Explain the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Up to and Including 1948

The Arab-Israeli Conflict has been one of the most divisive and controversial settings known to mankind. Both Zionist and Palestinian historians feel they have the right to the land known as Israel, the land that would go on to host the Arab-Israeli conflict. With the formation of Zionism, (Jewish nationalism; the belief that Jews are a people or nation that they have a right to a state and that state rightfully, by history and heritage is Israel) one prominent Zionist Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), believed the Jews must create their own state outside Europe. Israel has attempted to achieve peace through the Balfour Declaration 1917, prior to independence in 1948, and five Arab states invaded.
The British made promises too many groups, to help win World War 1. From the Arab perspective, the British promised Palestine to them in 1915-16, in the Hussein-McMahon (British High Commissioner in Cairo) correspondence, in exchange for leading an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks. The British would grant independence to the Arabs after the war. From the Jewish viewpoint, the British promised Palestine to them in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Foreign Arthur Balfour wanted the British Government to publicly state its support for Zionist aspirations in Palestine. Then American Jews would urge the American Government to join the Allies in the war. After consultation with the American and French government, the British issued a “statement of sympathy”. Jews benefited from this however, the Palestinians found this the first act of betrayal. The French also had a claim through the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, (an agreement that basically carved up the Arab state). After the war the British attempted to make good on all their commitments but none of the claimants were satisfied.
In 1919 a mandate system of governing the Middle East emerged from the Versailles Treaty. And in 1922, the League of Nations confirmed the assignment of the 'Palestine Mandate' to Great Britain, who was given the responsibility of putting the terms of the Balfour Declaration into effect. As British rule continued, riots, demonstrations, outbreaks of violence, became increasingly frequent. An Arab revolt occurred from 1936-1939. In 1937, the Peel partition Plan was released; the dividing up of Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. This plan was rejected by the Arabs. To secure Arab support in World War II, the British restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine in 1939. British Policy during WWII continued preventing illegal Jewish immigrants. The British government refused to lift restrictions on Jewish immigration, arguing the mass arrival of homeless Jews would have a disastrous impact on the Arab population. In May 1939 Britain issued a White Paper, essentially repudiated the Balfour Declaration, stating Palestine would become an independent unitary state with a clear Arab majority within 10 years. Neither side found it acceptable. With the outbreak of WWII, the British could not afford to alienate the Arabs and risk losing their Middle East bases. In November 1946 the British Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin state the 1939 White Paper policy restrictions would continue. By the end of 1946, the Jews looked at the British as enemies. The British agreed to leave Palestine but did not endorse either report as they didn’t want to be seen by the Arab states as supporting something unacceptable to them.
On November 29, 1946 the United Nations voted in favour of Resolution 181, diving Palestine into three parts of a Jewish state, an Arab state, and the area in and around Jerusalem, with governance under an international trusteeship. David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel on May 14, 1948 the day before the British departed Palestine and five Arab states invaded; Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Lebanon crossed the borders of what had been Palestine, to secure the Arab state and invade the Jewish one.
Several factors contributed to the Israelis winning the war. A simple calculation of the populations of the countries involved in the war has led to the numbers myth, perpetuated by the Israeli government in its educational literature. A typical publication, A Perspective through Time, speaks of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) as being "poorly armed and vastly outnumbered". Avi Shlaim points out, this was no David and Goliath struggle. In mid-May 1948, the Arab forces numbered under 25,000 against the IDF's 35,000. By mid-July the IDF had 65 000 fighters and by December 96, 441. The Arabs also increased in numbers, but not at the same rate, and by the final stage of the war, the ratio was 2:1 in favour of the Israelis. In the 1948 war, the stronger side prevailed. In addition to troop numbers, the Israelis had made use of the first UN-sponsored truce, which lasted from 11 June to 8 July, to import quantities of arms from Czechoslovakia to consolidate their advantage.
The Israeli historian Benny Morris describes what happened when the village of al-Dawayima, on the western slopes of the Hebron highlands, was captured on 29 October 1948:
The occupying forces indiscriminately killed between 80 and 100 male villagers, blew up houses together with their occupants, murdered women and children, and committed rape. These acts were committed not in the heat of battle and inflamed passions, but out of a system of expulsion and destruction. The fewer Arabs who remained, the better.
The Israeli government propaganda has emphasised the "voluntary" nature of the Palestinian exodus, begging the Palestinians to go back to their homes as they had nothing to fear. Fighting finally stopped on 7 January 1949, when both sides accepted the Security Council's call for a cease-fire. Armistice agreements followed between Israel and Egypt (24 February), Lebanon (23 March), Jordan (3 April) and Syria (20 July). Each of the armistice agreements stated that its purpose was "to facilitate the transition from the present truce to a permanent peace in Palestine." A final myth in recent historiography is the question of why no peace agreements were made. The traditional Zionist answer has been to blame Arab stubbornness. Israel's leaders, argued, they strove for peace, but the Arabs would not respond. Increasingly throughout the 1950s there was a sense among Arab states that internal divisions were preventing them from realising common goals. Uncoordinated and conflicting actions had reduced their effectiveness against Israel in 1948.
Revisionist Israeli historians believe it was the Israelis who were narrow-minded. The official records of the Israeli Government hold evidence of Arab readiness to negotiate with Israel from September 1948 onwards. Ben Gurion main priorities after the war were with the building of the Jewish state and not the making of peace with his neighbours. He felt that the armistice agreements met Israel's needs for recognition, security and stability. He did rush into peace agreements because he thought time was on Israel's side. Given time, Israel's position on all the major issues: borders, refugees and Jerusalem, would be accepted by the world community.
Ben Gurion rejected Egypt's peace feelers in September 1948 and Syria's in the spring of 1949. The consolidation of the Israeli state began, and the number of Jewish settlements founded in the period 1948–1950. The establishment of settlements along the armistice lines was regarded as an effective barrier to a potential Arab invasion.
Looking back on the events from the UN partition resolution of 1947 to the conclusion of the War of Independence (or "Catastrophe" to the Palestinians), Benny Morris wrote:
After 1948, many tended to regard those days of greatness and salvation as a kind of personal Golden Age, … Zionist enterprise as a whole and especially that wondrous moment of national rebirth...