6.8 The Second Phase of the 1948 War

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來自 Tel Aviv University 的課程

The Emergence of the Modern Middle East - Part II

284 個評分

Tel Aviv University

The Emergence of the Modern Middle East - Part II

284 個評分

This course will discuss the developments in the Middle East from the early 20th century to the present. It will discuss the rise and retreat of Arab nationalism, the problems of internal cohesion of the Arab states, issues of religion and state, and the evolution of Islamist politics. It will also focus on the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its impact on the region and will conclude with an in depth analysis of the “Arab Spring” by placing these contemporary revolutionary events in their historical context. Please note that this course builds upon a previous course - The Emergence of the Modern Middle East - Part I (https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-middle-east-1/home/welcome) Learn about the history of the Middle East for a deeper understanding of current regional developments!

從本節課中

WEEK 2

The beginnings of the Arab-Israeli conflict

6.1 Introduction: Contexts and Discourse6:47

6.2 Early Zionism9:31

6.3.1 Initial Arab Resistance - Part 16:38

6.3.2 Initial Arab Resistance - Part 27:49

6.4.1 The Arab Rebellion and the Jewish Response - Part 110:36

6.4.2 The Arab Rebellion and the Jewish Response - Part 26:31

6.4.3 The Arab Rebellion and the Jewish Response - Part 36:04

6.5 The Impact of World War II10:00

6.6 The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry5:34

6.7.1 Partition and the First Phase of War - Part 14:53

6.7.2 Partition and the First Phase of War - Part 28:28

6.8 The Second Phase of the 1948 War7:36

6.9.1 The Narratives of the 1948 War - Part 18:45

6.9.2 The Narratives of the 1948 War - Part 24:14

6.9.3 The Narratives of the 1948 War - Part 38:32

與講師見面

Professor Asher Susser
Senior Research Fellow
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

Now we come to the second phase of the war, and

that is the invasion by the neighboring Arab states of Palestine.

Initially the Arab States were hesitant to intervene and

they hoped that just by the threat of intervening and the threat of invasion,

that would elicit international pressure to prevent partition.

And when they did invade in the end, in mid-May of 1948,

it was not with all their forces either.

The Arab states, for the most part, had to leave some of their forces at home

to keep the peace in their own countries, to defend the regimes that were in power,

they could not spare their entire armies for the most part.

But, the Arab invasion was a great threat to the Israelis and

the Israeli military leadership initially feared possible defeat.

And the fear of defeat, even a repetition of the Holocaust,

was not beyond the imagination of the Jewish leadership.

And therefore, the motivation to fight to win at all costs.

But as the war progressed, the Jewish side,

doing rather well, saw possible expansion, and,

in some cases, even to push out the Arab population.

So, what did the different Arab states seek to achieve in the war?

Of course, above all else, they were in theory at least,

united in the objective of preventing the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

But between the different Arab invading armies, there was very little

cooperation and they all had their own separate agendas.

The Jordanians, for example, operated under severe British constraints,

they had an army that was commanded by British officers.

And the Jordanians also had a measure of moderation in their position towards

the Jewish state, essentially they restricted themselves.

To taking over as much of the Arab state of Palestine as they possibly could,

without actually invading the Jewish state.

The Iraqi's had their own ideas about taking Haifa and taking control of

the pipeline that led oil from Iraq to the port of Haifa at that time.

As for the Egyptians, they were also very interested in blocking the other Arabs,

that is the Hashimites, the kingdoms of Iraq and

Jordan from doing too well in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinians.

So the different Arab forces invading Palestine had different

political agendas and very little actual operative cooperation.

One of the questions that arises about the history of the war in 1948,

was was this an instance of the few against the many,

that is, the few Israelis against the many Arabs,

who despite being the few, emerged victorious?

It's a complicated answer to this question.

On the one hand, there were 40 million Arabs in the surrounding Arab states

versus 650,000 Jews in Palestine.

Unquestionably, the Jews were the few fighting against the many.

But in the field, the military forces a raid against one another,

with more or less equal in numbers at first when the war began.

The Arabs had an advantage in equipment, in armor, and in air power.

But Israel had prepared and organized for the war, while the Arabs had not.

Israel had a unity of purpose.

The Arabs had, as we have seen, disparate objectives.

And as the war progressed, the numbers and

the equipment Changed in Israel's favor in all spheres.

The first round of war took place between mid-May and

mid-June, after which the first truce was introduced.

There was another round of fighting for ten days in July, and

by then the Israelis were much stronger.

After the first truce, the Israeli forces increased,

as did those on the Arab side, to about 50,000 to 60,000 each.

But the Israelis were now better equipped than before,

having succeeded in introducing into Israeli

equipment that they had purchased before the creation of the state.

And that was now brought into the country.

By the end of the war, the Israelis actually outnumbered the Arabs,

in men and material, with the Israelis eventually fielding

a force of over 100,000 men when the war came to its conclusion.

The second truce lasted from the the 19th of July until the 15th of October.

And the later campaigns of the war that were fought in the north and

south in late 1948 brought the war to its conclusion with

the expulsion of the Arab forces from Palestine.

The fate of Jerusalem is a question of great importance in and of itself.

In the fighting between the Israeli forces and

the forces of the Jordanian army in Jerusalem,

the Israeli lost control of the Jewish quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Israeli also lost control of the Wailing Wall and

the Israeli military thinkers had to contend with two different kinds of

considerations, the strategic versus the religious and the symbolic.

And it is clear.

But in the manner in which the Israeli leadership conducted the war over

Jerusalem, it was the strategic that was uppermost in their minds,

rather than the religious.

The most important element of the struggle for the Jerusalem was to maintain

the population of 100,000 safely in Israeli control.

But the holy sites were not the most important objective that the Israelis

had in mind.

And actually, as the war progressed and

Israel seem to be doing better as time went by,

the Israelis had the capacity to take all of the city from the summer of 1948.

And even though they could, they decided not to.

And the question is, why not?

It was preferable from the Israeli point of view, so the Prime Minister at

the time, David Ben-Gurion thought it was preferrable to have the city

partitioned between the Jordanians on the one hand and the Israelis on the other.

The partition resolution according to the UN was to have Jerusalem internationalized

and the fear of the Israelis was that if they took the whole city,

they would end up with nothing.

That would be huge international pressure on Israel

to abandon all parts of Jerusalem in favor of internationalization.

Whereas if the city was shared between the Israelis and the Jordanians,

the international community would accept this partition between Jews on the one

hand and Arabs on the other.

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