Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945-1948

After World War 2 the British government was faced with an acute dilemma in Palestine between the demands of the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews sought the immediate establishment of a Jewish State, while the Higher Arab Executive urged the need to curb further Jewish immigration and threatened armed resistance to any attempt to fulfil Jewish demands. In a last endeavour to find a political solution which might satisfy both Arabs and Jews while safeguarding its own interests, the British government held an Arab-Jewish Conference in 1946, with the active participation of the Arab League states. But the conference failed to achieve agreement, and the British government announced its decision to withdraw from Palestine. Following the UN's resolution for the Partition of Palestine fighting broke out between Arabs and Jews on 29 November 1947. After early success, the Arab community suffered a bitter defeat. In this book, originally published in 1993 and based on research from English, Arab and Jewish documents, the author discusses the reasons behind this defeat.