First, this is NOT a great debate nor a debate about current politics, so please do NOT introduce those into this thread. Looking for factual information only please. (There. Bitter flame battle averted.)
When modern Israel was established as a country, several Arab nations threatened to attack the instant Israel proclaimed its independence. And they held true to their word. On tapes recorded during a speach establishing the country, the sounds of planes, bombs and gunfire can be heard in the background.
My question is: this was a very short time after the end of WWII, where Jewish casualties were… well, in the millions. So how is it that after such a short time frame between the end of WWII and the start of this war, the Israelis were able to mount a defense and win?
That requires equipment, a standing military (how was this assembled prior to the country being established?), training, etc.
Part of this organization was the Haganah, which, according to this link :
So, basically, they had a well-trained, well-coordinated paramilitary defense force set up and ready to go and, most importantly, they were fighting for their homeland and very existence, whereas the Arabs were poorly led and coordinated. Here’s an interesting article on the war from Wikipedia.
if you want the IDF’s version of the story, it’s here
There were a number of Jewish paramilitary groups active in Palestine prior to 1948. According to Wikipedia the Irgun received some weapons and training from the Polish government from 1936. Lehi the Irgun off-shoot called the Stern Gang by the British, may even have approached Nazi Germany for support.
The largest group of all was the Haganah which had been formed back in 1909. By 1936 Haganah had 10,000 men at arms and some 40,000 reservists. They took part in suppressing the Arab uprising from 1936 to 1939. 30,000 Palestinian Jews took part in WWII, and a Jewish Brigade was formed in 1943. This formed a core group of trained soldiers in time for the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948.
The ranks of the IDF swelled rapidly to about 100,000 at the height of the War of Independence. Nearly all able-bodied men, plus many women, were recruited; thousands of foreign volunteers, mostly veterans of World War II, also came to the aid of Israel. The newly independent state rapidly mobilized to meet the Arab invaders; by July 1948, the Israelis had set up an air force, a navy, and a tank battalion. Weapons and ammunition were procured abroad, primarily from Czechoslovakia. Three B-17 bombers were bought in the United States through black market channels
Haganah appears to have extensively cooperated and trained with the Australian army in Syria and with SOE. Also, some of the first migrants to Israel were veterans of various combat units in WWII, particularly the Jewish Brigade. By 1947 the Israelis already had the nascent equivalents of a special forces (Haganah), a veteran combat infantry (the Jewish Brigade and veterans) and, in the form of Irgun and the Stern gang, a terrorist/psychological operations arm.
The Israelis did receive American help in the form of individual combat veterans who quickly helped put all of that raw talent together. Israel’s first lieutenant general was a former American colonel named David Marcus, a.k.a. Mickey Stone. Marcus served–and died–in Israel with tacit approval of the War Department, provided he served under an alias.
By contrast most historians agree that the forces surrounding Israel were what are often known as “ceremonial armies”–good for parading on holidays and policing the home population, but not particularly well drilled or trained for combat (it’s very expensive to train and very wasteful of valuable spare parts). I would argue that Egypt and Syria didn’t really become combat armies until 1973, maybe 1967 at best, but that’s an argument and not a fact.
Geographically, of course, Israel fought very hard to preserve its interior lines of communication, which allowed the Israelis to concentrate in force at crisis spots. The military history of Israel can be viewed as one of repeated (failed) attempts by the Arab nations to coordinate their attacks in order to overcome the Israeli advantage of interior lines of communication.
“War of Independence” – how does that work given it was the end of the British Mandate and the land was up for grabs e.g. “independence” from whom – there was nothing “Israeli” to be independent from, and the land belonged to no one.
Is this George Bush stylie historical revision: Help ?
“Independence” from whom - Jews jointly lived under the Palestine Mandate with Arabs. The Mandate expired, the Jews took control of the land and created a State where one didn’t formerly exist.
That’s creating a nation (Nationhood) where there wasn’t one before. To claim independence, surely you’ve got to pre-exist in a unitary form ?
London_Calling, by your reasoning, the US War of Independence couldn’t be called that, as the US was formerly a bunch of separate colonies.
And of course, there existed a state of Israel, in some form, in biblical times, and Zionists would argue that the War of 1948 re-established this state, regaining independence.
However I favour the use of War of 1948. Alternatives, “War of Independence” and “Naqba” (“disaster” in Arabic) come with too much political baggage…
lambchops - Huh ? The colonies were pre-existing unitary authorities/entities/whatever that banded together to claim independence. That’s my point. They pre-existed.
Sorry, this still isn’t happening for me. This is the problem I have: in order to gain independence, you need two things;
Something to gain independence from – say, a colonial power, and
Something with which to gain independence with – a land-based unitary authority
There was nothing to gain indolence from as the Mandate had expired - there was no authority over that land from which independence had to be gained, and
There was nothing to gain independence with – no pre-existing unitary authority exerted itself in order to gain independence; rather the unitary authority was born afterwards (nationhood).
Just for arguments sake; who is it this non-existing State of Israel gained independence from ?
Even if they did, so what? Had the Arab nations the will, they could easily have outspent any private effort by American citizens by at least ten or twenty to one. The proto-Israelis had nothing to lose (the alternative was being slaughtered) and were highly-trained and determined. The poorly-led conscript armies of the Arab nations hadn’t a chance.
Billions in aid to Israel only became necessary to its survival when the Arabs (partly) got their act together and begin investing some of their own significant wealth in obtaining advanced weapons systems like tanks and fighters. I suppose if Saudi Arabia decided to spend every possible petrodollar on arming, they could conceivably build a conventional army that could crush Israel, but Isreal retains in nuclear trump card. Fortunately, the Saudi ruling class is historically too corrupt and prone to infighting to make the necessary effort.