Palestinian accept 1947 Partition Plan as a step towards claiming the whole of Palestine

[Abd ar-Rahman II]

Ben Gurion 1938
"[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state--we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 107, One Palestine Complete, p. 403)

Ok i just find this quote about Ben Gurion on the idea of accepting a partition of mandatory Palestine and it got me thinking what if the Palestinian leaders in 1947 had the same line of thinking ?
Possibly realising more Israel military superiority over them and the weakness of the neighbouring Arab country that are supposed to come help them they decide to temporarily abandon they claim on the whole mandate on the basis that they will build up they force to take the whole mandate laters ? What would en the consequence on the IP conflict of Palestine existing as a recognised State for a time at least ? What would be the reaction in the rest of the Arab world ? As I understand it at the Time Abdullah was lobbying to be accepted as Palestine leader following a peaceful partition and from then try to create a Greater Syrian by uniting Hordan with Syria , would it be possible for Abdullah to even manage the first step ? He was opposed by a alliance of Syria , Egypt and Saudi Arabia that seemed more fearful of him than Israel while he himself as the support of Iraq and Druze in Syria and neutral / good relationship with Britain and Turkey .
And in Israel what are the consequence of no 48 war there ?
generally how would that impact the IP conflict ?

Edith : I get the majority of my source about the political situation from there http://joshualandis.oucreate.com/Syria_1948.htm#_ednref1

 

[CalBear]

Folks, if any of you are even thinking about going to current politics with this thread be aware that you are ON NOTICE not to.

This could be a very interesting post 1900 discussion. Keep it that way. Play the Ball while you are doing so.

 

[Vinization]

Who would lead the Palestinian state, and what could prevent Syria, Egypt and Jordan from taking said state's land for themselves?

 

[Abd ar-Rahman II]

Who would lead the Palestinian state,

honestly no idea doesn’t really know. A lot about what was happening there , Palestinian seemed pretty divided during the conflict so no natural leader that change his mind come to my mind

and what could prevent Syria, Egypt and Jordan from taking said state's land for themselves

from what i read Syria played a primary goal in forming the coalition that declared war in 48 and are the one that encouraged the war and intervention , they were motivated by the fear of Abdullah ambition to become king of greater Syria , it seemed Abdullah intended to encourage a peaceful partition that he will follow up by encouraging a merging between Palestine and Transjordan he expected that since the Arab leadership in Palestine was weak and divided they will not really oppose him and accept him as they kings
If the Palestinian themselves accept the partition I guess Syria , Egypt and Jordan have less possibilities of direct interferences even if I fully except Abdullah to try merge Palestine and Transjordan together sooner rather than laters he might even be accepted depending on the political situation there , but I fully expect Syria and Egypt trying to support Palestine against Jordan .
Also according to the source the Arabs states were more aware of the military disparities than people think ,

 

[HelloThere]

There was no strong organized Palestinian movement at the time so the idea that the Palestinians could accept the partition plan is simply ASB. You would need something like the PLO decades earlier. Otherwise it will be Jordan and Egypt who decide the fate of any partition plan and they simply won't accept surrendering spheres of influence without a fight.

 

[ArtosStark]

Who would lead the Palestinian stat

The two main factions among the Palestinian Elite up to this time had been the Nashashibi's (the leader of which was Mayor of Jerusalem) and the al-Husayani's (a member of which was Grand Mufti). If the goal is a negotiated partition the Nashashini's are the better choice as they were generally fairly moderate and favoured negotiation with the British and the Jewish Agency.

That said, both groups had been steadily losing support among the general population and were seen as ineffectual and too reliant on British support. The al-Husayani's kind of came around to a more populist outlook when they became serious foes of the British and Jews after 1934 but mostly they seem to have been jumping onto movements that they had little part in starting. And in some cases they could be accused of doing those movements more harm than good. Nonetheless even in 1948 the other Arab nations seemed to accept them as the voice of leadership of the Palestinian Arabs.

Maybe if the Nashashibi's had made more of an effort to build a following among the general population and had won some negotiated wins for the Palestinians from the British, they may have been able to secure de facto leadership of a majority of Palestinian Arabs, and put forward the strategy from the OP. That might have gained them more support from the less moderate elements. It would be a hard balancing act though, as they would have to gather support from an increasingly angry population while simultaneously calming them down. Meanwhile the al-Husayani's are likely to go the historical route of trying to gain support by stoking the fires.

In general though, the strategy of accepting partition with the idea of expansion later probably better suited the Jewish Agency than the Palestinians. The Jewish portion of both the population and the economy was growing considerably faster than the Arab Palestinian one. At least for the foreseeable future, time was on the Jewish side. Its not really surprising then, that the two courses of action the Palestinian Arabs saw for themselves were negotiation and, increasingly, violence to solve the issue immediately. It would get more and more difficult for a Palestinian leader to advocate giving up any of Palestine as time went on.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

The two main factions among the Palestinian Elite up to this time had been the Nashashibi's (the leader of which was Mayor of Jerusalem) and the al-Husayani's (a member of which was Grand Mufti). If the goal is a negotiated partition the Nashashini's are the better choice as they were generally fairly moderate and favoured negotiation with the British and the Jewish Agency.

