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User:Ampersand5000~enwikibooks

I am a university of Minnesota student, with an interest in history, electronics, bicycles, politics.

title: User:Ampersand5000~enwikibooks


text:
User talk:DanielVonEhren~enwikibooks

use of tables and metric
The standard for ingredient lists is what you see everywhere. If really want to change that, please bring it up on the Cookbook talk page.

This would obviously be a tremendous effort.

The end result would be more complex to edit. I think lots of people are going to have trouble with tables. Sometimes the tables are worth the trouble (Cookbook:Fish and Cookbook:Smoke Point), but not for simple ingredient lists. This is especially so if there is no additional benefit, such as database lookups on the ingredients.

The standard for units has been to put the converted version in parentheses. This lets you know which version is primary and which might be a crude approximation. Since we can now link to the unit names, there is very little point in having the converted units. This is especially true when the primary units are Queen Anne (USA), because the conversion to metric is very easy.

 * Hi Albert,

 * I'd really like to use a standardized way of presenting the ingredients. It would be helpful if you could point me to a page that is laid out the way you think is best. I went over, for example, to Cookbook:Pasta recipes and went down the line; I didn't see anybody that followed the convention that I understand you to be talking about.

 * Some recipes used Queen Anne, others metric. I like the idea of showing both: it makes it easier, at least for me, to follow.

 * Just to make sure I'm being clear, I'm not pushing back on your revert (it was really just an experiment), but a model ingredient list for me to follow would be a good thing.

 * DanielVonEhren 14:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * There simply aren't too many recipes that supply both units, but Cookbook:Coq au Vin is one example. Despite being a "French" recipe, the Queen Anne units came first. Metric, being added later, gets parentheses to indicate that it is a conversion. Ugh, it should be "mL", not "ml". (there is no metric unit named "ml") Note the inaccuracy of the conversion. (20% more salt, 20% less pepper, 10% more chicken, 12% less wine)

 * So, if you really want to supply both, that's the existing practice.

 * A much more serious problem is amounts given by mass. Normal cooks in the USA can easily deal with Queen Anne volume, large metric volume (100 mL increments), °F temperatures, baking chocolate by the ounce, and meat by the pound (decimal or fraction, not pounds and ounces). Smart cooks can convert metric to Queen Anne to handle small volumes, and can estimate kg of meat by eye. Most cooks would give up. For non-meat items given by mass though, a conversion involving density is required! Households in the USA simply do not own kitchen scales. Probably a scale or balance could be had for $30 from an exotic cooking store. It is probably more common to own a zester, marble rolling pin, melon baller, springform pan, pressure cooker, 2-part angelfood cake pan... In fact my mom, an expert cook, does indeed have all those things and no scale or balance.

 * I generally keep things simple and easy to edit, with plenty of links. (examples: Cookbook:Saffron Rice, Cookbook:Jambalaya) There is a template recipe linked off the bottom of the main page that you can use if you want to get fancy, but it looks really dumb unless you know obscure stuff like the number of Calories in the dish. Be sure to delete the unused sections (often "Warnings") if you use this template. I find it easier to start from a recipe that is similar to the one I'm adding, especially if the categories will be the same.

 * Watch out for recipes using Imperial units, which are 20% larger than Queen Anne units. This is a common problem with UK recipes, and yet another reason for metric conversions to be seriously inaccurate. If you go through the cookbook converting recipes without great care, you might create some additional confusion.

 * AlbertCahalan 15:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Once again I find that the world gets so much more complicated as you look more closely at it. :-)

 * I'm not sure I'm convinced that the accuracy you assume (10% more of this, 12% less of that) is justified. Right now I'm looking at the nutritional label on a bag of sushi rice that I have. It says 160 Calories per serving; not 150 or 170? And the bag contains "Approx. 25" servings. What we're talking about here is the difference between a 'cook' and a person who follows recipes, and why the phrase "correct the seasonings" shows up so often in cookbooks. Of course, I'm not disputing your basic point.

 * My motivation was in part the link I put in the Wikipedia's Sushi page to this article. It's the old question of whether recipes should appear in the the Encyclopedia; my opinion is "Occasionally, but ususally not". This one is sufficiently complicated that I was using a 'one copy of a piece of information' theory. Perhaps I'll change my mind in a few days and copy it back. But in the mean time it's better for me to have one copy rather than try to keep up the changes in two places. Particularily because there's some weird war going on in History of sushi comparing sushi to pizza from Pizza Hut. I'm waiting for the rice dust to settle.

 * But the new link was also a motivation for the different units. I'm assuming that people from many parts of the world will look at it, and (I hope) make good adjustments.

DanielVonEhren 18:43, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Albert,

I adapted the recipe, trying to follow the Coq au Vin model. See what you think.

One other thing to note. It's important to be careful when reverting articles. :-) As a side effect to removing the table, there were also formatting bugs introduced back into the article (there were two sections in the ToC marked "1" because the '===' had been incorrect), and two or three other improvements were lost.  I fixed that by reverting the reversion, and then making the measurement changes from there.

DanielVonEhren 13:47, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That looks good. I like the way you adjusted the larger metric conversions to match the "2 mL" one, keeping the error under 5%. Probably this trick should be documented somewhere.

As for the other changes reverted, they didn't seem significant. I generally find the ToC to be ugly and useless, so I didn't notice the double occurance of "1". I only saw minor font changes and the addition or removal of the lines that go with 2nd level headers, none of which seemed all that significant. Disabling the ToC (with at the top of the page) would have solved the problem.

User:Redlentil and I have been going around lowercasing ingredients as we edit pages. It's some sort of pet peeve for him I think ("my bete noire" he says), and a minor aesthetic issue for me. If you really think it looks better the other way, then that's another thing that ought to be discussed on the Cookbook talk page.

AlbertCahalan 17:19, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sushi instructions
Problem with the new instructions:

The rice is in a colander to drain. I add konbu to a pot (the one with vinegar dressing?), along with some saki. I boil water. (in a teapot I guess) For some reason, I remove the konbu from my pot as the seemingly-unrelated water boils. This leaves me with either a pot of saki or saki+vinegar+sugar+salt. Something simmers for 20 minutes... but I have two pots and a colander full of rice now, so I'll take a guess that you mean the water. (nothing else is cooking)

The 2nd and 3rd steps now must be read together. If they are not, the dressing might need to be transferred from a mixing bowl to the saucepan.

I think you should revert that and try again.

Leaving the hangari link would be a good idea too. Probably both spellings are good, given the difficulty in making up romanized versions of Japanese words.

AlbertCahalan 15:30, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * I added some extra pointers in so that people won't get mixed up, boil water in their teapot, and endup eating all that dry rice.
 * Honestly, I'm still lost. Suppose I put my rice in the colandar to drain. Now, I wish to boil the konbu. Is it optional, required, or prohibited that I use the water from cooking the rice? Must I add the rice back into the pot before or after dealing with the konbu? (perhaps it does not matter?) AlbertCahalan 23:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * As for hangiri: you know, I've asked around on the Wikipedia site, and what I'm hearing is that it is not just a transliteration error. Just as 'sake' seems to be misspelled in the Cookbook as 'saki' (see, for example, the disambiguation page in the Wikipedia). I need to say that I don't speak a word of Japanese, so I'm relying on people who either are Japanese or have lived in Japan for extended periods. Could be there are different ways to transliterate it.
 * Example: Japanese has several sounds that map onto the English 'L' and 'R'. It's sort of a different axis though, so one Japanese speaker could say all of those Japanese sounds in a way that would be 'R' while another might make them sound like 'L'. This is why Japanese natives struggle with the L-R distinction. AlbertCahalan 23:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DanielVonEhren 19:34, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

egg sizes
The sushi omelet recipe (at Cookbook:Sushi, but perhaps should be separate) specifies "4 extra-large Eggs". Well, wouldn't you know, this differs from country to country.

The "USDA Large" egg is about the same as the "EU size M" egg. (both being the common choice AFAIK) So, for normal recipes, it is best to avoid specifying egg size. I hope you know what you need. USDA eggs are specified as the minimum weight of a dozen. EU eggs are specified as the weight ranges per 100, plus a per-egg minimum.

EU weight standard SIZE            PER-EGG        PER-100-MIN XL-very large   73 g and more   7.3 kg L-large          63 to 73        6.4 M-medium        53 to 63        5.4 S-small         under 53 g      4.5 USDA weight standard CLASS        MIN NET / DOZEN   CONVERTED TO MIN GRAM/EGG Jumbo        30 ounces         70.75 Extra Large  27 ounces         63.675 Large        24 ounces         56.6 Medium       21 ounces         49.525 Small        18 ounces         42.45 Peewee       15 ounces         35.375

I hope you aren't using a Japanese standard, because I don't know what that would be. Same as USDA, because of World War II maybe?

