BACKGROUND 

The 1948 struggle for the road to Jerusalem



How did a people almost decimated by the Holocaust manage to found a state against such overwhelming odds during their War of Independence? 

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A number of factors should be considered. There was the realization among the Jews in Palestine that another genocide had to be prevented at all costs and motivation was extremely hight. Many of the Jewish fighters had received military training, some in the British army, while most of the Arabs fighting for Jerusalem were disorganized villagers with arms but no prior military experience.  They also had increasing manpower because of the immigration of Holocaust survivors.

 

By 1947, the British had had enough of their Mandate in Palestine. They were in a no-win situation. Both Jews and Arabs wanted independence and were prepared to fight for it. The British therefore handed the problem over to the United Nations, who revived the notion of partition, first raised in the discarded British Peel Commission partition proposal of 1937. In the United Nations plan, the Jews, who constituted thirty-two percent of Palestine’s population, would be allotted about fifty-six percent of the country, although this was mainly non-arable land in the Negev. Within this territory were about a half a million Jews and four hundred thousand Arabs. Forty-two percent of Palestine would be allotted to the Palestinians — an area that contained approximately eight hundred and eighteen thousand Arabs and ten thousand Jews. The Jerusalem region, which included Bethlehem, contained about one hundred thousand Jews and one hundred thousand Arabs and would be administered by the United Nations. 

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The United Nations Partition Plan was approved by their General Assembly on November 29, 1947. The territory given to the Jews was far less than what they wanted, but they nevertheless accepted it. The Arabs rejected any form of partition, and Amin al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, created immediate mayhem in the country. The Palestinians realized they were not powerful enough to drive the Jews out by themselves, but they anticipated that the surrounding Arab nations would come to their aid and prevent the emergence of a Jewish State. 

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The first phase of this struggle was from November 1947 until the Declaration of Independence in May 1948 and took the form of a civil war, characterized by daily attacks against Jews and tit-for-tat Jewish reprisals. There were two stages to this struggle. In the first stage from the end of November until the beginning of April, the Jews were on the defensive, with the aim of maintaining control of the areas allotted to them under the Partition Plan. The aim of the Arabs, which they failed to achieve, was to cut off the roads to Jewish settlements. During this period, two thousand Jews were killed and four thousand wounded— an average of one hundred deaths and two hundred casualties a week. The British in the main refrained from intervening, although they maintained an arms embargo over the country. In May 1948 they began withdrawing their forces.



Already in 1946, Ben-Gurion had considered the possibility of such an invasion and had procured light and heavy arms, stockpiled in Europe. The intention was to bring them to Israel as soon as the Jews controlled their own borders and the British arms embargo was no longer operative. More arms were obtained during the war and during the truces, especially from Czechoslovakia, and this infusion of armaments and aircraft proved crucial in the eventual Israeli victory.

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In December 1947, all Israeli men and women aged 17 to 25 years were conscripted, and by April 1948 conscription was extended to all Israeli men under age forty. By the end of the war, the Israelis had a greater force in the field than the Arabs due to general mobilization and immigration into the country.

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In January 1948, a nephew of the Mufti, Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini, arrived from Egypt with a few hundred fighters. His “Army of the Holy War” recruited several hundred Arab volunteers to besiege the one hundred thousand Jews in Jerusalem using commanding positions from Arab villages overlooking Route 1, the only road to Western Jerusalem.

He was a popular and capable leader and his siege was highly successful. The Jewish part of Jerusalem was in desperate straits with insufficient food, water and ammunition supplies. Nevertheless, David Ben-Gurion was determined to defend Jerusalem at all costs. In the attempt to break the blockade and bring supplies to the city, many Hagenah armored vehicles were destroyed and hundreds of Haganah members killed. Destroyed vehicles have been left on the side of Route 1 as a memorial to this struggle.

 

By the beginning of April 1948, with the impending British withdrawal and the expected invasion of Arab armies, the Jewish leadership realized they had to go on the offensive. The first offensive operation was Operation Nachshon from April 5 to 15, which aimed to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem and its 1,500 Haganah, Givati/Palmach fighters succeeded in capturing the Arab villages overlooking the road to Jerusalem.

 

Their first objective was to take control of the Castel, and between April 2 to 3, a Palmach force attacked this strategic hilltop village. Between April 5 to 9, Arab forces counterattacked under the command of Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini. However, he was killed while doing a small reconnaissance. A huge force of Arab villagers from the surrounding villages bent on revenge again attacked the Castel and the Jews were forced to withdraw. The commanders decided to stay behind to cover the retreat and all were killed. Nevertheless, the death of al-Husseini led to the collapse of organized Arab resistance in this area, and when the Jews attacked again there was little resistance as most of the Arabs were at his funeral. He was buried on the Temple Mount.

 

Following the success of Operation Nachshon, responsibility for controlling the road to Jerusalem passed to the newly formed Palmach Harel Brigade, commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. It continued the work of Operation Nachshon and brought additional large convoys into Jerusalem, with hundreds of supply trucks. About the same time, other operations conquered the mixed Jewish-Arab cities of Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffe and Acre, and control over the major roads was secured.

 

However, on April 20, a Harel convoy was attacked near Sha’ar HaGai or Bab-el-Wad. In operation Maccabi, the Harel Brigade and other Haganah Forces attempted to clear the western approaches between Shaar HaGai and Latrun. Beit Mahsir was particularly important as it overlooked Bab-el-Wad. This campaign was only partially successful.

On May 14, 1948, hours before the expiration of the British Mandate (the following day was the Sabbath), Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel at a brief ceremony in Tel Aviv. As anticipated, forces from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan and Egypt promptly invaded the country.

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The only Arab country to achieve any success in this war was Transjordan under the leadership of King Abdullah. His British-trained Arab Legion was a very effective fighting force. The aim of the king was to take over the area designated by the Partition Plan for a Palestinian state, and he was supported in this by the British who wished to maintain their influence in the country. He succeeded in annexing Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, including the Old City. The Jewish settlements of Gush Etzion were also conquered. Many of its defenders were massacred when they surrendered and the rest were taken prisoner. During the war, Abdullah maintained contact with the Jewish State and made no attempt to conquer areas allotted to it. The other Arab armies were poorly organized, had divergent war aims, and their advances were ultimately halted by the fledgling IDF. 

 

A critical turning point was when the Jordanian League occupied the Latrun police fortress and the strategic ridge to Bab-el-Wad. Jerusalem was effectively closed off again. The story of how this was overcome will be covered on a subsequent webpage.

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The war ended in early 1949. Six thousand, three hundred and seventy-three Israeli soldiers and civilians had died, amounting to approximately one percent of the Jewish state's population. Israel now controlled seventy-eight percent of mandatory Palestine, which was twenty-two percent more than it had been allocated under the Partition Plan.

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About seven hundred thousand Arabs fled and became refugees. Four hundred Arab villages lost their population, as did ten Jewish neighborhoods. At the same time, because of Arab hostility, there was an exodus of about eight hundred and fifty thousand Jews from Arab countries, amounting to a de facto exchange of populations. Many of these Jewish refugees had lost their properties and wealth when they fled.