That said, both groups had been steadily losing support among the general population and were seen as ineffectual and too reliant on British support. The al-Husayani's kind of came around to a more populist outlook when they became serious foes of the British and Jews after 1934 but mostly they seem to have been jumping onto movements that they had little part in starting. And in some cases they could be accused of doing those movements more harm than good. Nonetheless even in 1948 the other Arab nations seemed to accept them as the voice of leadership of the Palestinian Arabs.

Maybe if the Nashashibi's had made more of an effort to build a following among the general population and had won some negotiated wins for the Palestinians from the British, they may have been able to secure de facto leadership of a majority of Palestinian Arabs, and put forward the strategy from the OP. That might have gained them more support from the less moderate elements. It would be a hard balancing act though, as they would have to gather support from an increasingly angry population while simultaneously calming them down. Meanwhile the al-Husayani's are likely to go the historical route of trying to gain support by stoking the fires.

In general though, the strategy of accepting partition with the idea of expansion later probably better suited the Jewish Agency than the Palestinians. The Jewish portion of both the population and the economy was growing considerably faster than the Arab Palestinian one. At least for the foreseeable future, time was on the Jewish side. Its not really surprising then, that the two courses of action the Palestinian Arabs saw for themselves were negotiation and, increasingly, violence to solve the issue immediately. It would get more and more difficult for a Palestinian leader to advocate giving up any of Palestine as time went on.

Nashashibi was content with Jordanian rule. A Nashashibi-Jordanian controlled Arab Palestine seems likely to me.

One lingering issue would be immigration to the UN Jerusalem mandate.

Even if Jordan is moderate and recognizes Israel, it's worth noting that Jordan was the only Arab Country to support partition OTL. There will still be Palestinian Nationalist militia movements opposed to both Israel and Jordan, who can be patronized by the emergent pan-arab republican movement. Jordan might end up a pariah state among the Arab nations.

If Jordan formally recognizes Israel, Lebanon would be the second nation to do so.

The Israelis are bound to get into a war with Syria eventually, I think. The control of water will be very important.

A smaller Egyptian border might butterfly away the ability to use Israel as a casus belli during the Suez Crisis. Or maybe Israel just bulldozes through that bit of Jordan sitting between themselves and Egypt. Or maybe Jordan works with the British and French and Israelis to go after Egypt and annex the Sinai for itself.

Jordan eventually might be forced to declare war on Israel in a 6-day war equivalent though; in which case you have something similar to OTL.

 

[Eric C Johnson]

The September 1936-April 1939 Arab Rebellion in Palestine was different than previous religious rioting in 1920, 1922 and 1929. It was a violent, coordinated and ambitious attempt to overthrow British sovereignty and establish the fifth independent Arab nation after Yemen, Egypt (February 1922 incarnation), Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Balfour Declaration setting Palestine as a Jewish Homeland would be abrogated. The British responded with remarkable alacrity. Within a month, two infantry divisions (totaling one cavalry regiment, three machine gun battalions, one Guards and 19 regular infantry battalions – but no artillery) were sent from Great Britain to Palestine. About 6,000 Jewish special police were recruited, and from them six reinforced platoons known as Special Night Squads were formed by Captain Orde Wingate. They formed the nucleus of a well-trained leadership corps that later emerged as the Israeli Army.

The rebellion was crushed in textbook manner. First, a series of fortresses known as Taggart Forts ringed the country and cut all means of external support for the insurgency. Secondly, Palestinian Arab insurgent groups were defeated and forced to disband. The resulting irregular bands were dealt with by small, highly mobile counterinsurgent squadrons formed to find, fix and destroy them; and through a policy of reprisals towards nearby villages where acts of terrorism or sabotage occurred. Finally, Arabs became badly divided over how to respond to such reprisals; and British intelligence officers took advantages of such fissures to effectively neutralize the rebel leadership and encourage the settling of old scores among Arab families and tribes as a means of further demoralizing the young Palestinian nationalist movement.

One unanticipated effect of these tactics was that Arab Christians self-identified less with their British Christian rulers and much more with Arab Culture and Language. This is most notable in the case of Yasser Arafat.

This is the first major factor to be understood. Just like Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism has not always existed. It was born and weaned during the despair and defeat of the 1936-39 Rebellion. Prior to that event, Arabs living in Palestine were just that; Arabs not Palestinians. Depending of family and tribal connections they considered themselves Syrians, Egyptians, Bedouin, Druze or separate indigenous communities. It is quite understandable that Palestinian Arab nationalists were unwilling to accept partition as proposed by the Royal Commission on Palestine (Peel Commission) in 1937. The newness and idealism of the movement was intoxicating, and it had not yet been beaten by the British. Once shattered, this young sense of nationalism was nowhere near recovery by 1947-49 – hence at that time the Palestinians’ interests were overshadowed in every respect by the interests of established Arab nation-states.

