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Arabs attacked and started the war. The Yishuv defended and retaliated

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"the Arabs had, or appeared to have, the edge, especially along the main roads, the lifelines to Jewish West Jerusalem and clusters of isolated settlements. Acting individually, armed bands attacked convoys and settlements, often recruiting local militiamen to join in. Gunmen sporadically fired into Jewish neighborhoods and planted bombs. The Haganah, busy reorganizing, and wary of the British, adopted a defensive posture while occasionally retaliating against Arab traffic, villages, and urban neighborhoods " (Morris 2008 p. 98)

- "Most of the violence was initiated by the Arabs. Arab snipers continuously fired at Jewish houses, pedestrians, and traffic and planted bombs and mines along urban and rural paths and roads. Movement in certain areas and streets became unsafe. From the second week of December, Jewish traffic was organized in convoys, " (Morris 2008 p. 101)

- "Side by side with ambushes along the roads, the Husseini - affiliated irregulars turned to large-scale urban terrorism" (Morris 2008 p. 107)

[Haifa] But Husseini agents and irregulars sporadically launched attacks on Jews, beginning on 7 December with ambushes against traffic moving through Wadi Rushmiya. From then on, there were almost daily exchanges of fire along the seam neighbourhoods, almost always initiated by Arabs. Beginning on 11 December, IZL operatives began to throw bombs at Arab crowds and buses. The first large Haganah reprisal, against the village of Balad al Sheikh, just east of Haifa, took place on 12 December (six Arabs were killed); (Morris 2004 p. 100)

• see full text later: "ARAB RESISTANCE: The Arab Higher Committee has continued to oppose the resolution of the Assembly and has refused to co-operate with the Commission. Opposition to the resolution of 29 November 1947 has taken the form of armed resistance.

Reactions to the partition resolution- The U.S

"the Truman administration, due to Defense Department opposition, would not send American soldiers to Palestine...Marshal expressed ‘anxiety and disappointment’ over the Hagana’s inefficiency, as initially he was sure that the mere presence of the Jewish military force would suffice to prevent an Arab attack. Now it seemed that the Hagana was unable to deal with Arab attacks, but in any case he promised that the administration would neither change its policy regarding Palestine, nor would it send troops to Palestine to enforce partition" (tal 2004 p. 78) The CIA claimed that the partition ca not be implemented (tal 2004 p. 80)during february??

Reactions to the partition resolution-the U.k

The British government refused to cooperate with the [U.N] commission and would not allow it to enter Palestine.(tal 2004 p. 76)

The British government also opposed the idea of an international force. Foreign Office officials explained that the Arab States would respond to the sending of international forces to Palestine by sending in their armies too (tal 2004 p. 78)

• • "From the end of November 1947 until the end of March 1948, ...British military interventions down to mid-March 1948 … British columns repeatedly intervened on the side of attacked Jewish settlements and convoys. And the British regularly supplied escorts to Jewish convoys in troubled areas, such as the road to Jerusalem. " (Morris 2008 p. 77-78)

Reactions to the partition resolution- Arab violence

Arab violence purpose

the Palestinian Arabs, in November–December 1947, and the Arab states in May 1948, launched hostilities to scupper the resolution’s implementation ( Morris 2008 p. 396)

Behind the Arab violence

• Gelber
  • Early in December 1947, agitators from the towns toured the villages, urging the fallahin to enlist in the war against the Jews ( Palestine, 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the ... - Page 25, books.google.com/books?isbn=1845190750, Yoav Gelber - 2006 )
  • "the Palestinians and the Arab League ... Immediately and intentionally they embarked on frustrating implementation of partition by violence. At first, they instigated disturbances and gradually escalated them to a lull- scale war".(Gelber)
  • "in mid december 1947...the Arab league determination to embark an organized anti Jewish terrorism in Palestine instead of the sporadic disorders" Jewish Transjordanian Relations: 1921 - 48, Gelber, p.243

• Morris
  • "the spiraling hostilities and the Arab successes had bitten deeply into international support for partition and Jewish statehood—as the Arab initiators of the violence had hoped." ( Morris,1948, p.113).
  • Many of the Arab attacks in November 1947–January 1948 were “spontaneous” and even contrary to the mufti’s wishes. Others were “incited” or led by Husseini agents, but in unconcerted fashion. Morris 2008 , p. 98
  • the Mufti or his close associates appear to have tried to shift the focus of hostilities to the countryside. But the villagers were not rushing to join up

(Morris 2004 p. 88, based on note 115, Arab Division, ‘In the Arab Camp’, 7 Dec. 1947...)