Assuming you mean "USDA Extra Large", this is 255 to 283 grams of egg. (probably 255, if the producers are being cheap) This is about 4.5 regular (USDA Large) eggs. It is probably about 5 EU size M eggs. (4.71 if both parts of the world are being cheap, and closer to 4 if the EU producers are generous)

Your account will be renamed
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Renamed
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title: User talk:DanielVonEhren~enwikibooks


text:
Israeli History/The Zionist Movement

The story of Israel is like no other. The country of Israel you see on the map today is named after the ancient kingdom of Israel in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). People of the Jewish religion believe that the kingdom was granted to the Jews by God. But the modern state of Israel is not a direct continuation of this ancient kingdom. It has its origins in the political Zionist movement of the 19th century.

The Old Yishuv under the Ottoman Empire
Since ancient times, Jews had been moved from Israel, by necessity or by force, to various places around Europe and other parts of the world. By 1516, only a small community of 5,000 remained in Galilee. At that point, the first pre-modern aliyah (return) began, with Sephardic (Spanish-speaking) victims of the Inquisition arriving in Israel with the approval of the Ottoman Empire. Together, these Jews formed a community called the Old Yishuv (settlement), centered in Safed in Galilee. They were joined in the 19th century by Jewish religious movements from other parts of Europe, notably among which, were the disciples of the Goan of Vilna, who settled in Jerusalem beginning in 1808, by 1810 they numbered 511 families.

The Jews called their homeland Eretz Israel, meaning the Land of Israel, as opposed to the nation of Israel consisting of all Jews. The Ottoman Empire did not administer Eretz Israel under any particular designation. The region was officially under the control of the provinces of Syria and Palestine/Lebanon, but the Ottoman government was weak (it was the Decline of the Ottoman Empire) and day-to-day affairs were dictated by local leaders. Eventually, Jerusalem and Jaffa were given their own division.

Who else lived in Palestine?
There were many kinds of people in Palestine. The majority were Arabs, but there were also Greeks, Armenians and many others (Christian and Muslim), as well as the Old Yishuv.

"The population of Jerusalem is composed of Muslims, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken by them, are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the 14,000 souls that dwell in Jerusalem."

- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad. 1867.

Under Ottoman rule, only Muslims were allowed to hold land. The Ottomans also attempted to retard Jewish immigration with various local laws. In practice, though, a well-educated Jew could deal with Turkish officials to legally immigrate, and then establish a semi-legal hold on land by farming it. The true problems began for the nascent Zionist movement when they encountered the overwhelming Arab majority as well as the existing Old Yishuv community.

The Birth of Zionism
Although the earliest Christians tolerated Jewish communities, antisemitism arose during several periods in the Middle Ages. Jews lived separately from Christians and adhered to kashrut (kosher) laws and other customs that seemed mysterious and alien. Most jobs were forbidden to Jews as an "out-group", so they took up money-lending and intellectual studies, leading to a popular conception that they profited from the work of other people.

By the 10th century, most of Europe was under the rule of Christian monarchs. As the Jews managed the debts of the monarchs, expelling the Jews was an efficient way to balance a failing kingdom's budget. In Germany the persecution of Jews was renewed in 1096 during the Crusades. Jews were expelled from England in 1291, from France in 1391, from Austria in 1421, and from Spain in 1492. Anti-Jewish laws such as the yellow badge were commonplace in most European countries, and mob violence was common. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, also wrote a book entitled On the Jews and Their Lies, which fueled more antisemitism. The strongest retaliations occurred in the seventh century as mass expulsions and forced conversions occurred in many European countries.

Among Jewish communities the solution to this violence was not entirely clear. It was believed that in a future messianic age, their ancient kingdom would be restored; hence prayers on Yom Kippur and Passover would conclude (and still do) with "Next Year in Jerusalem".

During the Age of Enlightenment, many European countries granted Jews equal rights. An intellectual class developed among both Jews and Gentiles which considered the abandonment of old traditions and the assimilation into the European lifestyle the key to the success of the Jewish people. One Russian socialist wrote the following about his view of ethnicity: "You well know that I hate Judaism exactly as I hate all other nation "hoods" and national "isms" [...] but I am not ashamed of my Jewish descent, and, among the other oppressed, I love that part of humanity whom the ruling national and religious principles single out as Jews. And again, indeed, I do not love them all, but only the suffering masses and those capable of joining us. Otherwise I should not deserve the name of socialist."

- Aaron Samuel Lieberman, quoted in Halpern 2000, p. 143

However, antisemitism did not fade but merely changed its target, segregating the Jews as an "un-European" ethnic group. Ashkenazi Jews experienced hundreds of bloody mob attacks throughout Eastern Europe during the pogroms. When European intellectuals saw that merely changing their lifestyles was insufficient, allegiance to the Jewish people began to seem like an acceptable option. (American Jews did not experience systematic and government-enforced antisemitism, and thus tended to downplay ethnic alliances.) An exemplary Russian Jew who changed his mind about settlement in Israel was Moshe Leib Lilienblum, who first aimed towards economic independence in America, then decided that only in Israel could Jews live without alienation from society. In a proto-Zionist essay hinting towards a desire to resettle in Palestine, Moses Hess bemoaned the secularism of intellectuals, and reminded them of the sacred place of pious Jews: "It seems that on account of the hatred which surrounds him on all sides, the German Jew is determined to estrange himself from Judaism as far as possible, and endeavors even to deny his race. No reform of the Jewish religion, however extreme, is radical enough for the educated German Jew. [...] My grandfather once showed me some olives and dates, and remarked, with beaming eyes, "These were raised in Eretz Israel." Everything that reminds the pious Jew of Palestine is as dear to him as the sacred relics of his ancestral house."

- Moses Hess, "Rome and Jerusalem". 1862.

The political motivation for Zionism began to form in the 1860s and 1870s. The first "Zion Society" formed in Germany in 1861. In 1870, the Alliance Israélite Universelle founded an agricultural school called Mikveh Israel near the city of Jaffa. The land for this school was granted by the Ottoman Sultan.

The first Zionists immigrate
"If we already knew where to direct our steps, were we compelled to emigrate again, we could surely make a vast step forward. We must set vigorously to work to complete the great task of self-liberation. We must use all the resources which human intellect and human experience have devised, instead of leaving our national regeneration to blind chance. The territory to be acquired must be fertile, well-situated and sufficiently extensive to allow the settlement of several millions. The land, as national property, must be inalienable."

- Leon Pinsker, "Auto-Emancipation". 1882.

In the same year that Pinsker's essay was published, the first Zionist Aliyah occurred. Roughly 30,000 Jews left Eastern Europe to become farmers in the Ottoman Empire. While previous aliyah had been religious in nature, this one was purely political-- an escape from antisemitism, with the goal of creating a sustainable Jewish community in Eretz Israel. However, half of the settlers eventually left the country. Many of them came on a 30-day pilgrimage visa, and stayed past its expiration date. The pasha (governor) of Jerusalem attempted to expel them from the Empire, but was rebuked by foreign ambassadors; in 1889, he was replaced by a more liberal pasha. "We have made it a rule not to say too much, except to those ... we trust ... the goal is to revive our nation on its land ... if only we succeed in increasing our numbers here until we are the majority .... There are now only five hundred [thousand] Arabs, who are not very strong, and from whom we shall easily take away the country if only we do it through stratagems [and] without drawing upon us their hostility before we become the strong and populous ones."

- Letter from Ben-Yehuda and Yehiel Michael Pines to Rashi Pin, October 1882.

Theodor Herzl and the World Zionist Congress
Zionism had already developed by the time of the First Aliyah, but those who promoted it were working at cross purposes. The Orthodox Jews behind Religious Zionism were willing to cooperate with secularized Jews to the extent of sending people to Israel, but wanted simultaneously to teach them about their duties to God, and agitated for those living in Eretz Israel to live under the rule of the Torah. Both the Religious Zionists and the Old Yishuv were unhappy at the prospect of secular Jews tilling the land during a sabbath year; an attempt to appease them by subletting the land to non-Jews while the work was being done fell through. Additionally, there was a growing coalition of Labor Zionists who wanted Eretz Israel to be a breeding ground for intentionally organized collectives, a land which would be controlled by its own working class.

Theodor Herzl entered into the Zionist movement fully aware of these competing interests, and considered their balance "an egg dance". Herzl was a journalist from Vienna assigned to the Dreyfus Affair. Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in French Army accused of passing military documents to the German Embassy. Despite the lack of any conclusive evidence, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. From the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl concluded that antisemitism was difficult to escape no matter how "enlightened" a country one lived in.

