The 1948 war: Independence and Nakba

What happened

On November 29, 1947, at its 128th plenary meeting, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II), the Plan of Partition with Economic Union. ¹ The plan said the Mandate for Palestine would terminate as soon as possible and no later than August 1, 1948, and that independent Arab and Jewish States, plus a special international regime for the City of Jerusalem, would come into existence two months after the British finished withdrawing, in any case no later than October 1, 1948. ¹

The Arab states and the Arab Higher Committee rejected the plan, and representatives of the Arab states threatened to use force to prevent it from being implemented. ² Violence started the day after the vote. Shots were fired at a Jewish bus near Lod airport, the Arab Higher Committee declared a general strike, and the Jewish commercial district near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem was set on fire and plundered. ²

For the first four months, about 100,000 British troops were still in the country, and British policy was not to intervene in the fighting except to protect British forces and facilities. ² Arab military activity in that period ran to sniping and bombs against Jewish transport on the main roads, against Jewish neighborhoods in mixed cities, and against isolated settlements. ² In January 1948 a volunteer force under Fawzi el Kawukji, the "Army of Salvation," entered the country with roughly 2,000 troops, estimated at 5,000 to 8,000 by February. ² The attacks came close to working politically: on March 19, 1948, the United States proposed a temporary UN trusteeship instead of partition. ²

Then the Hagana went from defending to taking ground. Between April 1 and May 14 it captured Tiberias on April 18 and Haifa on April 22, took the western Galilee and the city of Safed, and briefly reopened the road to besieged Jewish Jerusalem in Operation Nachshon. ² The Knesset's own account of this stage says that the rights of Arab non-combatants were usually preserved, that in Haifa the Jewish authorities did the utmost to prevent the mass exodus of Arabs, and that at Deir Yassin, a village on the western edge of Jerusalem captured by the Etzel and the Lechi, there was no effort to prevent the killing of innocent residents. ² It adds that it has been claimed the killing there was intentional and meant to speed the flight of the Arab population. ²

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, the assembled representatives declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel to be known as the State of Israel, effective at the termination of the Mandate that night. ³ The declaration pledged to implement the General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, appealed to the Arab inhabitants of the new state to preserve peace and take part in it on the basis of full and equal citizenship, and offered peace and good neighborliness to the surrounding states. ³

The next morning Egyptian aircraft struck Tel Aviv, and five regular Arab armies entered the war. ² The IDF was not formally established until June 27. ² The Egyptian advance up the coast was stopped 35 kilometers from Tel Aviv; Jordan's Arab Legion took the Etzion Bloc and, after a fight, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. ² Two UN truces interrupted the fighting, on June 10 and July 18. ² In October, Operation Yoav reopened the road to the Negev and Israeli forces took Be'er Sheva on October 21. ² On January 5, 1949, Egypt agreed to negotiate the armistice the Security Council had demanded back on November 16, 1948. ²

The Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement was signed at Rhodes on February 24, 1949. ⁴ The Jordanian-Israeli agreement followed at Rhodes on April 3. ⁵ Both documents were careful about what the new lines were not. The Egyptian agreement says the demarcation line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary. ⁴ The Jordanian one says its lines are agreed without prejudice to future territorial settlements, boundary lines, or either party's claims. ⁵

By the Knesset's count, more than 6,000 Israelis were killed, almost 4,000 of them soldiers, close to 1 percent of the country's population. Arab losses are put at about 2,000 regular invading troops plus an unknown number of irregular Palestinian forces. ²

Why it still matters

Israel's parliament calls it the War of Independence, the first war between the State of Israel and the neighboring Arab countries. ² Palestinians call the same period the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, and mark roughly 700,000 people displaced in 1948. ⁷ In November 2022 the General Assembly adopted a resolution creating an annual commemoration of it, and UNRWA now counts 5.9 million registered Palestine refugees. ⁷

The refugee question got its formal shape on December 11, 1948, before the fighting was even finished. Resolution 194 (III) said refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return. ⁶ It set up a Conciliation Commission to arrange repatriation, resettlement, economic and social rehabilitation, and compensation. ⁶ Nearly eighty years on, none of that has happened.

Population moved the other direction too. After 1948, more than 850,000 Jews were forced out of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and other Arab countries over roughly two decades. ⁸ Around a million Jews lived in Arab countries and Iran until the 1960s; about 15,000 remain. ⁸ Most of those who left went to Israel. No UN agency was created for them and no resolution promised them return or compensation.

The armistice lines are the other thing 1948 handed forward. Both agreements said in writing that the lines were military, not political. ⁴⁵

The words you'll hear

Resolution 181. The November 29, 1947 General Assembly resolution partitioning Mandatory Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem under a separate international regime. ¹

The Yishuv. The organized Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. The Hagana was its military arm, and became the core of the IDF, which was formally established on June 27, 1948. ²

Nakba. Arabic for catastrophe. The Palestinian name for 1948 and the displacement of roughly 700,000 people; the UN General Assembly established an annual commemoration of it in November 2022. ⁷

War of Independence. The Israeli name for the same conflict, defined by the Knesset as the first war between the State of Israel and the neighboring Arab countries, running from the eve of statehood to January 1949. ²

Resolution 194. The December 11, 1948 General Assembly resolution whose paragraph 11 addresses return for refugees willing to live at peace with their neighbours, and compensation for those who do not return. ⁶

Armistice Demarcation Line. The cease-fire line drawn by the 1949 agreements. The Egyptian agreement states it is not a political or territorial boundary; the Jordanian one says its lines carry no prejudice to future territorial settlements. ⁴⁵