A second major factor in determining the 1947-49 events was participation in the Second World War. Over 30,000 Palestinian Jews volunteered for British service during the war, serving primarily in pioneer, signal and transport units, but also forming a 5,500-man infantry brigade group and a commando battalion. By contrast, less than 5,000 Palestinian Arabs served, 80% of them Christians, and they served in second-line units where few of their number became officers or NCOs. Their enlistments also dropped sharply after heavy casualties suffered in Greece and Crete in the spring of 1941. The military skills acquired by Jewish troops in both quantity and quality far exceeded that of other Palestinians, and was superior to regular Arab armies that also sat on the sidelines during the war as proved in 1947-49.

The best chance of a Palestinian Arab state was acceptance of the Royal Commission on Palestine Partition in 1937. It would have removed direct British rule – they would retain only Jerusalem and a corridor to the Mediterranean Sea. The Jewish state would have been much smaller, Galilee and a coastal strip running to Tel Aviv. Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan were not yet independent and Egypt and Iraq were under sufficient British domination to prevent their intervention. Finally, Palestinian Jewish military power was still in its infancy. I question how stable Arab Christian and Arab Muslim relations would remain after independence.

Once the 1936-39 Arab Rebellion was crushed, any Palestinian hopes for a better outcome than OTL in 1947-49 were sorely misplaced.

 

[Bloodraven]

What would also be very interesting is what happens in Israel as the Arab state envisioned in the partition plan would have had only a very small Jewish minority (around 1-2% of the population), but Israel as envisioned in the partition plan would have had a very sizeable Arab minority (40-45 % of the population. This is one of the reason Peel Commission in 1937 also recommended population transfers to avoid the problem of national minorities (population transfers were not included in the UN partition plan).
This sort of situation with the Jewish population in Israel only being a 55-60 % majority would make the Israeli leadership very, very nervous and they might not be willing to permanently accept it. So, what would the Israeli leadership do in such a situation? There are several options open to them:

- Israel might do nothing and hope that Jewish emigration solves the issue and creates a more stable/larger Jewish majority in Israel, but the Israeli leadership might not be willing to accept it: Jewish-Arab relations within Israel will be tense, there will be at least some communal violence within Israel as a result of the partition plan and the surrounding Arab states are still hostile to Israel despite accepting the partition plan and so at least part of the Israeli will very likely see the Arabs of Israel as a potential 5th column that would rise up against Israel in case of a war in the future and cause Israel to lose the war and end the existence of Israel.

- Israel likely would encourage Arab emigration to the new Arab state in Palestine, but that is unlikely to solve the issue. The Israeli New Historians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historians) have made an IMO very compelling case that the majority of Arab refugees fled due to the war, fears of Israeli massacres (whether real, like Deir Yassin or Lydda, or created by rumors) and expulsion by the Haganah/IDF (more in that below) and not due to calls of the Arab leadership to flee as the long time historic consensus held. So even if Israel and the Arab leadership were to encourage Arab emigration out of Israel (for the Arab leadership a temporary retreat) it is unclear that the Arab population of Israel would have done so in significant numbers. Rogue Israeli units like Lehi or potentially parts of Irgun might try to conduct massacres like Deir Yassin in order to create panic among the Arab population and cause them to flee, but in the absence of a large-scale war the Israeli state would crack down hard on such rogue units.

- Israel might try to negotiate a population exchange (the idea of population transfers proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 was endorsed by Ben-Gurion and others, so there is a precedent for the Israeli leadership trying to make such a deal) with various Arab states in which Israel takes in the 800.000-900.000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that IOTL were expelled/forced to emigrate or choose to emigrate to Israel or USA/Europe (IOTL around 600.000 emigrated to Israel) from various or North African and Arab countries and in exchange the Arab state in Palestine takes in the majority of Israel’s population, though I have no idea whether Palestine and the Arab states in general would be willing to accept such an idea.

- Israel might expel parts of its Arab population. During the 1948 war Haganah and the IDF conducted large scale expulsion of Arabs on several occasions: Plan Dalet called for the expulsion of Arabs from villages that resisted the advance of the Haganah and in Lod/Lydda 50.000-70.000 Arabs were expelled from the city by orders of the IDF High Command. Israeli historians are engaged in a very politically charged debate whether these expulsions were part of a plan to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs or created by the circumstances/necessities of war, but the existence of such historical expulsions at least creates the possibility that the Israeli leadership would look at expulsion as an option, though whether it would chose this option in peace time (an agreed upon partition would like include civil unrest and some communal violence but there wouldn’t be large scale warfare) and in opposition to international opinion is unclear.

To be perfectly clear (the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a very politically charged issue), I am not advocating any form of ethnic cleansing/expulsion of populations, merely trying to point out what sorts of options the Israeli leadership mightconceivably look at to solve the issue of a large Arab minority in the territory envisioned by the partition plan, an issue that IMO at least part of the Israeli leadership would consider a very real problem for the existence/survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

 

[boredviewer1234]

What would also be very interesting is what happens in Israel as the Arab state envisioned in the partition plan would have had only a very small Jewish minority (around 1-2% of the population), but Israel as envisioned in the partition plan would have had a very sizeable Arab minority (40-45 % of the population. This is one of the reason Peel Commission in 1937 also recommended population transfers to avoid the problem of national minorities (population transfers were not included in the UN partition plan).
This sort of situation with the Jewish population in Israel only being a 55-60 % majority would make the Israeli leadership very, very nervous and they might not be willing to permanently accept it. So, what would the Israeli leadership do in such a situation? There are several options open to them:

- Israel might do nothing and hope that Jewish emigration solves the issue and creates a more stable/larger Jewish majority in Israel, but the Israeli leadership might not be willing to accept it: Jewish-Arab relations within Israel will be tense, there will be at least some communal violence within Israel as a result of the partition plan and the surrounding Arab states are still hostile to Israel despite accepting the partition plan and so at least part of the Israeli will very likely see the Arabs of Israel as a potential 5th column that would rise up against Israel in case of a war in the future and cause Israel to lose the war and end the existence of Israel.