He interviewed with Baron Maurice De Hirsch, one of the wealthiest men of his time. De Hirsch had founded the Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of settling Jews from Russia and Romania to Argentina and other parts of the Americas. Herzl came with 22 pages of notes arguing for a political organization to rally Jews under their own flag rather than leave it to philanthropists like the Baron. De Hirsch was uninterested in this suggestion. This led to Herzl publishing a pamphlet called The Jewish State.

"Let all who are willing to join us, fall in behind our banner and fight for our cause with voice and pen and deed. Those Jews who agree with our idea of a State will attach themselves to the Society, which will thereby be authorized to confer and treat with Governments in the name of our people. The Society will thus be acknowledged in its relations with Governments as a State-creating power. This acknowledgment will practically create the State. Should the Powers declare themselves willing to admit our sovereignty over a neutral piece of land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land. Here two territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentine. In both countries important experiments in colonization have been made, though on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. An infiltration is bound to end badly. It continues till the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the Government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration. The Society of Jews will treat with the present masters of the land, putting itself under the protectorate of the European Powers, if they prove friendly to the plan. We could offer the present possessors of the land enormous advantages, assume part of the public debt, build new roads for traffic, which our presence in the country would render necessary, and do many other things. The creation of our State would be beneficial to adjacent countries, because the cultivation of a strip of land increases the value of its surrounding districts in innumerable ways. [...] If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence."

- Theodor Herzl, "The Jewish State". 1896.

Formation of the Congress
Zionists responded eagerly to Herzl's suggestion to meet and unify their diverse organizations. The First Zionist Congress was convened in Switzerland in August 1897. There were 200 delegates representing every aspect of Jewish religion, cultural philosophy, and thought. The 3-day congress founded the World Zionist Organization with Herzl as president.

During the First Zionist Congress, the following agreement, commonly known as the Basel Program, was reached: Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:
 * 1) The promotion by appropriate means of the settlement in Eretz Israel of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers.
 * 2) The organization and uniting of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, both local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country.
 * 3) The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness.
 * 4) Preparatory steps toward obtaining the consent of governments, where necessary, in order to reach the goals of Zionism.

Herzl met with the Ottoman Sultan and asked for a charter that would allow Jewish mass immigration to Palestine. This request was denied. Knowing the overwhelming support for a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, he then met with Great Britain and discussed making Jewish settlement in Sinai Peninsula, part of their client state of Egypt. This too failed, but the British suggested making room in "Uganda" (actually Kenya) instead. Herzl brought this idea to the Zionist Congress in 1903. The debate over the Uganda option was so heated that the Congress nearly schismed into two rival factions.

Responses to Zionism
By 1904, cultural Zionism was accepted by most Zionists and a schism was beginning to develop between the Zionist movement and Orthodox Judaism. In 1912, World Agudath Israel was founded by Orthodox Jews in response to the popularity of Zionism, socialism, and communism. It aimed to promote the traditional forms of the Jewish religion, although there was and is much diversity within Orthodox Judaism.

Second Aliyah
Between 1904, when pogroms in Eastern Europe intensified, and 1914, when World War I began, there was a Second Aliyah. Once again, half of the pioneers left Eretz Israel eventually, but the Second Aliyah had more successes than the first. The settlement of Tel Aviv was founded by political Zionists on a sand dune north of Jaffa, and its founding families built roads and a water system for themselves. Today, Tel Aviv is the second largest city in Israel. The Second Aliyah Zionists also founded a self-defense group called the Hashomer, built a high school, and they cast off the Yiddish of their European ancestors to begin a revival of the Hebrew language. Use of Hebrew had been attempted during the First Aliyah, but the language only took root during the Second. Pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary were standardized, textbooks were written, and by 1913 when a German Zionist group attempted to start a technical university taught in German, the entire Yishuv rebelled against them.

The Labor Zionists who arrived during the Second Aliyah discovered that the settlers of the First Aliyah had become landlords, paying Arabs to tend their land for them. "We were happy enough working on the land, but we knew more and more certainly that the ways of the old settlements were not for us. This was not the way we hoped to settle the country—this old way with Jews on top and Arabs working for them; anyway, we thought that there shouldn't be employers and employed at all. There must be a better way."

- Yossef Baratz, founder of the first kibbutz Baratz and his fellow olim (Jews arriving in Israel) knew that they could not maintain independent farms. The poor land conditions and weak government meant that settlers had to rely on each other. Instead, Baratz and eleven of his companions established a communal farm called Degania at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. Their community would grow into the first kibbutz.

The founders of Degania worked backbreaking labor attempting to rebuild what they saw as their ancestral land and to spread the social revolution. One pioneer later said "the body is crushed, the legs fail, the head hurts, the sun burns and weakens." At times half of the kibbutz members could not report for work. Many young men and women left the kibbutz for easier lives in Jewish cities on the East Bank of the Jordan or returned to the Diaspora. But despite the difficulties, by 1914, Degania had fifty members. Other kibbutzim were founded around the Sea of Galilee and the nearby Jezreel Valley.

title: Israeli History/The Zionist Movement


text:
Israeli History/Palestine under the Mandate

World War I
In December 1914, as the machinations of World War I made it apparent that Britain would enter into battle with the Ottoman Empire, Ze'ev Jabotinsky proposed that a Jewish regiment be formed in Palestine to assist the British. This battalion, called the Jewish Legion, was formed in 1917. A Jewish espionage network called Nili also assisted the British.

In November 1917, as General Allenby was preparing to conquer Palestine, the British Foreign office issued the Balfour Declaration, a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, head of the British Zionist movement. The declaration stated: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." Thus, when Palestine was captured in December some part of it was designated as an area of Jewish settlement. It was not as much as the Zionists would have liked, but it was the first official recognition of the Zionist movement.

British Mandate of Palestine
After the war ended, the Allied powers began to partition up the Ottoman Empire, as had been their plan for several years. With the Balfour Declaration in mind, the region they dubbed Palestine was set aside as a Jewish "National Home". However, the intention of the Allies was not to expel those already living in Palestine, but only to state as policy that other groups should make room for the Jews. The final mandate read, in part, as follows: "Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country [...]"

The Mandate was implemented in 1922. During next 25 years, 367,845 Jews and 33,304 non-Jews immigrated legally to Palestine, and many more Jews came illegally.

Zionism flourishes under the Mandate
Successes of Zionism so far: "Jewish homeland" semi-guaranteed. Hebrew language. Haganah: Jewish paramilitary force. But what about the Arabs? More than two-thirds of the population of Palestine was non-Jewish; could it really become a Jewish state? "The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. [...] After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions. Jewish agricultural colonies were founded. They developed the culture of oranges and gave importance to the Jaffa orange trade. They cultivated the vine, and manufactured and exported wine. They drained swamps. They planted eucalyptus trees. They practised, with modern methods, all the processes of agriculture. There are at the present time 64 of these settlements, large and small, with a population of some 15,000. Every traveller in Palestine who visits them is impressed by the contrast between these pleasant villages, with the beautiful stretches of prosperous cultivation about them, and the primitive conditions of life and work by which they are surrounded."

- An Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June 1921

"A Jewish educator from Romania opened a nursery school in Rishon LeTzion, a tiny experimental Zionist settlement, and was among the editors of the first Hebrew children's newspaper. Someone began making ice cream--that was Simcha Whitman, who also built the first kiosk in Tel Aviv. A man named Abba Cohen established a fire department, and a Berlin-born entrepreneur built the first beehives. A Ukrainian conductor founded a local opera company, and an Antwerp businessman set up adiamon-polishing shop. A Russian agronomist who had been in Zurich planted eucalyptus trees, and an industrialist from Vilna launched Barzelit, the first nail factory. A Russian physician, Dr. Aryeh Leo Boehm, set up the Pasteur Institute, and a man named Smiatitzki, who came from Poland, translated Alice in Wonderland into Hebrew."

- Tom Segev, Haim Watzman. One Palestine, Complete. 2001. p.2.

 * Zionist organizations
 * HeHalutz
 * Hashomer Hatzair

Rachel Bluwstein, one of the greatest Hebrew poets, lived during this time.

The kibbutz movement expands
During the Mandate, the kibbutzim of the Second Aliyah became a model for intentional communities throughout Palestine, called the settlement movement.
 * moshavim shitufiim
 * moshavim
 * Communal settlement

The kibbutzim and other intentional communities were considered the pride and joy of Zionism throughout the Mandate years. After Israel became a nation, collectivist kibbutz politics became independent of Zionism in general; fierce debates were held over the desirability of consumerism or affiliation with Germany or Communist Russia. Kibbutzim and other intentionally organized settlements still exist today, encompassing a diverse range of political ideals.