• • [Haifa] But Husseini agents and irregulars sporadically launched attacks on Jews, beginning on 7 December with ambushes against traffic moving through Wadi Rushmiya. (Morris 2004 p. 100)
  • "From the end of November 1947 until the end of March 1948, the Arabs held the initiative and the Haganah was on the strategic defensive. .... Arab armed bands attacked Jewish settlements, and Haganah units occasionally retaliated ...British military interventions down to mid-March 1948 … British columns repeatedly intervened on the side of attacked Jewish settlements and convoys. And the British regularly supplied escorts to Jewish convoys in troubled areas, such as the road to Jerusalem. " (Morris 2008 p. 77-78)

• Bogdanor

"Arab leaders frankly admitting that they were the aggressors". (Bogdanor)

• Shlaim

The Jews accepted the partition plan; all the Arab states and the Palestinians rejected it vehemently. The Palestinians launched a campaign of violence to frustrate partition and Palestine was engulfed by a civil war in which the Jews eventually gained the upper hand… The Palestinian attack on the Jews provoked the civil war while the Arab invasion in May 1948 provoked the official war (Shlaim)

Threats of violence

"As to the [U.N] Committee visit, the Palestinians threatened to shoot its members if they ventured out of the Jewish area. (Tal 2004 p. 77)

Events- attacked Jewish settlements and quarters

"Acting individually, armed bands attacked convoys and settlements, often recruiting local militiamen to join in. Gunmen sporadically fired into Jewish neighborhoods and planted bombs." (Morris 2008 p. 98)

--:"From the end of November 1947 until the end of March 1948, the Arabs held the initiative and the Haganah was on the strategic defensive. .... Arab armed bands attacked Jewish settlements, and Haganah units occasionally retaliated" (Morris 2008 p. 77-78)

Tel Aviv’s outlying neighborhoods came under sniper fire and there were Arab attempts to attack isolated quarters (anita shapira 2007 p. 182)

On 4 December a band of 120–150 gunmen from Salame attacked Efal, a small kibbutz northeast of Tel Aviv (Morris 2008 p. 101)

The following day, 8 December 1947, hundreds of irregulars, led by Hassan Salame, assaulted the Hatikva Quarter. (Morris 2008 p. 102)

The inhabitants of the small village of Shu‘uth, near Kibbutz Gvulot, a satellite community of Khan Yunis, was temporarily abandoned by its inhabitants after they had murdered, on 9 December, six members of Gvulot (one of them a woman) who had mistakenly wandered into the village (Morris, 2004, p. 133)

[The Jerusalem old city. the Jewish quarter] "Following an unsuccessful attack by Arab militiamen on 11 December 1947" (Morris 2008 p. 217) The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was under siege. (anita shapira 2007 p. 82)

Events-The roads

"the Arabs had, or appeared to have, the edge, especially along the main roads, the lifelines to Jewish West Jerusalem and clusters of isolated settlements. Acting individually, armed bands attacked convoys and settlements, often recruiting local militiamen to join in." (Morris 2008 p. 98)

Transportation to Tel Aviv was dangerous: the village of Abu Kabir, at the entrance to the city, was known for its truculence. The village of Salameh was a center for hostile forces. Villagers from Yazur had hit Tel Aviv’s traffic on more than one occasion (Shapira).

Attacks on Jewish transport were one of the main features of the civil war. From early December 1947, Jewish traffic began to move in Haganah-protected convoys, sometimes accompanied by British armored cars. The Haganah cladded trucks and pickups with armor plating. But Arab ambushes grew in number and potency. On 11 December, a convoy from Jerusalem to the isolated Etzion Bloc of Jewish settlements south of Bethlehem was ambushed by a fazga of Arab villagers; ten Jews died. On 14 December, a second convoy, headed for Ben Shemen, near Lydda, was shot up near the Beit Nabala military camp: fourteen Jews were killed and ten injured—shot by Arab Legionnaires serving with the British army in Palestine. . (Morris 2008 p. 103,104)

The Palestine government declared that it will keep the main roads open and stop Arab snipers who are doing there best to make them unsafe for Jewish traffic.

The same Jamal Husseini quote, appears in http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1948_War.html citing: Security Council Official Records, S/Agenda/58, (April 16, 1948), p. 19.

