A very special war
On 29 November 1947, thousands of people jumped out of their beds and rushed out onto the streets when the reports were broadcast on the radio. The UN General Assembly had decided to divide the land of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. Still wearing their pajamas, people rejoiced, shouted, sang, and danced. I stayed in bed, feeling sad and depressed.
Sad, because I knew that a cruel war was coming, which would bring death to many of those now dancing. Depressed because I could see that this land that I loved so much, where I had grown up since the age of ten, would never be the same again.
The 635,000 Jewish inhabitants of Palestine rejoiced, because they could set up their own state in at least a part of the land. The Arab population lamented the loss of a large part of the land where their ancestors had lived for generations.
The next day the war began. It was not a normal war, where two countries fight over an area of land. The Germans and the French fought for generations over Alsace and Lorraine. But it would not have occurred to a Frenchman to eliminate Germany from the map. And no German had ever said that there was no such thing as a French nation.
And in our case? The Jews denied the existence of a Palestinian peo-pie and so obviously did not accept their right to any of this land. And the Palestinians said the Jews were no nation and had no rights in Palestine. Both sides were hilly convinced that the whole area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was their homeland and belonged to them alone. How did this situation come about?