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Why Did Israel Win the First Arab-Israeli War Essay Example

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Why Did Israel Win the First Arab-Israeli War Essay Example
On May 14 1948, Israel declared its independence as a new state. A war that officially lasted approximately 19 months ended with the Israelis’ victorious and proud owners of a legal Jewish homeland. Despite the fact that there is a vast array of sources, especially with the opening of the Israeli and foreign archives, they are all immeasurably biased and all tend to have opposing opinions one nearly every aspect of both the Arab-Israeli conflict and War. A number of factors led to this outcome namely foreign involvement, military strength, impetus, leadership, and the lack of timing and preparation of the invading states. “The first war began as a civil conflict between Palestinian Jews and Arabs following the United Nations recommendation of Nov. 29, 1947, to partition Palestine, then still under British mandate, into an Arab state and a Jewish state.” Though initially Arab guerilla forces, commanded by British officers were succeeding in capturing a number of settlements, including that of Jerusalem, by April the tide had turned and the Haganah seized the offensive and were recapturing areas. The day after the declaration of Israeli independence heavily supplied military forces from Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia arrived to support the efforts of the Arab Palestinian forces.
Foreign involvement was most certainly a highly important factor in the initiation of the first Arab-Israeli war. The UN, US, and British all had they are separate causes for involving themselves in the situation at hand in Palestine. The UN for peacekeeping purposes, the US and other countries because of the guilt of not having granted European Jews asylum from Hitler during World War II, and the British because they were given Palestine as a mandate following the first World War. Having initially supported the Jewish Zionist movement as seen in the Balfour declaration, the British slowly shifted their backing to the Arab populace in the area. By 1939 not only had

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