* In early December 1947 ,According to foreign press, Dr KHalidi, The AHC representative, has told foreign Press reporters that the Arabs are not bluffing in their determination to prevent partition of Palestine.

Reactions to the partition resolution- Jewish violence

The Yishuv reaction purpose

"The Jewish attitude toward Palestinian violence had been dictated by its determination to see the Partition implemented. For that reason, The Jewish leadership's initial response tp Palestinian violence was to call for restraint on the part of the Haganah (Tal 2004 p. 56)

the Yishuv’s initial goal was clear and simple: to survive the onslaught and establish a Jewish state (Morris 2008 p. 196)

The Haganah reactions

during the 1st 10 days

During the first ten days of disturbances, the Haganah desisted almost altogether from retaliation, and Ben-Gurion instructed that only property, not people, be hit. (Morris 2008 p. 99)

Later in December

The Haganah decided, on 9 December, to shift from pure defense to “active defense, [with] responses and punishment...Yadin instructed the brigades to initiate retaliatory strikes against Arab transportation. Two days later, on 11 December, Alexandroni Brigade troops ambushed Arab trucks on the Qalqilya–Ras al-Ayin road... The Haganah still refrained from aggressive operations in areas not yet caught up in the conflagration. The policy was to “hit the guilty” and to avoid harming nonbelligerent villages, “holy sites, hospitals and schools,” and women and children. The following instruction is indicative: “Severe disciplinary measures will be taken [against those] breaching [the rules of] reprisals. It must be emphasized that our aim is defense and not worsening the relations with that part of the Arab community that wants peace with us (Morris 2008 p. 99)

The Haganah’s purely defensive, almost vegetarian, strategy was soon overtaken by events – and partially changed during the second week of December. As Arab attacks grew more numerous and spread to new areas, as Jewish casualties mounted, and as the feeling grew that the Husseinis were gaining control of the Arab masses despite – and perhaps because of – Haganah restraint, public pressure mounted for a switch to a more ‘activist’ strategy ( Morris 2004, p. 72)

The first large Haganah reprisal, against the village of Balad al Sheikh, just east of Haifa, took place on 12 December (six Arabs were killed); (Morris 2004 p. 100)

The Jews retaliated in kind. On 12 December, for example, a unit of the Palmah’s Third Battalion ambushed a bus, apparently filled with irregulars, at Nabi Yusha, near Safad, killing six and wounding thirty. (Morris 2008 p. 104)

At mid December 1947, it had become obvious that the Haganah counter measures were not quelling Palestinian military resistance (Tal, 2004 p. 59)

"The Haganah, busy reorganizing, and wary of the British, adopted a defensive posture while occasionally retaliating against Arab traffic, villages, and urban neighborhoods " (Morris 2008 p. 98)

• • "From the end of November 1947 until the end of March 1948, ... and Haganah units occasionally retaliated . (Morris 2008 p. 77-78)

the IZL and LHI reactions

But this description of Zionist policy requires several caveats. From the first, the IZL and LHI did not play along. Almost immediately, they responded to Arab depredations with indiscriminate terrorism (to the ire of the Haganah chiefs). “Enough [with restraint]. From now on—we [shall attack] the nests of murderers,” announced Kol Zion Halohemet (the Voice of Fighting Zion), the IZL radio station, on 7 December 1947. During the following days a series of attacks by IZL and LHI bombers and gunmen claimed several dozen lives. The most notable were two IZL bomb attacks outside the Jerusalem Old City Damascus Gate (on 12 and 29 December) (Morris 2008 p. 100)

General

• Supporting quotations:

