Arab-Isreali War

Post-WWI Britain received Palestine as a mandate, and soon realized the problem of its earlier equal-obligation to both the Jewish and the Arabs. In 1922 Britain partitioned historic Palestine into two new areas, Transjordan and Palestine. Transjordan was 80% of historic Palestine, and the other 20% wass to be the national homeland for the Jewish people. (Bard 84-5) Jews were not allowed to buy land in Transjordan and Arabs were not allowed to buy land in Palestine. Major immigration of Jews began, and Arabs became increasingly concerned that these aliyahs would prevent them from returning to their homeland.

Under the assumption that the British seemed to support the Arabs, Jews put together Haganah, an underground Jewish militia. The

The refugee problem also falls into Brown’s next pattern. This next pattern is the use of reactive politics to push the other parties into a position which can be exploited. In April, 1948, Arab leaders pushed the Palestinians to leave Haifa. This was done for two reasons. The first was that the Arabs believed that this would cause a debilitating effect on the economy; one which they believed the Jews could not cope with. Secondly, the Arabs were planning their attacks and were under the assumption that the Palestinians would be safer outside of the city, and that after the Arab League’s planned victory they could return home. Obviously, this did not occur. The exploitation therefore was done to the Arab inhabitants by the Arab leaders. In 1958, Ralph Garroway (former director of UNRWA) summed up this unfortunate situation, “The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn if the refugees live or die.” (Bard 164)

The entrance of the UN (a subset of Brown’s patterns) came into the situation and made an attempt at diplomacy very early on. The UN was originally brought in when Britain asked for an answer to the problem of equal obligation, prior to the partition of 1947. UNSCOP was created to determine the intensity of the conflict and listened to both the Arabs and the Jews in determining their stance on the issues. When the partition plan was suggested within the UN, there was internal division. The British would only support an agreement that was fair to both the Arabs and the Jews. France liked the idea of the partition, but had to keep its Arab colonies in Africa in mind, otherwise a rebellion might occur. In the end, however, the partition was obviously voted in. The UN was called in repeatedly once the war began. Shortly after, on July 15, 1948, the UN Security Council threatened to cite the Arabs because of their aggression against Israelis. That same summer, the UN sent in Bernadotte, a mediator, in order to draw out a treaty. Like the others, Bernadotte’s ideas were denounced by both sides, and he was assassinated by a Jewish paramilitary group. (Bard 147) After the war the UN gets involved in attempts to solve the refugee problem and tries to implement Resolution 194. The repeated attempts of the UN to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict are hampered by the inability to implement their intentions.

The final pattern in Brown’s proposal is the concept of the zero-sum conclusion. By the end of the war, and the victory of the Israelis, Palestine had been split up between Israel, Egypt and Transjordan. Egypt took the Gaza strip and Transjordan took the old city of Jerusalem and the territory west of the Jordan River. (Cleveland 261) Because of the regional leader’s greedy desire for expansion, the

Some topics in this essay:
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