Competing school systems
The British government had no interest in regulating schools, so under the Mandate four different Jewish schooling systems developed from the four major factions of olim. All of these schools accused each other of stealing students and immigrants away, and while all four expressed a desire that the schools one day be unified, they all insisted that their own system must be used in the future unification.

Politics during the Mandate period: Chaim Weizmann
A. Born November 27, 1874 in Motol, Poland- part of Soviet Union B. 3rd child of 15 C. Love of trees from boyhood D. Strict Orthodox school during childhood K. Zionism i. at 11 he wrote to a teacher saying that Jews must return to Zion ii. leader of "Young Zionist" opposition to Herzl a. especially with Uganda Proposal b. 1903 - 1905 iii. 1905 elected to General Council (Actions Committee) a. played secondary role till 1914 b. took part in negotiations during war that led to the Balfour Declaration - Nov. 1917 iv. June 1918 a. met with Amir Faysal of Hejaz (later first king of Iraq) b. discussed Jewish - Arab cooperation c. met again in July 1919 d. reached written agreement during Versailles Peace Conference v. attended San Remo Conference of Allied Powers in 1920 a. went as an observer b. this conference confirmed the Balfour Declaration and awarded Palestine Mandate to British vi. From 1917 to 1920 a. president of English Zionist Federation b. 1920 head of World Zionist Organization vii. 1920 onward a. traveled world preaching Zionist ideology and appealing for funds at mass rallies viii. conflicts a.people believed he was too influenced by British b. 1930 resigned but was asked to stay and did c. 1931 Congress - subjected to a vote of nonconfidence - not reelected ix. 1929 main founder of Jewish Agency x. 1934 founded Daniel Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot, Palestine xi. 1935 in office again a. supported British royal inquiry commission, 1937, to divide Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state b. tons of opposition c. plan failed because Arab rejection

Misc. notes
Mandate formalized by league of Nations September 23, 1922. Jewish reaction was mixed. one group protested the creation of Transjordan-both Western Palestinian Arabs and Jews could not buy land or          settle in Transjordan because the British prohibited it even             though Abdullah was willing        -the incensed Jews formed Revisionist for a unified state. The leader of Revisionists was Vladimir Jabotinsky - a Russian Jew. However, a majority of Jews were satisfied with the mandate

Sir Herbert Samuel was a British Jew who served as first High Commissioner      of Palestine. Under Samuel's rule the British recognized Vaad Leumi (National Council), Elected Assembly, and         local council representatives of Jewish community. He established Hebrew as official language and placed restrictions on Jewish immigration in response to           Arab complaints. (Arabs had no restrictions on their immigration by British.)

People questioned if Israel could support the influx of Jews with the existing Arab population. Arab peasants or laborers called Fellaheen were already being displaced. Zionists claimed that adopting European farming techniques would allow Fellaheen to live on smaller tracts of land.

Aliyah Bet
Aliyah to Palestine resumed as soon as World War I was over. During the Third Aliyah 35,000 Jews came to the country. They were not motivated by the Zionist World Congress, who in fact opposed the mass migration, but by their own volition after the Balfour Declaration and pogroms in the Russian Civil War.

World War I left much of Western Europe devastated, and antisemitism rose dramatically. From 1924-1928 there was the Fourth Aliyah: 82,000 Jews, 23,000 left. With the Nazis came the Fifth Aliyah: 250,000 Jews, and only 20,000 left! There was also the Haavara Agreement between the Jewish Agency and the Nazis, to bring German Jews to Palestine. As a result of Nazi cooperation, 60,000 Jews came to Palestine.

Children fleeing the Nazis on their own were sent to youth villages to be collectively cared for and raised. And not only this, but there was Aliyah Bet: illegal immigration sponsored by covert Zionist groups.

"We felt proud and exultant to arrive with the Jewish flag at our mast. The refugees looked for the first time upon the Holy Land with wondering and often tear-filled eyes. This was the sight for which they had longed with all their hearts, the sight for which they had risked their lives crossing one illegal border after another and on the high seas."

- I.F. Stone. Underground to Palestine. 1947.

Arab discontent and revolt
During the Mandate the Jewish population in Palestine rose sharply: a growth rate of 8.6% per year, compared with 2.7% for Christians, Muslims, Druze, and others. The Arab population of Palestine was flummoxed by the number of immigrants, which with the "Aliyah Bet" was even greater than Britain's most extreme predictions. Groups like the Independence Party and the Black Hand demanded Arab rule. Starting in 1936, an Arab revolt demanded an end to Jewish immigration and independence for Palestine. The British government imprisoned many of these Arabs without trial and demolished some of their houses. By the time the strike concluded in March 1939, more than 5,000 Arabs; 400 Jews; and 200 Britons had been killed.

 * White Paper of 1939
 * Betar


text:
Israeli History/From World War II to Partition

Intensifying violence: Arabs v. Jews, Jews v. Arabs
British did not allow Jews to form a fighting unit till Sept. 1940 with 200 men. Sept. 20, 1944 Jewish Brigade formed. to restrict enlistment number of Jews was supposed to equal number of Arabs. Arabs did enlist, mainly inactive during war. end of 1941 more than 10,000 Palestinian Jews joined army. also in 1941 Palmach - peluggot mahaz - "Shock Companies" - created by Haganah Elite Strike Force designed to defen Yishuv in an emergency

Jews increasingly aware that British would not implement Balfour Declaration, i.e., giving Jews a state. May 1942 Zionists meeting at Biltmore Hotel in NY urged Britain to allow Jewish Agency power to form a Jewish State. state not a separate country until a Jewish majority. Agency responsible for country's agriculture and industry

Jews v. British
Feb. 1, 1944 Menachim Begin, leader of Irgun declared a Jewish revolt against British. Irgun attacked military targets. Late Feb. 1944 Irgun attacked the offices of Immigration Department in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. protested closed gates of Palestine

Nov. 1943 20 members of Lehi a.k.a. Stern Gang escaped from Latrun prison. Nathan Friedmans-Yellin among them, and resurrected Lehi and became its leader. Lehi believed British wouldn't leave because of oil refinery in Haifa. They threatened British army installments, camps, interrupted transportation with mines, intimidated soldiers with death threats, patrolled streets till they found a group of British police or soldiers and opened fire on them.

British response:          a. curfews on Jewish cities          b. mass arrests          c. instituting death penalty for carrying firearms          d. underground Jewish forces intensified attacks

Chaim Weizmann sent letter of condolences to a wounded British             soldier. Jewish leadership appalled by killings; afraid violence would jeopardize the creation of a Jewish State. The Jewish Agency feared for their own positions. April 2, 1944 Agency officially declared a policy of opposition            -prevent activities             -increase negative propaganda against "terrorists"

Yom Kippur 1944
Begin announced that shofar will be blown at the Western Wall. this had been prohibited since 1929 riots. Sept. 27 shofar sounded and at the same time Irgun attacked 4             different British fortresses. Psychological victory. British did not retaliate.

Assassination
Radical elements among the Zionists aimed to assassinate key British leaders as punishment for complicity in Holocaust. 4 attempts on Sir Harold MacMichael all failed. British minister of Cairo, Lord Moyne, former Colonial Secretary.. Nov. 6, 1944 Eliahu Hakim and Eliau Bet-Zouri assassinated Moyne. assassinators both tried and hanged.

Israel after the Holocaust
Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were not taken to Israel but rehabilitated in camps in Europe. However, many of these survivors were strongly motivated to leave Europe. Without a legal means of emigration, they turned to "Aliyah Bet" in even greater numbers than before, a movement called Berihah. Britain opened internment camps in Cyprus to house Holocaust survivors they had captured; some were held until 1949. In the SS Exodus incident, the British Royal Navy seized one of the Berihah ships and sent it back to Germany, causing a media scandal. "Thousands of people, young and old, had been torn from their loved ones during the Nazi occupation and never knew what had become of them -- in the ghettos, the deportations, the death camps, the forests. In Israel, they found one another purely by chance, or through advertisements in the papers or with the aid of the heartrending radio program Who Recognizes, Who Knows? "Aryeh Kantrowitz, now in Kibbutz Hazorea, is looking for his mother Fanya, nee Margolin," the announcements would run. "Bluma Langer, nee Wasserstein, formerly of Kovno, now in the immigrant hostel in Raanana, is looking for her husband, Aharon Langer. Leah Koren of Lublin, now in Israel, is looking for her sister Sheina Friedman, nee Koren." All were recent immigrants on the threshold of a new life."

- Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis. 1998. pp.ix-x

Holocaust survivors (DPs) and Zionist militancy
The continuing flow of refugees enraged Arab leaders and, in the eyes of the British, threatened the stability of the region. The British thus refused to accept 100,000 refugees in 1946. In response, militant elements among Hagana, the Irgun, and Lehi kidnapped British officers and bombed the King David Hotel, killing 91 British, Jewish, and Arab employees. The response from leaders in Britain was actually helpful from the Zionists: Churchill announced that he did not see much of a British interest in Palestine, and the general British public began to weigh the costs of a continued occupation.

In October 1946, U.S. President Truman announced his support for the Jewish Agency's partition plan. For the Zionists, a long-awaited victory seemed to be on the way; however, the road from partition to statehood would be a rocky one.


text:
Israeli History/From Partition to Independence

UN Partition
In 1945 the US Congress adopted a resolution for the restoration of a Jewish Commonwealth. According to a public opinion poll [source?] 65% supported the creation of a Jewish State, and during the third quarter of 1947 White House received 62,850 postcards, 1,100 letters, and 1,400 telegrams urging it to push the UN to adopt the partition plan. Truman reacted negatively to what it perceived as a "Jewish Lobby". Members of Truman's Administration opposed partition [source?] and undermined U.S. support [source?]. James Forrestal [who?] believed that Zionist aims would bring about a threat to U.S. oil supplies [source?]. Joint Chiefs of Staff thought that Arabs might align with Soviets if they were alienated by the West.

Cuba and Greece voted against although U.S. dependents. U.S. and Soviet Union for the partition. SU wanted British out of Palestine. Asian countries solidly against. Garcia-Grandados of Guatemala and Fabrega of Uruguay were outspoken in their support. The Vatican was subtly against partition. Most of Latin America supported Cuba, El Salvado and Colombia against. Britain was opposed because it was not acceptable to both Jews and Arabs.

The UN was empowered only to make a recommendation, and Britain was under no obligation to carry out the UN plan, although UN member-nations expected Britaln to implement the decision. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to recommend Partition by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.

6,120 square miles of the 10,400 Palestine was allotted to the new Jewish State. More than half of the Jewish State, some 3,670 square miles, consisted of the Negev Desert. The state itself consisted of three regions, a Northern section, a Coastal section, and Negev, which were connected by narrow corridors of land. International Jerusalem was connected to Jewish State by a narrow road running through the heart of the Arab State. ~500,000 Jews in Jewish State and ~350, 000 Arabs. ~92,000 Arabs lived in Tiberias, Safed, Haifa, and Bet Shean. 40,000 were Bedouins mostly in Negev. remainder spread throughout and occupied most of the agricultural land.

Partition Problems
UN appointed a commission with representatives from Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Panama, Bolivia, and the Philippines to implement their resolution. British gave notice of their evacuation to be August 1, 1948. it actually happened May 15, 1948. Because Britain was critical of the resolution, it declined to implement it, instead withdrawing from the territory. The UN commission into Palestine was not allowed into the country until 2 weeks prior to the British evacuation, rendering it ineffective.

Open hostilities between Arabs and Jews began with greater intensity. Arabs declared a protest strike and instigated riots- 62 Jews killed, 32 Arabs. end of second week 93 Arabs, 84 Jews, and 7 Englishmen killed and  scores more injured. jurists of Al-Azhar University in Cairo called on Muslim world to           proclaim Jihad against Jews. Minority of Jews not satisfied with having a Jewish State in Palestine; among them were members of Irgun and Lehi

between Nov. 30, 1947 and Feb. 1, 1948 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, and 46    British were killed. Jan. 9, 1948 1,000 Arabs attacked Jewish communities in Northern     Palestine. by Feb. British said so many Arabs infiltrated that they lacked            the forces to run them back. British surrendered bases and arms to Arabs irregulars and Arab            Legion, which was being run by a British commander at the time. this facilitated Arab raids and eventual invasion. British refused to allow the Jews to form a militia to defend           themselves till the termination of the Mandate. Jews couldn't legally form or train an army or import weapons. existing Arab States free to import weapons. British even signed a treaty with Transjordan that provided Arabs            with arms while a blockade was maintained against the Jews

The King of Jordan expressed his position on what was called the "Jewish Problem" as follows: "Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America take in regard to the unhappy [case of the] European Jews. You are sorry for them, but you do not want them in your country. We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or Brazilians or whatever. Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country, over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to that? Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous. No people on earth have been less "anti-Semitic" than the Arabs. The persecution of the Jews has been confined almost entirely to the Christian nations of the West. Jews, themselves, will admit that never since the Great Dispersion did Jews develop so freely and reach such importance as in Spain when it was an Arab possession. With very minor exceptions, Jews have lived for many centuries in the Middle East, in complete peace and friendliness with their Arab neighbours."

- King Abdullah of Jordan. "As the Arabs see the Jews". November 1947.

Forces in Palestine
On Feb. 17, 1948 the Palestine Commission told UN Secretary Council that the    partition plan needed military aid to be carried out. Russians insisted on sending a contingent to Palestine if U.S. did, and Truman did not want Russians in Palestine under any circumstances, fearing that Israel would double its problems by becoming a front in the Cold War. Other countries in UN did not want to send military forces without the aid of one of the two superpower. Hence, the only outside forces in Palestine by the time of independence were the lackadaisical British.

"It is now clear, without the slightest doubt, that were we to face the Palestinians alone, everything would be all right. They, the decisive majority of them, do not want to fight us, and all of them together are unable to stand up to us, and all of them together are unable to stand up to us."

- David Ben-Gurion. Political and Diplomatic Documents of CZA and ISA, December 1947-May 1948, p. 128.

Jerusalem
150,000 Jewish citizens in Jerusalem, including 2,500 Jews in Old City. 5 month Arab blockade of Old City. blockade ended May 29, 1948: Jews forced to surrender

Highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was Jerusalem's only supply route i. Arabs controlled several strategic vantage points ii. villages of Kastel and Deir Yasin - they overlooked the highway and made it possible to fire on convoys D. Irgun decided to attack Deir Yasin on April 9, 1948 while Haganah tried to capture Kastel i. ~100 Jews carried out attack ii. Begin claimed that a small truck with a loudspeaker was driven to           the city to warn the civilians to evacuate iii. many citizens did leave iv. warning probably did not occur because the truck rolled into a           ditch v. residents opened fire vi. battle took several hours a. 41 Irgun injured, 4 dead b. 200 Arabs killed, 40 captured - according to New York Times c. recent study based on family discussions determined that there were 107 Arab casualties vii. New York Times report did not mention any atrocities nor did it            call the attack a massacre as it is often referred to by Arabs viii. Irgun escorted a representative of the Red Cross through the town and held a press conference after the battle ix. there was left open an escape route from the village x. Arabs feigned surrender then opened fire a. some Jews killed soldier and civilians indiscriminately b. some Arab men dressed as women were found among the bodies xi. Jewish Agency expressed its "horror and disgust" a. also sent a letter to King Abdullah - Transjordon - expressing its shock and disapproval xii. Arab Higher Committee called this a massacre a. hoped Arab countries would intervene in Palestine b. instead Arabs left Palestine United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

Civil war
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine A. 4 days after reports from Deir Yasin published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital i. 77 Jews killed including; doctors, nurses, patients, and the director of the hospital ii. another 23 people injured B. May 4, 1948 Arab Legion attacked Kfar Etzion i. defenders drove them back ii. Arab Legion returned a week later a. after 2 days of fighting Jewish settlers overwhelmed and surrendered b. many defenders murdered after they surrendered c. 148 people killed including Palmach defenders of the settlement d. only 4 people survived

Independence
A. UN resolution was never suspended or rescinded i. May 14, 1948 - 5th or Iyar, 5708 ii. issued in Tel Aviv B. Hours after Declaration of Independence, 5 Arab armies invaded i. Egypt, Syria, Transjordon, Lebanon, and Iraq ii. U.S. and Soviet Union immediately recognized Israel and condemned the Arabs iii. 80,000 Arab men in armies iv. 60,000 trained fighters for Israel, 1/3 had combat experience v. as of May 12, only 18,900 Jewish soldiers fully armed and could be          considered prepared for war
 * Israeli Declaration of Independence


text:
Israeli History/War, Ceasefire and Refugees

War of Independence
"In the event of a conflict, not only can the Jews defend themselves, but they will defeat the Palestinian Arabs."

