Originally posted by Chinghis
[email protected] 15 2006, 02:52 AM
If my history knowledge is correct, Palestine was the first to attack during the 1948 War.
Your history knowledge is dishonest at best.
"By May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet exist.
The History of the Palmach which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972) details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs and secure more territory than alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel).
Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to:
"control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15" (Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).
Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948
Operation Harel, 15 April 1948
Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948
Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948
Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948
Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948
Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948
Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948
Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948
Operation Barak, 12 May 1948
Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948
Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948
Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948
The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.
Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the major military operations the Zionists mounted before the British evacuated Palestine and before the Arab forces entered Palestine:
Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)
Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)
Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)
Salameh (1 March 1948)
Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)
Qana (13 March 1948)
Qastal (4 April 1948)
Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)
Lajjun (15 April 1948)
Saris (17 April 1948)
Tiberias (20 April 1948)
Haifa (22 April 1948)
Jerusalem (25 April 1948)
Jaffa (26 April 1948)
Acre (27 April 1948)
Jerusalem (1 May 1948)
Safad (7 May 1948)
Beisan (9 May 1948).
David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:
"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 530).
Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it was alloted to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.
Late PM Menachem Begin adds:
"In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve [that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)
On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists started the war in 1948:
"As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).
Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle Eastern Studies, XXII, January 1986, pp. 5-19). "
Source: Arjan El Fassed