Matthias Küntzel
European Journal of Current Legal Issues, Vol 25, No 1 (2019)
“Arab opposition to Zionism was the product of both Nazi propaganda in the Arab East and Britain’s confusing politics. …This essay will focus on the other aspect, Nazi Germany’s propaganda in the Arab East.”
INTRODUCTION
On 29 November 1947 over two-thirds of the United Nations membership voted in favour of General Assembly Resolution 181 proposing a partition of Palestine: 56% of the mandate territory was assigned to a Jewish state and 43% to an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international administration. [1] The Jews in Palestine danced for joy in the streets all night. The following day, eight Jews were murdered in three Palestinian Arab attacks. The Arab war to prevent the implementation of the UN resolution had begun.
The struggle lasted an entire year. The first phase of the war was conducted by irregular Arab guerrilla groups and units. The second phase began on 14 May 1948. During the afternoon of that day, David Ben Gurion announced the birth of the State of Israel. Around midnight the country was invaded from the north by Syrian and Lebanese units, from the east by Jordanian troops and from the south by the Egyptian army. [2] As the British Mandate had ended on the same day, there was no one to stop them. Some 6,000 Jews and an unknown number of Arabs lost their lives before the first ceasefire agreements were signed at the beginning of 1949. [3]
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