- Winston Churchill, quoted in History of the Haganah p. 820

The combined troops of seven Arab nations would sound like a formidable force, but initially there were only 20,000 to 23,500-- outnumbered by 25,000 to 30,000 standing Israeli forces, plus the Jewish paramilitary groups of Lehi, Irgun, and Gadna, and the Jewish Settlement Police. As the war progressed, the Arabs sent more of their armies to Palestine, but Israeli forces were supported by Jewish olim recruits from across Europe, who started arriving in enormous numbers within 48 hours of independence.

After May 15 most of the underground Jewish resistance was absorbed into the Haganah, which had been redubbed the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). On May 28 Lehi formally disbanded when 850 of its fighters joined the IDF.

The U.S. on Dec. 5, 1947 imposed an arms embargo on Palestine; neither Jews nor Arabs could buy weapons, and British only sold weapons to Arabs.

The fighting ended on July 15. 6,500 Israelis had died, and most of Israel's irrigated agricultural land had become useless waste. Meanwhile, hundreds of Arab towns had been ethnically cleansed by IDF forces. Particularly memorable to Palestinians today is the village of Deir Yassin, where the entire population was massacred by paramilitary groups.

 * evacuation of Haifa
 * ALA failure

Ceasefire
After Israel had won its independence, its diplomats approached the leaders of each of the Arab nations to work out a formal armistice agreement. Rather than drawing up permanent lines, the parties decided to create "temporary" borders based on where the armies were standing at the end of the war. The borders established by these agreements are called the Green Line.

Rather than translating into a peace treaty, the ceasefire was extremely shallow and left the question of Israel's future security and ambitions unresolved, a problem that was unsettling to both sides. This was a purposeful decision on the part of David Ben-Gurion, who was an offensive realist who believed that Israel's military might made any possible compromise a needless concession to the weaker states surrounding it, and that in due time Israel's neighbors would be forced to recognize it and rely on it for trade and security. Ben-Gurion's main adversary was Eliyahu Sasson, who believed that face-saving concessions such as allowing Arabs to remain in their villages and giving the Negev to Egypt were necessary for Israel to gain acceptance in the Arab community. Sasson wrote that "the Egyptians keep reiterating that they regarded the armistice agreement as only the first step to the future. It is essential that both you (Moshe Sharett) and Ben-Gurion devote all your strength towards peace, as you did toward defense." This position was thought to be naive and not serious enough.

The armistice lines were unsatisfying for both parties. Most Zionists felt like the Green Line was waiving part of the Jewish homeland. Jews were deported from their villages and kibbutzim on the Jordanian and Egyptian sides, and Arabs were deported from villages on the Israeli side (see Refugees below). On both sides, villages were subsequently demolished to assuage the fears on both sides that people would attempt to reclaim their homes by force. Heavily populated regions and villages were split in two by the line, which was drawn on a relatively small map that lacked ownership data. For example, the town of Barta'a became 1/3 Israeli and 2/3 Jordanian; today, the town has a wall running through it that is open for only a few minutes every day.

Refugees
"Yigal Allon asked Ben-Gurion what was to be done with the civilian population. Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture of "drive them out." "Driving out" is a term with a harsh ring. Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of Lydda did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the ten or fifteen miles to the point where they met up with the Arab Legion."

- Service Diary, quoted in David Shipler, in the New York Times of 10/22/1979

"May 13, 1948, is a day that will remain forever engraved in my memory. That day, less than twenty four hours before the proclamation of the Israeli state, my family fled Jaffa for refuge in Gaza. We had been under siege: the Zionist forces controlled all the roads leading south, and the only escape left open to us was the sea. It was under a hail of shells fired from Jewish artillery set up in neighboring settlements, especially Tel Aviv, that I clambered onto a makeshift boat with my parents, my four brothers and sisters, and other relatives. [...] The boat had scarcely lifted anchor when a woman started shrieking. One of her four children wasn't on board and she implored us to put back to port to look for him. Caught under the heavy fire of the Jewish guns, we couldn't turn back without risking the lives of the several hundred people, many of them children, crushed together in the small craft. The piercing cries of the poor woman went unanswered. She broke down into sobs. Some of us tried to calm her by saying that her son would surely be picked up and later brought to Gaza. But in vain. Her nerves finally cracked and she straddles the rail, throwing herself into the sea. In an apparent effort to save her, her husband jumped in after her. It soon became apparent that neither knew how to swim. The angry waves finally swallowed them up under our very eyes. We all remained rooted to the boat, paralyzed with horror."

- Abu Iyad. My Home, My Land. 1948.

"One of my schoolfriends was a Jewish girl named Dvora; she was very sweet, and I loved her. One day, she invited me home, and I went along. When we neared her house I suddenly realized where she was taking me: her family now occupied my aunt's house! My shock was redoubled when I went inside and found my aunt's pictures still hanging on the walls; it was on my aunt's piano that Dvora practiced. I even found a doll I used to play with!"

- Raymonda Tawil My Home, My Prison. As quoted in Seder of the Children of Abraham

Roughly 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled Israel during the war of independence, for reasons that are still under dispute. They arrived in the West Bank and Gaza strip without homes, possessions, or jobs. During the same timespan, nearly 600,000 Jews arrived in Israel from various Arab states, which they had also left for a variety of reasons.

The Arab Christian city of Kafr Bir'im was one of many completely razed during the war. The records for this city are unusually clear: they show that the IDF told the entire village to move to Jish, which had itself been depopulated of its Arab inhabitants. Those who did not leave were dragged to the Jordan border and told to walk across to Jordan, but once the IDF left they walked to Jish instead. In 1972 the people of Bir'im occupied their city, which had been completely emptied, and once again the IDF forcibly removed them to Jish. In 1977 Menachem Begin promised the people of Bir'im the right to return if he was elected. They elected him but he decided not to let them return.

D. International Aid i. UN General Assembly voted on November 19, 1948 to establish the United Nations Relief for Palestinian Refugees (UNRPR) to dispense aid ii. UNRPR replaced by United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on           Dec. 8, 1949 with a budget of $50 million a. substitute public works for direct relief b. promote economic development c. direct relief would be almost completely replaced by public works with the remaining assistance provided by Arab governments iii. UNRWA little chance for success a. Arab refugees and Arab states were not prepared to cooperate on             the large-scale development projects b. Arab governments and refugees unwilling to contribute to any plan that could be interpreted as fostering resettlement, instead they wanted refugees to be repatriated iv. Jewish refugees from Arab countries received no international assistance v. Palestinians received millions of dollars through UNRWA a. initially U.S. $25 million, Israel ~ $3 million, Arab pledges ~ $600,000         b. U.S. still largest contributor and Arab nations donate less than 5% of UNRWA budget E. Where to go? i. Jordan was the only Arab country to welcome the Palestinians and grant them citizenship ii. King Abdullah considered Jordanians and Palestinian Arabs one people iii. by 1950 Abdullah annexed the West Bank and forbade the use of the term Palestine in official documents iv. 1952 UNRWA set up a fund of $200 million to provide homes and jobs for Palestinian refudees but it went untouched v. Discussion


text:
Israeli History/Challenges for a New State

Israel faced many problems in between 1949 and 1967. The ethnic cleansing of Arab towns had (temporarily) set aside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but impoverished Jewish refugees from angered Arab nations created an entirely new set of ethnic problems, and the deeply divided government was barely functioning.

Jews in Arab Countries
More than a thousand Jews were killed in antisemitic rioting during the 1940s in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen which helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries. The Law of Return provided all Jews the legal right to immigrate to Israel and immediately become citizens of Israel if they choose to do so. the only exception are those whom the Minister of Interior considers a threat to the public health, welfare, or security of the state

The Right to Return was not written until 1950, but hours after the declaration of independence, olim came flooding in. There were 100,000 in the first six months, then over 250,000 in 1949. June 1941: Mufti of Jerusalem, who had fled Palestine, inspired the pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali. this sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Jews had lived in Iraq for 2,700 years. armed Iraqi mobs with the complicity of the police and the army. murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000. additional outbreaks 1946-49. after establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital. In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year, provided that they forfeit their citizenship. 1951 the property of Jews who emigrated from Iraq was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on the remaining Jews.

From 1949-1951 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah. another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. 1952 Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating. Jews were publicly hanged after false charges of hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the US Information Agency

1944 after Syria gained independence from France, the new government banned Jewish emigration to Palestine. the teaching of Hebrew in Jewish schools was severely restricted. attacks escalated and boycotts were called against Jewish   businesses. 1947 after partition, Arab mobs in Aleppo destroyed the 2,500 year old community. scores of Jews were killed. over 200 homes, shops, and synagogues were destroyed. thousands of Jews illegally fled Syria to go to Israel. Jews only minority group whose passports identified their religion. freedom of movement was severely restricted. Jews who tried to flee faced either the death penalty of   imprisonment at hard labor. Jews could not have government or bank jobs. Jews could not acquire telephones of driver's licenses, and could not purchase property. Jewish bank accounts were frozen. the Jewish cemetery in Damascus was paved over to build an airport road. Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims

"It's been said that there were cases of rape in Ramlah. I can forgive rape, but I will not forgive other acts which seem to me much worse. When they enter a town and forcibly remove rings from the fingers and jewelry from someone's neck, that's a very grave matter... Many are guilty of it."

