In 1948, the newly-created state of Israel went to war with five of its Arab neighbors. To the Israelis, this event is known as the War of Independence.  For Palestinians, it is part of the Nakba, or "The Catastrophe."

Background:

Southwest Asia was emerging from British and French mandatory rule at the end of World War II.  New countries such as Transjordan (Jordan), Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria gained their independence from the UN mandates in the mid-1940s.


  However, the UN had a different plan for the former British mandate of Palestine. 

Since early in the 20th century, some Jewish people from Europe and North Africa had begun to return to Palestine, their ancient homeland.  The Romans had expelled their ancestors from the Kingdom of Israel in 135 CE, after crushing the Third Jewish Revolt.  It was also the Romans who renamed the land "Palestine," meaning "Land of the Philistines," in an attempt to break the Jewish people's ties to Israel.  However, over almost 2,000 years of exile, the Jewish diaspora never lost their longing to return to the Land of Israel.  The 20th century movement for their return is known as "Zionism."

Unfortunately, the land was not sitting empty for 2,000 years, waiting for the Jews to return.  Other people, mostly ethnic Arabs of the Muslim and Christian faiths, had been living in Palestine for all of those long centuries, building homes and cities, planting gardens and orchards, and sinking deep roots in the soil.

  Palestine/Israel was their homeland, too.

Following the horrors of World War II, and facing the collective guilt and shame over the world's failure to stop the Holocaust in which the Nazis systematically murdered 6 million Jews, the United Nations decided that the time had come for the Jewish people to have their own state again.  Under the terms of the 1947 Partition Plan, the UN granted the surviving Jews about half of Palestine for their new Jewish State.

It should have come as no surprise that the entire Arab world erupted in outrage when news of this resolution came out.  Violence broke out between informal Jewish and Arab militias around Palestine, and the first wave of Palestinian refugees scattered from central Palestine into neighboring nations.  This wave was about 100,000 strong, and consisted mostly of wealthy or middle class Palestinians who thought that they could get out of the path of the violence, and then later return to their homes.  Over the following year, they would be followed by 600,000 more, most of whom ended up in refugee camps.  Many of them are still waiting to return home.

Israeli Independence and the War:

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion announced the formal establishment of the State of Israel.  On May 15, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria invaded the new country, attacking Jewish settlements.  Buckling to pressure from its large Christian minority, Lebanon decided at the last minute to opt out of the war - it would go on to play a rather minor role.  Nevertheless, Israel faced invasion from the south by Egypt, from the east by Jordan and Iraq, and from the north by Syria.  It looked as if the nascent Jewish State, which hadn't even had time to organize proper military forces, was about to be wiped off the map.

Faced with this existential threat, Israeli settlers dug in all over the country and fought the Arab armies' advances to a stand-still.  Some of the fiercest fighting took place around Jerusalem, a city that is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.  Under the Partition Plan, Jerusalem was to remain under UN control.  However, King Abdullah of Jordan was determined to seize the city, while the Jewish settlers in the area were equally determined to take control of it themselves.  The Battle for Jerusalem raged until July 18, 1948.  It ended in a stalemate, with the Jordanian Army occupying East Jerusalem and the Israelis holding on to West Jerusalem.

In the north, Syria's powerful army rolled its tanks toward Israeli settlements, but faced fierce resistance from settlers armed in some cases only with rifles and Molotov cocktails.  The situation was desperate for the Israelis, who were out-numbered and seriously out-gunned.  Interestingly, the eastern European nation of Czechoslovakia played a key role in helping the Israelis hold on. 

On May 20, the Czechs sent 25 Avia fighter planes to the Israelis.  They later also sent 62 Spitfires, and some B-17 bombers, as well as additional Avias.  Israel quickly established an Air Force, piloted mainly by WWII veterans from other countries.  On June 1, they flew a bombing raid against Amman, Jordan, hitting the king's palace.  By October, incredibly, the Israelis had air superiority over their Arab foes, mostly due to their volunteer and mercenary flyers.

With these successes, the Israeli armed forces were able to recruit a number of additional troops.  Between July of 1948 and the following spring, their troop strength nearly doubled to 115,000.  Czechoslovakia also supplied weapons and ammunition to the Israelis, keeping them in the fight.

Where the Israelis went on the offensive, they often expelled the Palestinian civilians in their path, adding to the flood of refugees.  By that fall, the tide of the war was flowing in Israel's favor on every front.

Between February and July of 1949, the victorious Israelis signed peace agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, respectively.  Israel now controlled nearly 80% of the land that had been Palestine.  An estimated 7,000 Arab soldiers died in the war, along with 6,373 Israeli soldiers and civilians.  Perhaps 13,000 Palestinian civilians were killed.  Of Palestine's prewar population of about 1.2 million Arabs, more than half were expelled or fled their homes, a total of over 700,000 refugees spilling into neighboring countries.

Extremely upset with the outcome of this war, the Arab states refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees into their own populations, instead establishing huge refugee camps for them.  More than 60 years later, they continue to insist that the Palestinians have a "right of return" - that is, the right to go back to the homes their families fled in 1948.