arab and Jewish states, a special international status for Jerusalem,
and an economic union linking the three members. Backed by both the United
States and the Soviet Union, the plan was adopted after two months of
intensive deliberation as the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of
November 29, 1947.

     On November 30, 1947, the Arab Higher Committee, rejecting the plan,
called for a general strike in Palestine, and violence between Arabs and Jews
mounted. Although considering the plan defective in terms of what they had
expected from the League Mandate twenty-five years before, the Zionist General
Council stated willingness in principle to accept partition. The Arab League
Council, meeting in December 1947, said it would take whatever measures were
required to prevent implementation of the resolution. The Arab League did not,
at this time, approve sending forces into Palestine but did endorse
recruitment of volunteers to assist the Palestinian Arabs. In January 1948
Great Britain, which had abstained from voting on the resolution, announced
its intention to relinquish the Mandate on May 15, 1948. Withdrawal was
completed, and the last British high commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, left
from Haifa at midnight on May 14, 1948.

     Arab military forces began their invasion of Palestine on May 15.
Initially these forces consisted of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 Egyptians;
2,000 to 4,000 Iraqis; 4,000 to 5,000 Transjordanians; 3,000 to 4,000 Syrians;
1,000 to 2,000 Lebanese; and smaller numbers of Saudi Arabian and Yemini
troops, in all about 25,000. The Haganah, such irregular units as the Irgun
and the Stern Gang, and women auxiliaries numbered 35,000 or more. By October
14 Arab forces deployed in the war zones had increased to about 55,000
including not more than 5,000 irregulars of Haj Amin al Hussein's Palestine
Liberation Force. The Israeli military forces had increased to approximately
100,000. Except for the British-raised Arab Legion of Transjordan, Arab units
were largely illtrained and inexperienced. Israeli forces, usually operating
with interior lines of communication, included an estimated 20,000 to 25,000
European World War II veterans in their numbers (see Historical Background,
ch. 5).

     By January 1949 Israeli forces held the area that was to define Israel's
territory until June 1967, although it was larger than the area contemplated
by the UN resolution. The part of Palestine remaining in Arab hands was
limited to that held by the Arab Legion of Transjordan and the Gaza area held
by Egypt at the cessation of hostilities. The area held by the Arab Legion
was subsequently annexed by Jordan and is commonly referred to as the West
Bank. Jerusalem was divided. The Old City, the Western Wall, and the site of
Solomon's Temple upon which stands the Muslim Mosque, the Dome of the Rock,
remained in Jordanian hands; the New City lay on the Israeli side of the line.
Although the West Bank remained under Jordanian suzerainty until 1967, only
two countries-Great Britain and Pakistan-granted de jure recognition of the
annexation.

     Early in the conflict, on May 29, 1948, the United Nations Security
Council established the Truce Commission headed by a UN mediator, the Swedish
diplomat Folke Bernadotte, who was assassinated in Jerusalem on September 17,
1948. He was succeeded by Ralph Bunche, an American, as Acting Mediator. The
commission, which later evolved into the United Nations Truce Supervision
Organization-Palestine (UNTSOP), attempted to devise new plans of settlement
and arranged the truces of June 11-July 8 and July 19-October 14, 1948.
Armistice talks were initiated with Egypt in January 1949, and an armistice
agreement was established with Egypt on February 24, with Lebanon on March 23,
with Transjordan on April 3, and with Syria on July 20. Iraq did not enter
into an armistice agreement but withdrew its forces after turning over their
positions to Transjordanian units.

     United States recognition was accorded to the state on May 14, 1948, and
Soviet recognition was accorded on May 18. By April 1949 fifty-three nations,
including Great Britain , had extended recognition, and on May 11, 1949, the
United Nations General Assembly, on recommendation of the Security Council,
admitted Israel to the UN.