- Mordehai Bentov, recorded in Minutes of Cabinet Meetings on 4 July 1948.

Across the world, from Burma to America, Jews were emigrated to Israel by diplomats and Mossad agents-- usually at expensive prices as part of an economic deal. These early immigration movements did not distinguish between ethnicities such as Sephardic and Arabic, focusing only on the political and economic situations of the Jewish populations of each country, and emphasizing communities in distress. In Morocco, for example, the Jewish Agency found an entire village that had gone blind due to trachoma. Some countries did not want their Jews to leave at all. In these instances Mossad arranged secret smuggling operations on cargo boats, camels, and caravans. However, Mossad also extracted profits from Zionist agencies for each new olim, and made a habit of filling every boat to capacity and bringing in olim ahead of schedule. By 1952 it was disbanded and replaced with an official Secret Service.

"Those from Europe, including Romania and Hungary, have no pioneering spirit at all. They expect a life of luxury and will live only in the city. [They] do not learn the language. ... Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, and Tripolitanians: Most of them speak Hebrew, having belonged to pioneering, Zionist movements (especially the Iraqis and Iranians). Their ambition is to live on the land, in some cases even in kibbutzim."

- Ruth Klieger, report to the Prime Minister's Office

Immigration to the new state of Israel rose to four times the maximum estimated capacity. Survivors of pogroms came to Israeli ports only to be offloaded into squalid camps, and ironically deloused with sprays of DDT, akin to Nazi concentration camps. Medical assistance was nonexistent, floors were covered in human waste, food portions were meager-- sometimes only bread, milk, and a few olives-- and inhabitants were kept in the camps for months on end. Once immigrants left the camps, the kibbutzim and other agricultural systems were also overwhelmed with applicants and trainees. When the camps were shut down in 1949, olim were scattered around Israel to work for their food.

Operation Magic Carpet
But Israel was similarly unprepared for another influx of olim from Yemen, Operation Magic Carpet; a doctor described 12,000 starving immigrants, many of them naked or half-naked, crowded into a "transit" site that was meant to hold 500 without as much as a tent to protect them from the elements. This reflected not only the slow progress of systematizing aliyah but also the conditions in Yemen, where child mortality was estimated at 80 percent, most of the population was constantly sick, and surviving children were quickly married to other Jews to prevent them from being kidnapped by the sultan and converted to Islam. While Israel was not an immediate improvement over Yemen, Zionist agencies quickly began discussing an investnment in the future of the Yemenites, aiming to improve literacy, women's rights, health and social conditions. It was written in a Jewish Agency pamphlet that "we must not allow them to become ... the shoeshine boys of our society."

Even years after the fact, opinions about the outcome of Operation Magic Carpet were mixed:

"There were Yemenite children who knew entire chapters of the Bible by heart, and I, a Hebrew teacher, taught them as if they didn't know any Hebrew, because their accent differed from mine. And what did I teach them?--The cat sat on the mat. I did them harm. Today I feel that it was a disaster, not only to the immigrants but to the entire community."

- Rabbi Kalmann Kahana

"Nowhere in the world has there ever been such an educational enterprise, in such dimensions ... an entire educational system was created for them out of nothing, and it was done at a time of economic hardship, in the midst of an international struggle and a military threat against the very existence the state. That's what that was!"

- Dr. Baruch Ben-Yehuda

Government
Government formed in 1948 included representatives from all the various segments of the Zionist movement, religious factions, and anti-Zionists. to assure this unity, secular leaders had to make concessions guaranteeing that aspects of Jewish law would be institutionalized       in the new government such as:  observance of Shabbos and dietary laws.

A constitution was first proposed in 1949. Leftists objected on the basis that the document did not declare             the basis of the State to be Socialism. Religious factions feared that a written constitution would cement         the values of secular Zionism. They argued that constitution was not necessary because the Torah was             in essence the constitution

U.S. officials were concerned that Israel might not be a democracy, as many Jews came from parts of the Soviet Union, and a large percentage of these were associated with socialist political parties and ideologies. American policymakers feared Israel would become a Soviet ally -          particularly those policymakers hostile toward Zionism in the  first place. The Soviet Union was key to the adoption of the partition resolution in the United Nations. The USSR was also second nation to recognize Israel, after the US.

Israeli government pursued some socialist economic policies: state ownership of major institutions            -airline             -telephone company             -utilities. But Israel was committed to the western democratic camp and had rejected         communism. As a result, the USSR then turned on Israel and supported Israel's enemies    politically, economically, and militarily

Jordan
A. Before UN partition vote, Golda Meir was sent by Ben-Gurion to met with King Abdullah i. they agreed Jews would not object to Adbullah annexing the area allocated for the Arab State ii. Meir met Abdullah in Amman with the hope that Jordan would not enter the impending war iii. Abdullah told Meir he allied himself with the other Arab states B. Jordan in Jerusalem i. Jordan heavily subsidized by British government and its army ii. Arab Legion was trained, supported and led by British officers iii. this Arab force was the one that the Jews were not able to expel during the War of Independence iv. Transjordan was in control of a large amount of territory west of           the Jordan river AKA the West Bank and half of the city of            Jerusalem including the Old City a. Abdullah made it clear that the Jews were not allowed access to             holy places like the Kotel b. UN, Vatican, and other who had expressed concern as to the future of Jerusalem and with it the freedom of all to worship there soon did not keep interest v. Abdullah's decision to annex parts of Palestine that he conquered angered fellow Arabs a. Abdullah ignored this and renamed the area the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan after his family the Hashemites vi. Israel doubled its poplation through immigration as Jordan did the same by unifying the territory on both sides of the Jordan River C. Interesting to Note i. on May 11, 1949 Israel was admitted as the 59th member on the UN      ii. Jordan's application was vetoed by the Soviet Union two years earlier because the Russians believed Abdullah was a British puppet

Arab Boycott
A. declared on Dec. 9, 1945 by the Arab League Council i. stated "Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered          undesirable to the Arab Countries." ii. this is before Israel was declared a State and even before the UN           voted for partition iii. Jewish was the term used as opposed to Zionist B. The boycott had three categories 1. boycott prohibits direct trade between Israel and the Arab nations 2. companies doing business in Israel 3. blacklisting of firms that trade with other companies doing business in Israel a. Coca-Cola was sold in Israel so Arabs countries boycotted the company b. Pepsi stayed away from Israel and continued to do business in             Israel C. Economics in Israel i. at this time Israel did not have the resources to easily and quickly absorb so many immigrants ii. years later many immigrants who grew up in ma'abarot -camps of tin shacks and tents- harbored resentment towards the government for its failure to ease their transition D. 1977 US Congress Prohibited US Companies From Cooperating With The Arab Boycott i. President Carter ii. Carter mentioned that the boycott affected Jewish members of the American society and that it was the antagonist to free trade E. US Foreign Policy i. Truman replaced by Eisenhower a. after 1948 War, Truman began a modest foreign aid program for Israel, Ike quickly reduced that amount b. Ike used the aid to extract concessions from the Israelis throughout his term -for example, 1955 payments were suspended to force Israel to              stop work on a hydroelectric project on the Jordan river c. Ike refused to sell weapons to Israel d. when Israel formally moved the foreign ministry and other government institutions to the capital, Jerusalem, Eisenhower criticized the decision and refused to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv - where it still remains!! Petition F. Eisenhower's New Middle East Policy Would Influence American Decision-Makers For The Remainder Of The Century a. Ike decided that the Middle East was vital to American security interests because of the oil reserves b. Ike also worried about the spread of Communism in Middle East G. Building of Alliances in the Middle East a. Baghdad Pact 1955 - pro-Western regimes in Turkey and Iraq b. later that year Great Britain, Iran, and Pakistan joined creating the Middle East Treaty Organization which later became the Central Treaty Organization c. US wanted Egypt to become part of the Alliance -US prepared to offer Nasser arms and aid if his country joined -British opposed to this because of Suez d. Nasser actively opposed the alliance and began undermining it      e. US did not join the Baghdad Pact f. Aswan Dam - 1955 Eisenhower offered to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam -Nasser felt the project would give outsiders too much influence over his economy -eventually Nasser decided to accept the offer in July 1956 -July 19 US formally withdrew its offer g. a few days after Nasser learned of US withdrawal, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal -France and Great Britain were furious -US condemned Nasser but cautioned its allies against military reaction

