The Arabs started all the wars: 1948
Written by Arjan El Fassed. Edited by Laurie King-Irani.
Myth
Since the establishment of Israel there have been five major wars between
Arabs and the Israelis. These wars occured in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and
1982. Israel claims that the Arabs started all the wars. Although there has
been low-intensity conflict in the intervening years and major
conflagrations during the "War of Attrition" in 1969-1970 and the 1978
invasion of Lebanon, massive civil disobedience during the Uprising of 1988,
and in 2000-2001 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, it is these five wars Israel
refers to when it makes its claims, creating the impression that Israel has
only acted "in self-defence".
The roots of the 1948 war go as far back as the first recognition on the
part of the Palestinians that the Zionists wished to establish a Jewish
state on their land. In late 1947 the United Nations proposed that Palestine
be divided into a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The UN
Partition Plan recommended that 55 percent of Palestine, and the most
fertile region, be given to the Jewish settlers who compromised 30 percent
of the population. The remaining 45 percent of Palestine was to comprise a
home for the other 70 percent of the population who were Palestinians. The
Palestinians rejected the plan because it was unfair.
Israel and its supporters claim that the Arabs first attacked in Janurary
1948 and then invaded Israel in May 1948.

Facts
The truth is that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and
occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the
Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet
exist.
The evidence that Israel started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources.
The History of the Palmach which was released in portions in the 1950s (and
in full in 1972) details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs
and secure more territory than alloted to the Jewish state by the UN
Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel).
Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to
"control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to
areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up
of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15"
(Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see
also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).
1. Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948
2. Operation Harel, 15 April 1948
3. Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948
4. Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948
5. Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948
6. Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948
7. Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948
8. Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948

9. Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948
10. Operation Barak, 12 May 1948
11. Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948
12. Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948
13. Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948
The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the
Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to
be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet
eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.
Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the major military
operations the Zionists mounted before the British evacuated Palestine and
before the Arab forces entered Palestine:
· Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)
· Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)
· Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)
· Salameh (1 March 1948)
· Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)
· Qana (13 March 1948)
· Qastal (4 April 1948)
· Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)
· Lajjun (15 April 1948)
· Saris (17 April 1948)
· Tiberias (20 April 1948)
· Haifa (22 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (25 April 1948)
· Jaffa (26 April 1948)
· Acre (27 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (1 May 1948)
· Safad (7 May 1948)
· Beisan (9 May 1948).
David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists
in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:
"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered
or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack,
captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and
Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical
Library, 1954, p. 530).
Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it was alloted to
the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.
Late PM Menachem Begin adds:
"In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states
were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab
territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate
importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve
[that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab
states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)
On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists
started the war in 1948:
"As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to
attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda
near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the
storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion,
Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).
Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started
the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force
Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to
attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny
Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the
Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle
Eastern Studies, XXII, January 1986, pp. 5-19).

Conclusion
In sum, it is not true that the Arabs "invaded Israel" in 1948.
First, Israel did not exist at the time of the alleged invasion as an
established state with recognised bounderies. When the Zionist leaders
established Israel on 15 May 1948 they purposely declined to declare the
bounderies of the new state in order to allow for future expansion.
Secondly, the only territory to which the new state of Israel had even a
remote claim was that alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan.
But the Zionists had already attacked areas that were alloted to the
Palestinian Arab state.
Thirdly, those areas which the Arab states purportedly "invaded" were, in
fact, exclusively areas alloted to the Palestinian Arab state proposed by
the UN Partition Plan. The so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt
to hold on to the areas alloted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian
state.
Finally, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, was under orders not to
enter the areas alloted to the Jewish state (Sir John Bagot Glubb, "The
Battle for Jerusalem", Middle East International, May 1973).