Are the events leading up to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict listed in this video accurate?

by Scientificreason

Hello /r/AskHistorians, I'm having a hard time finding an unbiased explanation of the events leading up to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Almost every source seems to support one side over the other. Usually I find videos that overwhelmingly support the Palestinians, but I recently found this video that seems to be more biased towards the Israelis.

My question: could someone please tell me whether the events stated in the video are accurate, or is there definitely some kind of bias?

tayaravaknin

We're getting a lot of these lately! I'll try to explain what it's wrong on, or leaving out.

They left out the McMahon-Husayn Correspondences, which were perceived as a promise made in 1915 to provide Arabs with an independent state in Palestine. The British left the promise intentionally vague, because it meant they could say "Palestine was not part of the deal" and establish the Jewish state there. They also left out Sykes-Picot, which was a British-French agreement to place Palestine under independent trusteeship (well, part of Greater Palestine, mostly the Galilee down to Jerusalem and a bit further south), which the British also did not uphold.

Palestinians were not recognized by the Ottomans as having an independent national identity, but that doesn't mean that the people there didn't have one. However, they're right in saying that Palestinian identity had not really formed and nationalist aspirations were not a large part of Palestinians: they hoped more for a pan-Arab state under Syria, until the fall of Faysal Husayn's leadership in Syria with his ouster in 1920 by Syria.

The Jewish immigration had not just begun, though it did pick up more following WWI and British encouragement. There were two Aliyot (waves of immigration of Jews to Palestine) prior to the outbreak of WWI.

The call of pushing Zionists into the sea was not a prominent one among most, and is not widely remembered so early. Calls for restricting immigration did occur, however, and the call for pushing Zionists into the sea did happen: it simply wasn't as widespread at first. It wasn't memorialized as a phrase until it was said by the leader of the PLO in (if memory serves) the 1960s.

Dajani's statement, they leave out, is not unique to the Arabs. Consider the work of Revisionist Zionists like Vladimir Jabotinsky, who argued that Palestine could not be given to the Jews without bloodshed, and diplomacy would fail. They said the necessity for fighting was clear, and violence unavoidable. They found it a regrettable necessity, but a necessity nevertheless. These statements were not necessarily unique to either side.

They leave out that in the 1920 riots, and in riots that followed, Jews also undertook defensive operations. But they leave out, even more importantly, that Jews didn't only fight the rioters. They also attacked Arab civilians, many of whom were unaffiliated with the rioting. Blood was spilled by both sides. Unsurprisingly, in discussing the 1920 riots, they neglect to mention that Arabs also died (4 or so). Violence was not only confined to these riots, either: attacks between the communities were frequent, even if not always fatal, and property destruction common too.

The "90 year war" is misleading: in 1988 and formally in 1993, the Palestinian leadership agreed to avoid seeking the reversal of the Balfour Declaration, arguing they recognized the right of the Jewish state to exist and wanted a state only in the territories occupied after 1967: the Gaza Strip and West Bank/East Jerusalem (with East Jerusalem as capital).

The separation of Palestine from Transjordan is effectively the removal of roughly 75% of Greater Palestine's territory according to some historians.

This whole "under the Mufti an endless jihad was waged" thing is a gross mischaracterization of the back-and-forth involved. Husseini, for example, attempted to prevent the 1929 Western Wall Riots which targeted Jews, even though he encouraged those in 1920. Husseini called for Palestinians to kill Jews and help the Nazis, but this wasn't necessarily what they all did or wanted, and collaboration was not too high: Husseini still held the ear of many, but was ineffective in calling them to action.

Jews did indeed push for a partition in the Peel Commission. However, they only accepted the plan in principle, as a nice basis. They did not outright accept it, saying they wanted that to occur or that it was the plan they wanted. The Arabs did indeed outright reject the plan.

It's not clear that the restrictions led to the deaths of Jews, this is revised history and a "what if". It's argued that many wouldn't have fled to Palestine anyways, and would've gone to the United States instead if they had the chance. At any rate it's a moot point: we'll never know.

The Zionists (with only a few small groups rejecting partition) did agree to the 1947 plan. The Arabs did indeed reject it, though not all so violently.

The ALA was not that big, nor was it all that powerful. Only volunteers, some armaments, and some funds were sent to help the Palestinians fight. What the video leaves out is that the Muslims and Jews had already begun fighting long before May 15, as a result of the 1947 Partition Plan passing in the UN General Assembly. The civil war, which was all but won by the Jews by the time of Arab invasion, had led Jews to declare their independence on May 15 as well, which was when the British Mandate ended.

The Arabs did not have "overwhelming numbers", contrary to popular belief. This myth has long since been refuted. The Arabs suffered from a lack of actually trained and available troops, or funds to get those troops to fight. Israel actually fielded more troops at almost any given point during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. The Arabs had a higher population by far, but they did not translate into troops by any account.

The number of refugees was likely higher than 650,000, closer to 700,000 or so.

Past here, it gets into more recent history, and I can't go there.

Quite frankly, this video is biased in its presentation of history. I suggest you check the FAQ of the sub to find out more information on what they're leaving out. It's quite hard to put all of it into this thread, or explain why it's only presenting one viewpoint and their wants.