Suez Canal
A. Egypt Closed the Suez Canal to Israeli Shipping After Signing the Armistice Agreement i. August 9, 1949 UN Mixed Armistice Commission upheld Israel's          complaint that Egypt was illegally blocking the canal ii. September 1, 1967 the Security Council ordered Egypt to open the canal to Israeli shipping iii. Egypt refused to comply B. Egypt "attacks" Israel i. 1955 Nasser began to import weapons from the Soviet Bloc to build his arsenal for a confrontation with Israel ii. in the short-term Nasser used a different tactic announced on           August 31, 1955 "Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes, the            disciples of Pharaoh and the sons of Islam, and they will cleanse            the land of Palestine... There will be no peace on Israel's border            because we demand vengeance, and vengeance is Israel's death." iii. Egypt sent fedayeeh - Arab terrorists - trained and equipped by            Egyptian Intelligence to engage in hostile action on the border and infiltrate Israel to commit acts of sabotage and murder iv. the fedayeen mostly operated from bases in Jordan so that Jordan would feel the brunt of Israel's retaliation v. these terrorist attacks violated the armistice agreement yet the UN          Security Council condemned Israel for its counter-attacks vi. 1953 Israel had created a secret unit to retaliate against the fedayeen -it infiltrated their bases and struck both preemptively and vengefully -Unit 101, as it was called, was led by Ariel Sharon vii. Egyptian blockade of Straits of Tiran - Israel's only supply route with Asia viii. Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal in July, 1956 ix. October 25, 1956 Egypt signed a tripartite agreement with Syria and Jordan which put Nasser in command of the three armies B. Canal Plans i. British and French not happy with Nasser over situation ii. the French had grown close to new Israeli government; politically, militarily, and diplomatically -French became Israel's primary source of arms for about a decade and provided Israel key elements that let Israel develop a nuclear capability -British still allied with Jordan and not friendly with Israel iii. French decided that they could use Israel's fear of Egyptian aggression and the continuing blockade as a pretext for their own strike against Nasser iv. British decided to join in      v. the three countries agreed on a plan whereby Israel would land paratroopers near the Canal and send its armor across the Sinai dessert. The British and French troops would be deployed to          "protect" the canal vi. October 29, 1956 Israel attacked Egypt eighth days before the US           presidential election vii. more than 100,000 Israeli soldiers were mobilized in less than 72 hours and the air force was fully operational within 43. Paratroopers landed in the Sinai and Israeli forces quickly advanced unopposed toward the Suez Canal then halted in compliance with the demands of England and France viii. the Egyptians ignored the Anglo-French ultimatum to withdraw because they were asked to retreat from the Sinai to the west bank of the canal, whereas the Israelis were permitted to stay only 10 miles east of the canal ix. US sponsored a Security Resolution calling for an immediate Israeli withdrawal on October 30 x. England and France vetoed the resolution xi. the next day France and England launched air operations, bombing Egyptian airfields near Suez. Israeli forces continued fighting after this. The IDF's armored corps swept across the dessert capturing the entire Sinai peninsula by November 5 xii. Nov. 5 British and French paratroops landed near Port Said and amphibious ships dropped commandos onshore. British troops captured Port Said and advanced within 25 miles of Suez city before the British government abruptly agreed to a cease-fire xiii. by the end of the fighting, Israel had the Gaza Strip and had advanced as far as Sharm al-Sheikh along the Red Sea ivx. a total of 231 Israeli soldiers died in the fighting

Weapons to Israel
A. US/Kennedy i. main source of weapons to Israel was France ii. US encouragement of 3rd party arms suppliers that had enabled Israel to meet its defense needs iii. US was supplying weapons directly like recoilless rifles to            Israel, but secretly iv. not until 1962 did Israel receive its first major weapons system from US          a. Kennedy agreed to sell HAWK anti-aircraft missiles b. state department opposed this but Kennedy justified this because Nasser had been supplied long-range bombers from the Soviet Union c. the HAWK system required IDF soldiers to be given extensive training in the US and that spare parts be supplied to Israel B. Johnson i. almost immediately after inheriting the presidency, Johnson was pressured by Israelis and lobbyists to supply Israel with tanks and planes ii. 1964 Johnson Administration began to consider a tank sale, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that Israel had no need for tanks a. they felt US should place a higher priority on restraining the flow of weapons to the Middle East b. Joint Chiefs of Staff said that if it was decided to sel tanks then they should only be sold as replacements for obsolete tanks and that they be supplied discreetly c. this became impossible when...      iii. 1965 is was revealed that US had been indirectly supplying arms to            Israel via West Germany since 1962 under the terms of a secret agreement made 1960 a. Arab Nations resounded to this by threatening to recognize East Germany and by pressuring West Germany to halt sales b. US stepped in to fulfill the remainder of the contract iv. US policy was of even-handedness a. it had a similar sale of tanks to Jordan b. the administration did not supply large amounts of weapons to             either the Arabs or Israelis c. Johnson did not want to provide one state with a military advantage over another v. February 1966 the US State Department announced the sale of 200 Patton Tanks to Israel vi. then in May it announced a new agreement for Skyhawk jet bombers to           be supplied to Israel a. first sale of offensive weapons to Israel b. public acknowledgement that US was willing and actually providing the weapons

Beginning of PLO
A. 1963 Palestine Liberation Organization, started by the Arab League i. the Palestine Liberation Army was established by Ahmed Shukeiri when he was asked to wage a terror campaign ii. the PLO has different groups like a. Fatah - Yasir Arafat's group b. the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine iii. 1964 during a meeting for the first Palestinian Congress the PLO formally came into being as an effort to give a voice to the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon iv. Nasser had some influence over these factions v. the key articles laid out in the Palestine National Charter or          Palestinian Covenant called for the destruction of Israel B. Fighting i. 1965 35 raids conducted in Israel ii. 1966 41      iii. first 4 months of 1967 37 attacks iv. targets of these attacks were always civilians v. the majority of the attacks were from Palestinian guerillas entering Israel from Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and Lebanon a. the orders for these attacks were coming from Cairo and Damascus b. Nasser's objective was to harass the Israelis and to undermine King Hussein's regime in Jordan vi. Hussein viewed the PLO as a direct and indirect threat to his power a. he closed the PLO offices in Jerusalem in 1967 and arrested many of the group's members

Syria
A. Syria became more hostile after the breakup of the United Arab Republic i. the Syrian army used the Golan Heights, being 3,000 feet above the Galilee to shell Israeli farms and villages ii. in 1965 and 1966 Syria's attacks gew so frequent that children living in Kibutzim in the Huleh Valley had to sleep in bomb shelters B. Israel repeatedly protested Syria's bombardment to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission i. the UN Mixed Armistice Commission was in charge of policing the Armistice ii. nothing was done to stop Syrian aggression iii. Israel instead was condemned by the United Nations when it            retaliated C. Retailiation i. April 7, 1967 Israeli planes shot down 6 Syrian fighter planes - these Syrian planes MiGs were supplied by the Soviet Union ii. soon after the Soviets - who had been providing military and economic assistance to Syria and Egypt - gave Damascus information alleging a massive Israeli military buildup in preparation for an           attack a. Israel denied this claim repeatedly b. Syria decided to invoke a defense treaty with Egypt and asked Nasser to come to its aid D. Prewar i. May 15, Israel's Independence Day, Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai and congregating near the Israeli border ii. by May 18, Syrian troops were prepared for battle along the Golan Heights iii. May 16, Nasser ordered the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) that was stationed in the Sinai since 1956 to withdraw a. Secretary General U. Thant complied with the demand b. Thant did not bring the matter to the attention of the General Assembly like he was supposed to do      iv. May 22, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping and all ships traveling to Eilat a. this cut off Israel's only supply route with Asia b. it also stopped the flow of oil from Israel's main supplier, Iran c. President Johnson, of the US, expressed the belief that the blockade was illegal and tried unsuccessfully to test it         d. Johnson also advised Israel not to take any military action v. Nasser challenged Israel to fight almost daily after the blockade vi. May 30, King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt vii. President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq stated "The existence of            Israel is an error which be be rectified. This is our opportunity             to wipe out the ignoming which has been with us since 1948. Our             goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." viii. June 4 Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria ix. the Arab forces mobilized comprised of ~465,000 troops i. more than 2,800 tanks ii. 800 aircraft circled Israel x. right before the war Johnson warned that "Israel will not be alone          unless it decided to go alone." xi. Israel needed the element of surprise in order to win a. June 5, the order was given to attack Egypt