- Israel likely would encourage Arab emigration to the new Arab state in Palestine, but that is unlikely to solve the issue. The Israeli New Historians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historians) have made an IMO very compelling case that the majority of Arab refugees fled due to the war, fears of Israeli massacres (whether real, like Deir Yassin or Lydda, or created by rumors) and expulsion by the Haganah/IDF (more in that below) and not due to calls of the Arab leadership to flee as the long time historic consensus held. So even if Israel and the Arab leadership were to encourage Arab emigration out of Israel (for the Arab leadership a temporary retreat) it is unclear that the Arab population of Israel would have done so in significant numbers. Rogue Israeli units like Lehi or potentially parts of Irgun might try to conduct massacres like Deir Yassin in order to create panic among the Arab population and cause them to flee, but in the absence of a large-scale war the Israeli state would crack down hard on such rogue units.

- Israel might try to negotiate a population exchange (the idea of population transfers proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 was endorsed by Ben-Gurion and others, so there is a precedent for the Israeli leadership trying to make such a deal) with various Arab states in which Israel takes in the 800.000-900.000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that IOTL were expelled/forced to emigrate or choose to emigrate to Israel or USA/Europe (IOTL around 600.000 emigrated to Israel) from various or North African and Arab countries and in exchange the Arab state in Palestine takes in the majority of Israel’s population, though I have no idea whether Palestine and the Arab states in general would be willing to accept such an idea.

- Israel might expel parts of its Arab population. During the 1948 war Haganah and the IDF conducted large scale expulsion of Arabs on several occasions: Plan Dalet called for the expulsion of Arabs from villages that resisted the advance of the Haganah and in Lod/Lydda 50.000-70.000 Arabs were expelled from the city by orders of the IDF High Command. Israeli historians are engaged in a very politically charged debate whether these expulsions were part of a plan to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs or created by the circumstances/necessities of war, but the existence of such historical expulsions at least creates the possibility that the Israeli leadership would look at expulsion as an option, though whether it would chose this option in peace time (an agreed upon partition would like include civil unrest and some communal violence but there wouldn’t be large scale warfare) and in opposition to international opinion is unclear.

To be perfectly clear (the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a very politically charged issue), I am not advocating any form of ethnic cleansing/expulsion of populations, merely trying to point out what sorts of options the Israeli leadership mightconceivably look at to solve the issue of a large Arab minority in the territory envisioned by the partition plan, an issue that IMO at least part of the Israeli leadership would consider a very real problem for the existence/survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

Granted I know people tend to blame what happened to the Jews in the Arab world as revenge of the Palestinians despite being one of the worst victims given it brought more manpower to Israel.

However it was a time a rising Arab nationalism and despite a good divorce between Israel and Palestine the potential is still end up like the Albanians of Egypt.

I would ironically however expect Palestine to try and encourage tolerance of Jews aboard as any abuse of the Arab world would likely lead to strengthening their rival and try to reduce the legitimacy of Israel as a needed protector of Jews.

On a slightly more humorous note I would expect a lot of sewer wars to happen in mixed cities as plumbers build them up and try to avoid getting the pipes tangled together.

 

[Bloodraven]

Granted I know people tend to blame what happened to the Jews in the Arab world as revenge of the Palestinians despite being one of the worst victims given it brought more manpower to Israel.

The expulsions and discrimination of Jews were definitely not the revenge of the Palestinians (they didn’t have the power to shape policy in such a way), but anti-Jewish sentiment anti-Jewish sentiment had been on the rise in many parts of the Arab world since the 1930s (see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Aleppo or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud) and it exploded in the aftermath of the 1948 war.

However it was a time a rising Arab nationalism and despite a good divorce between Israel and Palestine the potential is still end up like the Albanians of Egypt.

Agreed, even if Arab states tactically agree to the UN partition plan violence and discrimination both official by governments and unofficial against Jews in North African and Arab states will very likely further increase, plus these Jewish communities were part of official Israeli policy to increase the Jewish population in Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Plan).
So, a negotiated population transfer between Israel and the Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, the Arab state of Palestine if it isn’t swallowed up by its Arab neighbors, possibly Jordan) of Mizrahi Jews to Israel and the Israeli Arabs to Palestine would look mighty tempting to Israel.

I would ironically however expect Palestine to try and encourage tolerance of Jews aboard as any abuse of the Arab world would likely lead to strengthening their rival and try to reduce the legitimacy of Israel as a needed protector of Jews.

