O Jerusalem!

... Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins.



I had bought this book long back, but finally started reading it couple of months back. This book lists down the series of events that took place during the partition of Palestine & creation of the state of Israel..Like any other book by these authors, this book doesn't just give a narration of events but kind of introduces you with lot many people involved in the making of those events.



To summarize what had happened during the period of 1947 - 1948 : With a long history of Jewish massacre & diaspora, the Jews finally began their struggle for a separate independent state. Jerusalem being the roots of their origin [Land of Israel according to Bible], that was the place they wanted to create a Jewish state. In Nov 1947, after a voting in UN, the people of different nations decided in partitioning Palestine & creating Jewish state, in favor of the Jewish people. So they decided on what will come under Israel n what will be Palestine & they decided on making Jerusalem neither of the two, & making it an international city. This being because, Jerusalem is a holy city for 3 religions, so to ensure peace in the city its best not to declare it "Jewish" "Muslim" or "Christian" state.




So anyway, this decision, was not at all accepted by the Palestine Arabs. According to them their land was being taken n given away to somebody else. Thus ensued the battle between the two religions Arabs n Jews. The Palestine Arabs were supported by all the neighbouring Arab nations. Till the time Britishers were occupying Palestine, there was no open war, though there were lot of war like activities, like bombing & sieging & looting. Specially the Arabs did a good job at closing down the road to Jerusalem, making life for Jews in that place real difficult. They used to attack any Jewish convoy going on that road to Jerusalem. So as a result not only did many Jewish lives were lost, but also there was hardly any food/water/ammunition for the Jews in Jerusalem, as nothing was reaching them. People used to live on such meagre rations that its difficult to imagine. But still Jews survived all this & were defensive as well as offensive during that period, mostly because they were very organized. They had planned well, they had started buying n collecting ammunition, they collected funds for the same from American Jews, they built their armies n air force from the scratch. They had good intelligence network. On the contrary, Arab activity were mostly haphazard, with different leaders. All those supporting Arab nations had their own motives. There was less cooperation, more words, less action.



However once the Britishers left, Jews suffered major loses in war, specially after the Arab Legion army came in. Initially though, Jews started well, but they could not hold on to it. They were less in number compared to the combined armies of the surrounding 5 Arab nations. Also they had less ammunition, as they had not yet received the stock they had bought. Also they were being attacked in all directions, and the Arab Legion was quite an organized army. For once Jews were not organized, they were overwhelmed, & all this combined, led to major losses. Jerusalem Jews again reached that stage where they had no food water ammunition n were barely hanging on with hopes of cease fire. Miraculously for the Jews, there was a cease fire. I don't know how Arabs agreed to that cease fire, but it surely was one big mistake for them. Because that one month cease fire, gave the Jews ample time to organize themselves. To replenish their stock of food n ammunition. To train their armies. Different militant groups were crushed & a single main force Haganah emerged. And so when the cease fire ended, the war took a complete turn in favor of the Jews till another ceasefire was announced which was the end of war.



Infact Jews took an advantage with this war, they expanded their nation from what it was assigned during partition & also claimed Jerusalem as their capitol instead of internationalizing it.



Any war is sad, so many lives are lost. Its such a huge waste. I was pondering if the Palestinian Arabs had agreed to the partition there would have been no war. They would not have lost much, its not as if they were being given nothing. The areas where Jews were majority was being declared as Israel & Arab majority areas were being declared Palestine. So was it so difficult to accept it. Anyway I cant really make a judgement here :) But the way Jews managed to form their own nation was impressive, they fought hard n fought well. Post war also, there has been significant development of the nation. Leaders like David Ben Gurion, David Shaltiel, Glubb Pasha, Golda Meir are impressive.



According to Wikipedia, " In the course of its history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times". That's something for a small city :)