Let us try to confront the issue of the numerical relationship
between the forces in 1948 straight on. Even during the first part
of the war, which was a struggle between the two local communities,
when it came to armed fighters, the Jewish yishuv (pre-state
community) actually had an advantage over the local Palestinian
community, despite the fact the Palestinian population was twice
the size. Not only did the leaders of the Jewish community know
this, it was also assumed by British and American military experts.
This was true until the neighboring Arab states entered the
picture. The yishuv was more organized, had prepared its fighting
forces and their strength was exagerated by British intelligence
services, who claimed that the Haganah had two or three times the
amount of arms it actually had. All of this led to the perception
that the forces weren't equal.
The irony is that from December, 1947 till March, 1948, there was a
very difficult war, in which this Jewish military advantage was not
expressed because of strategic errors. Most of its efforts were
devoted to maintaining transport and communication links, in the
belief that maintaining these would contain the fighting. The
initial clashes took place in urban areas, the cities and mixed
towns, while rural Palestinians were much slower to get involved.
This was a repetition of the situation in the 1936-39 Arab
rebellion. The turbulence began in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, but
once rural farmers and villagers became involved, the situation
became much more difficult.
Paradoxical Situation
The approach of the Zionist leadership, throughout the days of the
British Mandate, had been to downplay the significance of the
"intifada", to use the contemporary term for rebellion. This held
true for l947-48 as well. In the first few months of the struggle,
the initiative, timing, etc., were all on the Arab side. This
indicates that the Jewish interest was to prevent and contain the
rebellion, not to exploit an opportunity to gain advantages.
The pattern of the first few months of the war suited Palestinian
fighting capabilities. They couldn't activate large, organized
forces, or attempt to capture a town or village, but they were able
to carry out partisan actions against convoys and isolated
communities. This led to a war of attrition and high loss of life,
particularly in the Palmach, the yishuv's organized commando unit
and the only force which could carry out serious attacks.
We should note the paradox that when the yishuv had a numerical
advantage in the first months of the war, it wasn't translated into
advantages in the battlefield. This actually caused the US and
others to have second thoughts about the creation of an independent
Jewish state.
At this point, the leadership of the yishuv changed tactics to
concentrate forces (the Nachshon Operation) and conquer territory,
which had not been done during the sisyphean struggle over the
transportation arteries. The decision to change tactics was taken
as soon as they realized the previous strategy wasn't working and
the international climate was beginning to change towards the
establishment of a state - the US was preparing a trusteeship
proposal, and looked as if they were going to convene the UN
General Assembly.
It took essentially one month, April, to destroy the military force
of the local Palestinian community. Beginning with the conquest of
the village of Kastel, the Israelis soon took control of the mixed
cities, and the route to Jerusalem was opened.
The British Mandate ended on May 14, 1948 (the date of the
declaration of the State of Israel), and if it weren't for the
invasion of the Arab armies, all of the area west of the Jordan
River would have been in the hands of the Jews within two weeks.
This would have meant ruling over another nation, with all the
potential implications and consequences as we can see today. We
shouldn't forget the cruel nature of such struggles, which are
essentially civil wars, as witnessed recently in the Balkans. Such
a development might have led to expulsion, if not total
destruction.
Of course, all of these "what if" scenarios can be played from both
sides, since on our side there are always claims about "what they
would have done to us" if the Arabs had won. Such a war, of total
victory and total defeat, leads to a zero sum game, with
potentially disastrous consequences.
The Five Arab Armies
The entrance of the Arab armies was motivated, first and foremost,
by the desire to save the Arab community in Palestine. This is not
emphasized in our narrative, though perhaps it is presented to a
greater degree within the Arab narrative. This doesn't mean that
this was their only goal. If, after their entrance into the war,
they had achieved a series of rapid victories, would they have
stopped there? No.
The Arab leaders couldn't refrain from entering the struggle
because they weren't ready for, or were afraid of, the UN's
response, i.e. the response of the two rival super powers, both of
whom supported the UN Partition Plan. Remember, we are not talking
about contemporary Egypt, but King Farouk's Egypt, King Abdallah's
Jordan (which the British recommended should not enter the fray,
despite general assumptions to the contrary), King Faisal's Iraq, a
very different Syria, and Lebanon. These were not today's
well-armed Arab states. And if today you can see how wary they are
about antagonizing the American super power, you can imagine the
constraints they felt then, given their dependence. If the USSR had
been on the other side, we could imagine a scenario in which the
Russians would have encouraged the Arabs. But that didn't happened.
The Russians were clearly on the side of the partition plan.