I am not sure any Palestinian government in which Amin al-Husseini (and only the war in 1948 caused his fall from power) will try to encourage tolerance Jews, whatever tactical sense it makes from their perspective as the man was a hardcore anti-Semite.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

The two main factions among the Palestinian Elite up to this time had been the Nashashibi's (the leader of which was Mayor of Jerusalem) and the al-Husayani's (a member of which was Grand Mufti). If the goal is a negotiated partition the Nashashini's are the better choice as they were generally fairly moderate and favoured negotiation with the British and the Jewish Agency.

By 1948, the Nashashibis had been largely wiped out by the Husseynis. I.e. their leaders were killed off by assassination. ISTR that even some of those in exile were hunted down (in Baghdad, IIRC).

 

[ArtosStark]

By 1948, the Nashashibis had been largely wiped out by the Husseynis. I.e. their leaders were killed off by assassination. ISTR that even some of those in exile were hunted down (in Baghdad, IIRC).

I was assuming an earlier POD. To have them come out on top of that feud we would need to go back to the 30’s anyway. But we would to have them be heading a relatively broad based faction in favour of negotiation as well.

 

[ArtosStark]

By 1948, the Nashashibis had been largely wiped out by the Husseynis. I.e. their leaders were killed off by assassination. ISTR that even some of those in exile were hunted down (in Baghdad, IIRC).

Though upon researching it, it appears that the family remained in the West Bank and held several prominent positions in the Jordanian government after 1948. From Wikipedia:

Following Israeli statehood in May 1948, the mufti attempted to form from Egypt the All Palestine Government in Gaza, but Abdullah of Jordan prevented this and annexed the larger remaining Arab area of Palestine (now called the West Bank) to Transjordan, forming the Kingdom of Jordan. After Jordan's takeover of the West Bank, Raghib al-Nashashibi served as a minister in the Jordanian government, governor of the West Bank, member of the Jordanian Senate, and the first military governor of the West Bank in Palestine. The appointment, with the backing by Arab states, other than Egypt, signaled the defeat of the mufti.[11]

Currently, members of the clan hold prominent positions in the Palestine National Council and the Palestine Liberation Organization.[12]

 

[Deleted member 109224]

What would also be very interesting is what happens in Israel as the Arab state envisioned in the partition plan would have had only a very small Jewish minority (around 1-2% of the population), but Israel as envisioned in the partition plan would have had a very sizeable Arab minority (40-45 % of the population. This is one of the reason Peel Commission in 1937 also recommended population transfers to avoid the problem of national minorities (population transfers were not included in the UN partition plan).
This sort of situation with the Jewish population in Israel only being a 55-60 % majority would make the Israeli leadership very, very nervous and they might not be willing to permanently accept it. So, what would the Israeli leadership do in such a situation? There are several options open to them:

- Israel might do nothing and hope that Jewish emigration solves the issue and creates a more stable/larger Jewish majority in Israel, but the Israeli leadership might not be willing to accept it: Jewish-Arab relations within Israel will be tense, there will be at least some communal violence within Israel as a result of the partition plan and the surrounding Arab states are still hostile to Israel despite accepting the partition plan and so at least part of the Israeli will very likely see the Arabs of Israel as a potential 5th column that would rise up against Israel in case of a war in the future and cause Israel to lose the war and end the existence of Israel.

- Israel likely would encourage Arab emigration to the new Arab state in Palestine, but that is unlikely to solve the issue. The Israeli New Historians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historians) have made an IMO very compelling case that the majority of Arab refugees fled due to the war, fears of Israeli massacres (whether real, like Deir Yassin or Lydda, or created by rumors) and expulsion by the Haganah/IDF (more in that below) and not due to calls of the Arab leadership to flee as the long time historic consensus held. So even if Israel and the Arab leadership were to encourage Arab emigration out of Israel (for the Arab leadership a temporary retreat) it is unclear that the Arab population of Israel would have done so in significant numbers. Rogue Israeli units like Lehi or potentially parts of Irgun might try to conduct massacres like Deir Yassin in order to create panic among the Arab population and cause them to flee, but in the absence of a large-scale war the Israeli state would crack down hard on such rogue units.

- Israel might try to negotiate a population exchange (the idea of population transfers proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 was endorsed by Ben-Gurion and others, so there is a precedent for the Israeli leadership trying to make such a deal) with various Arab states in which Israel takes in the 800.000-900.000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that IOTL were expelled/forced to emigrate or choose to emigrate to Israel or USA/Europe (IOTL around 600.000 emigrated to Israel) from various or North African and Arab countries and in exchange the Arab state in Palestine takes in the majority of Israel’s population, though I have no idea whether Palestine and the Arab states in general would be willing to accept such an idea.

- Israel might expel parts of its Arab population. During the 1948 war Haganah and the IDF conducted large scale expulsion of Arabs on several occasions: Plan Dalet called for the expulsion of Arabs from villages that resisted the advance of the Haganah and in Lod/Lydda 50.000-70.000 Arabs were expelled from the city by orders of the IDF High Command. Israeli historians are engaged in a very politically charged debate whether these expulsions were part of a plan to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs or created by the circumstances/necessities of war, but the existence of such historical expulsions at least creates the possibility that the Israeli leadership would look at expulsion as an option, though whether it would chose this option in peace time (an agreed upon partition would like include civil unrest and some communal violence but there wouldn’t be large scale warfare) and in opposition to international opinion is unclear.