1. ref group=quotes name="Morris2008p77">{{cite book|author=Benny Morris|title=1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=J5jtAAAAMAAJ%7Caccessdate=20 July 2013|year=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|
   1. pages=76, 77, 79, 98, 101, 117|quote="p. 76-77,"there was also a clear, organized Palestinian Arab response to the UN resolution. Guided by Husseini from Cairo, the AHC on 1 December declared a three-day general strike in Palestine to begin the following day. On 2 December a large Arab mob, armed with clubs and knives, burst out of Jerusalem’s Old City and descended on the New Commercial Center at Mamilla Street, attacking Jewish passersby and shops. A number of people were injured, one seriously, and the district was set alight. The mob then proceeded up Queen Mary Street and into Jaffa Street. Haganah intelligence identified two AHC officials, Muhammad Ali Salah and Mahmoud Umari, as leading the crowd.;
   2. p. 79 ,"Arab armed bands attacked Jewish settlements, and Haganah units occasionally retaliated" , "during the war’s first four months the Arabs were generally on the offensive and the Jews were usually on the defensive." ,
   3. p. 98, "In late December, Husseini reportedly sent Jerusalem NC leader Hussein al-Khalidi a letter explicitly stating that the purpose of the present violence was “to harass (and only to harass)” the Yishuv, not full-scale assault. In January 1948, High Commissioner Cunningham assessed that “official [Palestinian] Arab policy is to stand on the defensive until aggression is ordered by the national leadership. That widespread assaults on Jews continue and are indeed increasing illustrates the comparatively feeble authority of most of [the National] Committees and of the AHC. . . . The latter is anxious to curb Arab outbreaks but probably not to stop them entirely.” During the winter, perturbed by appeals from the notables of Jaffa and Haifa, Husseini appears to have agreed to non belligerency in the towns and to have ordered a shift of the focus of hostilities from the main towns to the countryside. On 22 February, the Haifa NC ordered a “cessation of shooting, and a return of each man to his regular workplace.” It is unlikely that such an order was issued without prior AHC endorsement. Many of the Arab attacks in November 1947–January 1948 were “spontaneous” and even contrary to the mufti’s wishes. Others were “incited” or led by Husseini agents, but in unconcerted fashion. Gradually, however, and partly because of Haganah, IZL, and LHI retaliatory attacks, the whole country—or at least the areas with Jewish concentrations of population—was set alight." ,
   4. p. 98, "armed bands attacked convoys and settlements, often recruiting local militiamen to join in. Gunmen sporadically fired into Jewish neighborhoods and planted bombs. The Haganah, busy reorganizing, and wary of the British, adopted a defensive posture while occasionally retaliating against Arab traffic, villages, and urban neighborhoods. The Haganah mobilized slowly, at first hobbled by the belief—shared by much of the Yishuv104—that it merely faced a new round of “disturbances.” Only in early January did the Yishuv’s leadership wake up to the fact that the war that they had long predicted had, in fact, begun" ,
   5. p. 101. "Most of the violence was initiated by the Arabs" ,The Arabs "planted bombs and mines along urban and rural paths and roads" , "The first organized Arab urban attack was launched against the Jewish Hatikva Quarter, on the eastern edge of Tel Aviv" ,
   6. p. 117 , "For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv had largely held itself in check, initially in the hope that the disturbances would blow over and, later, in deference to international— particularly British—sensibilities. In addition, the Haganah had lacked armed manpower beyond what was needed for defense"
2. Benny Morris, refugees revisited, p. 81, "Haganah operations were usually authorised and effectively controlled by the general staff. Moreover, notwithstanding the British view of Haganah operations, the HGS, through December 1947 – March 1948, attempted to keep its units’ operations as ‘clean’ as possible. While coming to accept the general premise that retaliatory strikes against traffic and villages would inevitably involve the death and injury of innocent people, orders were repeatedly sent out to all Haganah units to avoid killing women, children and old people. In its specific orders for each operation, the HGS almost always included instructions not to harm noncombatants, as, for example, in the attack on the village of Salama, outside Jaffa, in early January 1948, when Galili specifically forbade the use of mortars because they might cause casualties among non-combatants.73 On 8 January, Ben-Gurion said that so far, the Arab countryside, despite efforts to incite it, had remained largely quiescent. It was in the Yishuv’s interest that the countryside remain quiet, and this depended in large measure on the Yishuv’s own actions. ‘We [must avoid] mistakes which would make it easier for the Mufti’ to stir up the villages, he said.74 Regarding the countryside, the Haganah’s policy throughout February and March was ‘not to extend the fire to areas where we have not yet been attacked’ while at the same time vigorously attacking known bases of attacks on Jews and, in various areas, Arab traffic.75 This policy also applied to the Negev. The JNF’s YosefWeitz, the chairman of the Negev Committee (the Yishuv’s regional supervisory body), put it this way: ‘As to the Arabs, a policy has been determined: We extend our hand to peace. Every beduin who wants peace, will be satisfied. But if anyone dares to act contrariwise – his end will be bitter.’76 A few weeks earlier, on 12 February, the commander of the Negev Brigade, Nahum Sarig, instructed his officers:
   1. Our job is to appear before the Arabs as a ruling force which functions forcefully but with justice and fairness.
   2. We must encourage the Arabs to carry on life as usual.
   3. We must avoid harm to women and children.
   4. We must avoid harm to friendly Arabs."