There’s this overly popular version of 1948 that begins with Paleostinian refugees and works backward. By the time it reaches the months before Israel declared independence, the Jews have become this overwhelming military force bearing down on a largely passive, innocent Arab population that never stood a chance against them.
Interestingly, that wasn’t how Arab leaders described what was happening.
Before Israel existed, Arab military commanders were sending increasingly grim reports to their governments about the balance of forces in Paleostine. After the war, Paleostinian politicians and Arab intellectuals wrote postmortems that heavily blamed the British. But they also pointed fingers at Arab failures: poor preparation, political rivalries, inadequate weapons, competing commands, weak governments and a disastrous underestimation of the Jews.
No one had to invent these explanations. Arab leaders were writing them all by themselves.
THE WARNING CAME BEFORE ISRAEL EXISTED
On March 23, 1948, General Ismail Safwat sent a report to Syrian Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, chairman of the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
’s Paleostine Committee. Safwat was an Iraqi general, former Iraqi chief of staff, and head of the vaporous Arab League’s Military Committee for Paleostine. His job was to assess the coming war.
His conclusion: "There is no comparison between our forces and the Jewish forces."
Safwat estimated Jewish strength at 50,000 men
…I suspect a quarter to a third of the fighting men were actually women, and some unknown percentage of the whole were not men but sub-adult teens and children who had survived the Holocaust and had been the sole adults in their own lives for years — Dr. Ruth was one of them, and had volunteered to be trained as a sniper…
backed by additional local defense formations. The Arab forces available to oppose them were a fraction of that. Paleostinian guerrillas were poorly equipped, Arab League forces were inadequate, and weapons promised by Arab governments hadn’t arrived in the agreed-upon quantities.The details get way worse for the Arabs. Safwat described trained Jewish personnel, engineers and technicians, organized transportation, armored vehicles, reserves, repair facilities and domestic arms production. Egypt had supplied only part of the rifles it had promised. Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...and Transjordan hadn’t fulfilled their rifle commitments. Arab ammunition was short, artillery was old, and mortars were scarce.
Safwat was worried about what happened once equipment broke. The Jews had workshops and facilities capable of repairing weapons and vehicles. The Arabs didn’t.
"Our side has nothing of the sort, not even a single small repair shop."
And this was only part of his concern. Paleostinian gangs answered to competing politicians and factions. Some, Safwat reported, were accumulating weapons for conflicts with other Arabs rather than for the war against the Jews.
"This situation has led to a rise in factionalism and local alliances among Paleostinians and has pitted them against one another."
Safwat had been pushing the Arab League since 1947 to recruit and train more men, provide weapons, and create a unified command. It hadn’t happened. Now the war was approaching, and there was still no effective Paleostinian command comparable to the Haganah.
And Safwat saw another problem, one that had nothing to do with rifles or ammunition. He wrote about Arab morale remaining relatively strong because: "The Arabs still tend to look down upon and depreciate the Jews."
They were completely underestimating the Jews even as their military commander had raised the red flag, warning them how dangerous that was.
This report was dated March 23, 1948. Israel wouldn’t exist for another seven weeks.
THE TWO SIDES HAD SPENT THE MANDATE VERY DIFFERENTLY
Safwat’s description makes a lot more sense when looking at what had been happening the decades before he wrote it.
The Yishuv had built the Jewish Agency, Va’ad Leumi, Histadrut, Haganah, schools, hospitals, universities, banks, agricultural organizations and municipal institutions. Thousands of Paleostinian Jews served with Allied forces during World War II
...my father was one of them, though he was the first wave that was taken on as civilians and not permitted weapons training or to fight, though they wanted to. The second wave fought, but only a small number of those who volunteered were accepted, to limit the number with war training afterward. The colonial masters did not account for the number of Jews who had volunteered for the UK, Canadian, Australian, and American armies — not to mention the various underground and Partisan units behind Nazi lines — then chose to make aliyah to Israel to fight as soon as that became an option in 1948…
and came home with stronger military training and experience.None of this was top secret information. In 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry looked at the Jewish community in Paleostine and called it a "virtual Jewish nonterritorial State".