So where did the Arab states find the courage? In my view, the
answer is they were confronted with an internal consideration,
public opinion, demonstrated on the streets. They were also bound
by a series of decisions that had been made, beginning in l945, but
particularly in 1946-47, which said that, under certain
circumstances, they were committed to defending the Palestinian
Arab side in a conflict. They were also trapped by slogans that
they themselves had encouraged. But the primary factor was the
collapse of the Palestinian Arab community, which forced the Arab
armies to get involved. All of this was wrapped in their commitment
to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.
What Were the Goals of the Arab States?
What were the war goals of the Arab states - to destroy the yishuv,
to prevent the establishment of the state, to capture all of the
western Land of Israel? My answer is no, and it has been reinforced
by studies carried out in recent years by Israeli scholars.
Jordan was forced to follow the lead of the Arab states, based upon
the aforementioned background. But once the opposing Jewish forces
turned out to be stronger than anticipated, King Abdallah changed
his plans and tried to arrive at an agreement with the Israeli
leaders. The others accused him, with no small amount of
justification, of only looking out for his own interests - which
were to take control of the territory that had been set aside for
an Arab state - the West Bank.
The Iraqi and Syrian maneuvers in the north were a little confusing
when it comes to analyzing their intentions, but the primary riddle
has been - why did the Egyptians stop advancing at the point they
stopped? No Jewish force blocked their advance from the south.
There were some Israeli counter attacks against them, which failed.
One can say that they had a deterrent impact on them, particularly
since they involved the first use of planes (two of which were
downed). But for some reason, the entire line of their advance
stopped at a point that had not been meant to be a part of the
Jewish state - including kibbutzim like Nirim and Yad Mordechai,
which were supposed to be within the area of the Arab state. The
Egyptians stopped at what was to be the border of the partition
plan.
As I see it, the explanation for this is as follows (though it can
only be completely confirmed when all the military and government
archives are opened). The partition plan was based on a division of
three areas, which were to be attached at two points. Three
segments of the Jewish state - the Upper Galilee which was to be
connected around Nazareth with the Zevulun Valley, the Sharon area,
which was to be connected with the Negev area around Be'er Tuvia
and the Negev Entrance area.
The Arab area in the Gaza Strip was to be connected at some point
to Judea and Samaria, which was to be connected at another point
with the Lower Galilee. Each state had three strips, which were
connected by the same points, like a bikini. If we had wanted to
take control of areas meant for the Arab state, it was necessary to
take control of these connecting points, to prevent the bi-section
of the Jewish state.
The goal of the Syrians, Lebanese and Iraqis was to reach this
connecting point from the north - to reach Nazareth. That was the
way to gain control of the passageway to the Arab area. If they had
succeeded, it would also have meant the bisection of the Jewish
state.
Saving the Arab Community
Why is all of this important? Because I want to emphasize that the
Arab military goals were not the goals that are stressed in our
literature - the conquest of the entire territory, but rather more
limited goals. Along the lines of President Sadat's limited goals
when he initiated the Yom Kippur War in 1973. This is the answer to
the question of whether they were such heroes when they decided to
invade. My answer is no. They didn't dare plan, in advance, to take
control of the area that was designated for the Jewish state in
accordance with the UN partition plan. They arranged a plan, which,
at least in the beginning, could be justified before the UN, if it
responded harshly to the situation. If they were asked, "What are
you doing in the land of Israel?", they would respond that "We were
invited by the Arab side to save the Arab community, and we only
entered the Arab territories, not the area of the Jewish state." I
anticipate that when the Arab war plans are revealed, that is the
picture we will get. This explains why the Egyptians stopped at the
point they did.
The leadership of the Jewish state didn't understand this, and
there was no reason for it to do so. That is the privilege of
historians. Still, correct behavior does not always follow from
understanding. After all, we also have to take into account the
dynamics of how things develop. Let's assume that the Arab armies
didn't encounter strong resistance, would they have stopped at the
borders of the Jewish state and not proceeded further? Did we stop
in 1967? We also had all sorts of plans concerning borders and
peace, but a different dynamic emerged. Instead of maintaining the
territories as a card in exchange for a future peace, we
established settlements.
This wasn't a preconceived scheme. There were pressure groups,
dynamics, and as usual, a political leadership which was dragged
along and did not lead.
While I can say that the Israeli narrative that there was a threat
to the existence of the state was incorrect, and that the plans of
the Arab armies were limited - I can't say that they wouldn't have
gone beyond those limitations if circumstances had permitted. Force
doesn't stop - it can't suffer a vacuum. The same was true for
Sadat in 1973. If the Egyptian army had been able to advance and
conquer all of Sinai, wouldn't it have done so, despite the limited
war plans? Wouldn't he have responded to the demands of the
generals to continue beyond the Mitla Pass? This is how the dynamic
works - the dynamics of power, as I understand them from
history.