To be perfectly clear (the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a very politically charged issue), I am not advocating any form of ethnic cleansing/expulsion of populations, merely trying to point out what sorts of options the Israeli leadership mightconceivably look at to solve the issue of a large Arab minority in the territory envisioned by the partition plan, an issue that IMO at least part of the Israeli leadership would consider a very real problem for the existence/survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

Plan Dalet was to only apply to areas that resisted being part of Israel. Most of the folks who got displaced OTL (Galilee, Acre, Lod, Ramle, Ashkelon, etc) are in Arab Palestine here already. If we're going off of an assumption that the Palestinians are accepting partition, then Plan Dalet doesn't actually result in many people getting thrown out.

The problem of demographic balance meanwhile would get solved pretty quickly given the huge influx of people who came in OTL. The actual number of Arabs in Israel is probably the same as OTL, albeit not the same communities of people as OTL (the Arab Triangle would be Palestinian/Jordanian, for example and it'd be the folks who folks who fled or were expelled who'd be in Israel instead). The billionaire Mohamed Hadid (father of Gigi and Bella Hadid) would be Israeli TTL, for example.


I fail to see why the OTL Jewish exodus wouldn't still occur. Egypt was discriminatory towards all of its non-Arab minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Jews, etc.) Algeria and Tunisia are going to want to rid themselves of French citizens. Yemeni Jews were already clamoring to get to Israel. The Farhud in Iraq occurred in 1941. There were already pogroms and whatnot in Aleppo and Damascus in the interwar period and during WWII.


Without the 1948 war, there'd be interesting knock-ons. Abdullah might be able to focus his attentions on conquering Syria, as there was a whole bunch of under the table allying and scheming going on (his goal was to get a Turkish-Iraqi-Jordanian-Druze alliance which would let him grab Syria; meanwhile a Saudi-Syrian-Egyptian alliance was brewing to counter it). Perhaps Israel allies with the Turkish-Iraqi-Jordanian-Druze crew to grab the Golan.
The King of Egypt not being embarrassed by the 48 War might avoid the coup, but I honestly sort of doubt it.

 

[Sarthak]

It was born and weaned during the despair and defeat of the 1936-39 Rebellion. Prior to that event, Arabs living in Palestine were just that; Arabs not Palestinians.

This.......is wrong. In 1909 when the Ottomans passed a pro-Jewish legislation that was disadvantageous to the Palestinians, the Palestinian Members of the Ottoman Senate were literally forced by their own population to walk out of the Senate until 1910, when a compromise was reached. The popular slogan during 1909-1910 during the height of tensions during the 2nd Aliyah was Al'ajanib Laysuu Filastiniiyna! Sultan! Asmae Nida'ana! Roughly translated it means These Foreigners aren't Palestinians! Sultan! Hear our Plea! (From Osman's Dream by Caroline Finkel). Palestinian nationalism as in separatism from the Ottoman Empire didn't exist back then, but the identity of Palestinian and regionalism existed, the region routinely voted for OPAD - the Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralization.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

This.......is wrong. In 1909 when the Ottomans passed a pro-Jewish legislation that was disadvantageous to the Palestinians, the Palestinian Members of the Ottoman Senate were literally forced by their own population to walk out of the Senate until 1910, when a compromise was reached. The popular slogan during 1909-1910 during the height of tensions during the 2nd Aliyah was Al'ajanib Laysuu Filastiniiyna! Sultan! Asmae Nida'ana! Roughly translated it means These Foreigners aren't Palestinians! Sultan! Hear our Plea! (From Osman's Dream by Caroline Finkel). Palestinian nationalism as in separatism from the Ottoman Empire didn't exist back then, but the identity of Palestinian and regionalism existed, the region routinely voted for OPAD - the Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralization.

What pro-Jewish legislation? Suphi Bey, the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem (1908-1909), felt that Minister of Interior Ferid Pasha supported the Arab opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine and in 1909 Ferid Pasha was for prohibiting settlement and land purchases. He also wanted foreign Jews to be deprived of the right to purchase land. The Council of Ministers, having been informed that 50,000 settlers in Palestine were foreign Jews, decided to prohibit land sales to the foreigners in Palestine in June, 1909 - but the necessary legislation wasn't passed because it would violate the Ottoman Constitution. But then in September 1909 Talat Pasha replaced Ferit Pasha and he ordered prohibitions of land sales to all foreigners (including Jews). Is your source's definition of pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian simply something not being anti-Jewish?

This use of the word Palestinian seems anachronistic, like when people see Jews representing the mandate of Palestine in the 20s and 30s and assume that they're Arabs embodying a Palestinian nationality. The OPAD was founded by Egyptians and was especially popular throughout Syria (Greater Syria) and the Arab Ottoman lands writ large. The OPAD viewed the Swiss Canton system as the ideal, and like you said Palestinian identity was a regionalist or local thing - the main national identity would have been Arab or Syrian. It'd be like arguing somebody isn't Iraqi because they identify as Tikriti - the national identity is still Iraqi. And Palestinian national ideas didn't kick off until after the 36-39 revolt, and likely didn't become predominate until the 60s.

