The Yishuv is the term for the pre Jewish settlement in Palestine. In actuality, on the eve of the war, the Yishuv was in a full-blown territorially expansionist mode. This militant mode long preceded the November UNGA partition resolution, which within six months led to the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe. The element of nonconsent of the local community was paramount. Theodor Herzl in had unsuccessfully sought a charter for the settlement of Palestine over the heads of the Palestinians.
Weizmann acknowledged to President Franklin Roosevelt in that it had been impossible to submit the Zionist project to the Palestinians because it would have been refused. Meanwhile U. The UNGA partition resolution is one of the foundational myths of Israel on the grounds that it was equitable, practicable and morally and legally viable and that the Jews had accepted it while the Palestinians and Arabs had rejected it. But the Palestinians and the Arabs rejected it precisely because it was not equitable, practicable, or morally and legally viable.
Aggression and offensive action were built into the very concept of the UN partition resolution. The UN was effectively saying to the Yishuv: go seize those additional Yet the leadership of the Yishuv never had any intention of sticking to the borders proposed by the partition resolution.
The regular war, which began with the entry into the country of units of the regular Arab armies on 15 May , would not have occurred had these events not preceded. The outcome of the regular war was already sealed in favor of Israel by the time it began.
In many ways this encapsulates the nature of the Zionist movement. It was not a native phenomenon. It was not of Palestinian provenance. Can one imagine Michael Collins, or Nehru, or Kenyatta leading their national movements against Britain from headquarters in London?
