Analysis of Influences on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The support from the United States, in particular, the money raised by the New York mayor and the diplomatic recognition, was the main cause that allowed Israel to win the war in 1948-49. The money raised by the mayor helped the Zionist cause a lot as it gave them the financial funding necessary to buy arms and the weaponry to fight the Arabs. Whilst the diplomatic recognition given to Israel by the United States (and three days later the USSR) made it far easier for Israel to buy guns from the international markets. This was so important in fact that Yitzhak Rabin, an IDF commander at the time of the war and later prime minister of Israel said that “without the arms from Czechoslovakia… it is very doubtful if whether we would have been able to conduct the war.”. And although the United States were not directly involved in this transaction, it made it possible as due to the funding and diplomatic recognition, it was able to buy these guns without which they could not even have conducted the war.

Although the organization from Israel and lack thereof from the Arabs played a large part is the Israeli victory, they would been unable to capitalize of their organizational advantage had it not been for the foreign support. The Jews were far more organized and had a far better leadership that the Arabs, but had they not had the weapons necessary all those great leaders and organizers would have been put to waste. And at the centre of them receiving all of those weapons is foreign support. The importance of foreign support to Israel is also seen when the UN arms embargo was ignored by the Soviet bloc and allowed the weapons from Czechoslovakia to reach Israel. Had Israel not had foreign support not only would they not have been able to buy the weapons, but they would have been stopped by the embargo and would have never reached Israel.

A third reason why Israel won the war was the leadership present in the Israeli army and as a nation in comparison to the immense lack of leadership from the Arabs. The leadership was incredibly important for the war, as it allowed Israel to rally behind their leaders as well as making the correct decisions for the war. In comparison to that, the Arab League never really had a true leader and there was a lot of distrust from within. Also the so called leaders of Palestine were from elsewhere, the Grand Mufti said he was ruler of all Palestine whilst the King of Jordan declared himself the leader of Palestinian congress. However he was not trusted by his peers in the Arab League and for good reason as he (the King of Jordan) later secretly reached an agreement with the Jews agreeing to support the partition of the region.

A fourth reason why the Jews won was the clear military advantage. This helped them capitalize on their leadership advantage. Although both sides started with around the same amount of troops the Israelis rapidly expanded and the IDF ended the war outnumbering the Arabs 3:1. This numerical advantage was incredibly important, however had it not been for the foreign support they could not have hammered home that advantage. Showing us once more that foreign support was the most important factor.

To conclude although there was a multitude of reasons for the Israeli victory the most important of these is foreign support. Although the organizational advantage, advantage in leadership and numerical advantage helped them win, it would have been impossible without the weapons they received from foreign support, making that the most important factor.