Plan Dalet was to only apply to areas that resisted being part of Israel. Most of the folks who got displaced OTL (Galilee, Acre, Lod, Ramle, Ashkelon, etc) are in Arab Palestine here already. If we're going off of an assumption that the Palestinians are accepting partition, then Plan Dalet doesn't actually result in many people getting thrown out.

I wanted to check my math. I subtracted from the 700,000 expelled figure of OTL the populations Arab villages that'd be in Arab Palestine TTL and found that there'd be 170,000 Palestinians in Israel TTL who got expelled OTL. If you discount the ~25,000 people in the Arab Triangle of Israel who'd not be part of Israel here, then Israel has about 145,000 more Arab residents/citizens at its founding than OTL - assuming no expulsions or emigration from Israel.

 

[Bloodraven]

I fail to see why the OTL Jewish exodus wouldn't still occur. Egypt was discriminatory towards all of its non-Arab minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Jews, etc.) Algeria and Tunisia are going to want to rid themselves of French citizens. Yemeni Jews were already clamoring to get to Israel. The Farhud in Iraq occurred in 1941. There were already pogroms and whatnot in Aleppo and Damascus in the interwar period and during WWII.

Agreed, Jewish large-scale emigration from Arab states, will still happen but perhaps not in the same amount of numbers initially. Anti-Jewish sentiment had been rising in the Arab world since the 1930s and there was violence against Jews in the Arab world, but both violence and discrimination against Jews increased further in Arab states after the Arab loss in 1948. Without that perhaps the Jewish emigration is a slower process and happens over a larger period of time.

The problem of demographic balance meanwhile would get solved pretty quickly given the huge influx of people who came in OTL.

I wanted to check my math. I subtracted from the 700,000 expelled figure of OTL the populations Arab villages that'd be in Arab Palestine TTL and found that there'd be 170,000 Palestinians in Israel TTL who got expelled OTL. If you discount the ~25,000 people in the Arab Triangle of Israel who'd not be part of Israel here, then Israel has about 145,000 more Arab residents/citizens at its founding than OTL - assuming no expulsions or emigration from Israel.

I think the Israeli reaction to Israeli Arabs ITTL would depend in part on how Israeli Arabs would be in Israel.
By your math, there would around 300.000 Arabs in Israeli, more than double that of OTL 1948 after the war, which would give Israel a Jewish majority of around 70 % (according to the Jewish Virtual Library the OTL Jewish population of Israel in 1948 was around 716.000 and I wouldn’t expect it to be that much higher IITL; https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.or...h-population-of-israel-palestine-1517-present).

According to UN demographic data (original figures from the 1947 report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine to the UN General Assembly) there were slightly more than 400.000 Arabs in the allotted Israeli state at the end of 1946 and if Arab acceptance of the UN partition means that they all or almost all stay, it would give Israel a Jewish majority of around 63 %. In Comparison OTL Israel had a Jewish majority of around 82 % after the 1948.
Plus, at the time Arab birth rates were projected to be much higher than Jewish birth rates and while further emigration of Jews, especially from the Arab world, was expected AFAIK the scale of Jewish emigration after 1948 surprised even the Israeli government.

Under these circumstances: a Jewish majority of only 63 % to 70 %, fears that population trends might keep decrease that number in the future, and Arab states that while having accepted partition for the moment are still hostile to Israel and thus security concerns of Israeli Arabs as a potential 5th column in case of hostilities, I think that at least some of the Israeli leadership would see the number of Israeli Arabs in Israel as a problem to solve and would look at expulsion or negotiated population transfers as a possible solution (at the minimum I expect Arab emigration to be heavily encouraged).
The idea of population of population transfer was discussed in Zionist discourse since at least the later 1930s (see Benny Morris, a revisionist but politically pro-Israel historian on the subject: https://perspectivia.net/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/pnet_derivate_00004227/morris_transfer.pdf), which is why I think it would be considered at least by some in 1948/1949.
Whether the Israeli government would decide on some sort of expulsion or negotiate a population transfer with Arab states in 1948/1949 or would hold off for the moment and only encourage Arab emigration is of course open to debate.
If the Israeli government decides against expulsion/population transfer for the moment, higher than expected Jewish immigration to Israel would likely make the point moot in a couple of years as the Jewish majority in Israel would increase dramatically in a very short period.
In this case it would be interesting to see how a larger and presumably better organized Israeli Arab community (the war and shock of defeat demoralized Israeli Arabs and that prevented their effective political mobilization) influences Israeli domestic politics.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Agreed, Jewish large-scale emigration from Arab states, will still happen but perhaps not in the same amount of numbers initially. Anti-Jewish sentiment had been rising in the Arab world since the 1930s and there was violence against Jews in the Arab world, but both violence and discrimination against Jews increased further in Arab states after the Arab loss in 1948. Without that perhaps the Jewish emigration is a slower process and happens over a larger period of time.



