lands of Israel. After the Declaration of Independence BenGurion insisted that the Irgun would have to be dissolved.

He saw the arrival of the Altalena off the Tel Aviv beach as
a challenge to his governments authority. After an initial
stand-off, the ship was blown up by Haganah forces and
leading Irgun activists were arrested in an attempt to
dissolve the organisation. Nineteen Jews were killed and
dozens wounded in the action against the ship.

The assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

Count Bernadotte was the UN peace mediator in Palestine.
He was suspected by the Stern gang of being a British
agent, who was unwilling to recognise Israels war conquests
and eager to reimpose partition. On 17 September he was
assassinated, though the killers were never caught and
the truth about the assassination was kept a secret. Yitzhak
Shamir, then a Stern gang leader and later prime minister

of Israel, revealed the facts in his 1990 memoirs. It was after

the assassination that the Stern gang and the Irgun were
effectively wound up at Ben-Gurions insistence.

THE RESUMPTION OF THE WAR

On 8 July the Arabs resumed the fighting, but the Israelis
soon regained the initiative. Fifty thousand Arab inhabitants
of Lydda and Ramle were driven out at gunpoint with the
taunt go to King Abdullah (of Transjordan). The further
exodus of Arabs from their towns helped to solve a potential
problem for the Israeli government: what to do with the
Palestinians within the borders of the new state?
The official end to the war came in February 1949 when
Egypt and Israel signed an armistice agreement on the Greek
island of Rhodes. Armistice agreements with the other Arab
countries soon followed.

D O CUM E N T ST U DY: ISRAEL AFT ER 1948

DOCUMENT ST U DY QUEST IONS

LEBANON

1 What territorial gains had the Israelis made

compared with those determined by the
United Nations partition plan?

SYRIA
Nazareth
Haifa
M E D I T E R R A N E A N

2 Had these gains satisfied any of Israels

major concerns? If so, in what way?

S E A

River Jorda
n

Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa

Amman

Hebron

D E A
D

Gaza

S E A

Jerusalem

Ashod

3 Why did each Arab state agree only to an

armistice, not a peace settlement?

JORDAN

Beersheba

NEGEV

EGYPT

KEY
Jerusalem (divided)

JerusalemTel Aviv
roads
Territory of Israel
proposed by UN 1947
Territory conquered
by Israel, 194849
Armistice frontiers

Eilat

50

100 km

Aqaba

Figure 13.6 Israel after the 194849 war, showing an enlarged

Jewish state

The ArabIsraeli Conflict 19481996 | 433