I'm not saying that we should have responded only in accordance
with the limited goals of the Arab armies. We acted in accordance
with our fears. And, of course, we could not afford to lose. But,
after the victory in the War of Independence, there was no need to
continue to declare, with drums and bugles, that it was a war in
which the Arabs intended to destroy us, to throw us into the sea,
etc. That was not the case.
The Few Against the Many: Phase 2
Now we reach the question of "the few against the many" in the
second phase of the war. When the Egyptians reached their intended
target line after two weeks of fighting, stopped, and encountered
resistance, the question is whether they had enough force to retain
the line. To ensure that they wouldn't go beyond this line, it was
essential that the Jewish yishuv had a counterbalancing force, and
such a force existed. The true miracle was that we placed the same
number of soldiers in the battlefield as the entire Arab armies.
The same number of divisions and soldiers, about 29,000 men. We had
the same number of infantrymen. If this had not been the case, our
situation would have been very grave.
This was the main factor - soldiers were more important than
weapons and equipment. Remember, we are talking about primitive
weapons, not the sort of technology that the Americans or Israelis
are capable of putting in the field today. The miracle was that a
Jewish community that numbered 650,000 people was capable of
mobilizing a fighting force equal to the combined Arab armies which
came from nations with a combined population of 30 million people.
Egypt alone had a population of about 19 million.
The Arabs had a much larger military potential than the force sent
to Israel. But much of those additional forces had to remain behind
to defend the regimes, and they didn't really have that much in
reserve. The additional amazing factor was that, in the course of
the war, the IDF actually tripled its manpower. It became an army
with over l00,000 mobilized soldiers. Two-thirds came from the new
immigrants, and the rest were somehow squeezed out of the yishuv.
Most of the increase was not in the infantry (which did not
increase significantly) but in the supportive units, logistics, the
navy, the air force, etc. This is the ratio of modern armies - one
to three.
Why didn't the Arab armies increase their forces as well? The
outcome of the war was determined when they didn't succeed in
taking control of the areas of the Jewish yishuv. They didn't bring
enough forces to even attempt this. The commanders of the Arab
armies knew that they weren't sufficiently prepared, but they hoped
that things would work out against a Jewish force that really
wasn't a full-fledged standing army, and which lacked heavy
weaponry.
The Role of the British
It is interesting that the narratives of both the Israelis and the
Palestinians say that the British helped the other side. This to me
is proof of the fact that they didn't help either side, at least
not in an organized, planned manner. It was the local commander who
frequently determined things, depending upon his level of empathy
or antipathy for one of the sides, although at the higher levels,
there was an attempt to be impartial.
In Haifa, there was a pro-Zionist orientation. The British
commander, General Stockwell, actually told us when he was leaving.
So we were ready, and the Arabs weren't, and within two or three
days, Haifa was in our hands. And he was ready to offer trucks to
the Arabs, for evacuation. It might have been a humanitarian
measure, but it only served to increase the panic. On the other
hand, when we conquered the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in East
Jerusalem, the British forced us to withdraw. They tried to
maintain a certain balance.
Israel Changed the Equation
On the Arab side, it was natural for them to believe that they had
the advantage. They did have an absolute advantage in heavy
weaponry - tanks, armored vehicles and artillery (particularly the
Jordanians), and they had planes and a navy (the Egyptians). There
are claims that they had problems with their ammunition and
corruption, but the main factor was that Israel changed the
equation. Despite the arms embargo declared by the Western powers,
the Israeli army succeeded in getting weapons, thanks to the
Russians. In this respect, the Israeli narrative that states the
Czech weapons we received, with Russian backing, were critical to
the war effort, is correct.
We also received additional, smuggled weapons from American and
European sources. But the Czech weapons were critical - light arms
and planes, the basis for the small Israeli air force. We also
acquired tanks and even ships. The Czech assistance was already a
factor during the first phase, when 5,000 rifles arrived on the eve
of Operation Nachshon. The embargo hurt the Arab side more than it
hurt the Jews. It worked in Israel's favor, because it prevented
the Arab armies from replenishing their equipment. This
particularly affected the Egyptians and the Syrians, since we can
assume that the British continued to help the Jordanians. The fact
is that we weren't able to remove them from East Jerusalem, or
Latrun. After ten days of fighting over Ramla and Lod (Lydda), we
arrived at a modus vivendi, which enabled us to turn our efforts
against the Egyptians, Syrians and Iraqis. The Egyptians were the
primary threat. The war began and ended with them. If they said
they wanted war, there would be a war, if they say they wanted an
agreement, the war ended. This is as it would be in the future as
well. So the first cease-fire was signed with the Egyptians. Just
as in the peace process, Egypt was the focal point.
To conclude, the fact that it wasn't a situation of "the few
against the many" prevented the Arabs from winning. This was
reinforced by an arms embargo that worked against the Arab side,
and enabled the Israelis to overcome the advantage that the Arab
armies had in the sphere of weaponry.