I think the Israeli reaction to Israeli Arabs ITTL would depend in part on how Israeli Arabs would be in Israel.
By your math, there would around 300.000 Arabs in Israeli, more than double that of OTL 1948 after the war, which would give Israel a Jewish majority of around 70 % (according to the Jewish Virtual Library the OTL Jewish population of Israel in 1948 was around 716.000 and I wouldn’t expect it to be that much higher IITL; https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.or...h-population-of-israel-palestine-1517-present).

According to UN demographic data (original figures from the 1947 report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine to the UN General Assembly) there were slightly more than 400.000 Arabs in the allotted Israeli state at the end of 1946 and if Arab acceptance of the UN partition means that they all or almost all stay, it would give Israel a Jewish majority of around 63 %. In Comparison OTL Israel had a Jewish majority of around 82 % after the 1948.
Plus, at the time Arab birth rates were projected to be much higher than Jewish birth rates and while further emigration of Jews, especially from the Arab world, was expected AFAIK the scale of Jewish emigration after 1948 surprised even the Israeli government.

Under these circumstances: a Jewish majority of only 63 % to 70 %, fears that population trends might keep decrease that number in the future, and Arab states that while having accepted partition for the moment are still hostile to Israel and thus security concerns of Israeli Arabs as a potential 5th column in case of hostilities, I think that at least some of the Israeli leadership would see the number of Israeli Arabs in Israel as a problem to solve and would look at expulsion or negotiated population transfers as a possible solution (at the minimum I expect Arab emigration to be heavily encouraged).
The idea of population of population transfer was discussed in Zionist discourse since at least the later 1930s (see Benny Morris, a revisionist but politically pro-Israel historian on the subject: https://perspectivia.net/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/pnet_derivate_00004227/morris_transfer.pdf), which is why I think it would be considered at least by some in 1948/1949.
Whether the Israeli government would decide on some sort of expulsion or negotiate a population transfer with Arab states in 1948/1949 or would hold off for the moment and only encourage Arab emigration is of course open to debate.
If the Israeli government decides against expulsion/population transfer for the moment, higher than expected Jewish immigration to Israel would likely make the point moot in a couple of years as the Jewish majority in Israel would increase dramatically in a very short period.
In this case it would be interesting to see how a larger and presumably better organized Israeli Arab community (the war and shock of defeat demoralized Israeli Arabs and that prevented their effective political mobilization) influences Israeli domestic politics.

The realist (cynic?) in me says that Plan Dalet in its most straightforward state-building sense (people who accept and are loyal to the country can stay, people who oppose the country must go) would be what happens. It may or may not be violent though: it could be a matter of legal and economic privileges granted to those who are loyal and fierce discrimination against those who are not. The biggest net plus for Israeli Arabs here is that the Present Absentee situation doesn't occur (Arabs who were displaced by the war and lost their lands, but were displaced within Israel) and those who leave would likely have to be compensated in some way. The emigration would probably be a kind of urban migration to Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Gaza, rather than expulsion and refugee camps. But that likely would mean protests and riots and bad relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors who accuse the country of trying to get rid of all of its Arab residents/citizens.

If there's no Arab-Israeli war and the Arabs accept being part of Israel, their larger numbers might not be viewed as an issue though.

If Israel is recognized by Jordan, my guess is we'd see an Israeli-Jordanian under the table semi-alliance being hated on by the rest of the Arab World, with Lebanon and Hashemite Iraq as the outliers who sort of condemn it officially but don't do much in practice.

Israeli urban development will be affected. The Israelis won't have as many emptied houses to put waves of Jewish migrants into TTL. Maybe there'd be greater focus on building up the Negev here, but that'd require water.
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There may still be a Republican Palestinian National Movement TTL that's as fiercely (or even more fiercely) opposed to the Hashemites as it is to the Jews/Zionists. But the support base found in the refugee camps of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon wouldn't exist TTL. Meanwhile no Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon makes those two countries a lot more stable TTL.


If the Israelis still grab the Golan (which I think they inevitably will have to, given the Syrian Republican desire to cute off their water) the Israelis might look next to South Lebanon if Lebanon is hostile to Israel. Even until 1957 OTL Ben Gurion was offering to France and Britain to grab the south of Lebanon up to the Litani in order to bolster the Maronite majority. On the other hand, maybe Britain and France support Abdullah's expansionist ambitions instead - South Lebanon becoming part of Jordanian Galilee, Jordan as the Anglo-French proxy in the Suez Crisis leading to a Jordanian Sinai, etc. Israel might be very interested in controlling the east coast of Sinai down to Sharm el Sheikh though...

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Just a thought. The Jordan-Turkey-Iraq-Israel-Syrian Druze alliance conquers Syria for Adbullah in 1949. Israel holds onto the Golan. Lebanon later cedes South Lebanon and Tripoli to Syria.
Israel and Lebanon by necessity are aligned with Syria, but it's a very symbiotic relationship given that Lebanon and Israel are wealthier, have more expertise in a variety of fields (agriculture, intel, and defense equipment especially for Israel) and serve as gateways to the outside world for much of Syria.