Looking Back on That 1947 Partition Recommendatiom and Around-about

Who was enthusiastically in favor?

Not them:

December 3, 1947

Anti-partition Demonstrations Break out in Egypt; 30,000 Demonstrate in Baghdad

New demonstrations broke out in Egypt today and violence was reported in at least one city as Arabs in the major centers of the Middle East joined the Palestine Arabs in a protest strike against the U.N. decision in favor of the partitioning of Palestine. At Zagazig, a town about 40 miles north of Cairo, the British Institute was wrecked and gutted by fire after being attacked by 1,000 demonstrators...In Cairo, Premier Mahmoud Nokrashy Pasha told the Parliament that Egypt would "ignore" partition. Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, told demonstrating students in Cairo that it was their duty to go to Palestine and fight...In Baghdad, 30,000 demonstrators were kept in line by mounted policemen. Recruiting offices were reportedly opened in Beirut for Arabs desiring to fight in Palestine.  According to another report some 20-odd Syrian deputies volunteered for combatant service after the Syrian parliament had voted some $880,000 to raise a "striking force."

Two months earlier:

The ex-mufti of Jerusalem today arrived in Beirut, Lebanon...to attend a meeting, begun yesterday, of the Arab League Council, which will discuss the Palestine problem, among other matters...Sheikh Hassan el Banna, head of the Moslem Brotherhood, had pledged to send 10,000 young Arabs to "save Palestine." In a cable to Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League who is now in Beirut, Banna said that "fighting is the only means of saving Palestine."

By the way, this sounds familiar:

[UN] Israeli representative Aubrey Eban...pointed out that other atrocity stories mentioned by Azzam Pasha had proved to be "imaginary." In addition, he asserted that any suffering of the civilian population was the responsibility of the Arab states who admittedly invaded Palestine.

And what about the theme of boycott?  Here, from October 1947:

The Arab League Council today decided on measures to strengthen the boycott of "Zionist-made" goods...it was reported tonight from Beirut.  Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, general-secretary of the League, declared that Palestine was the keystone about which had been built the first agreement for military cooperation in the history of the Arab nations....

And here's the left-wing talking in October 1947 (sounds like today's radical progressives?):

There is no danger of an Arab invasion of Palestine in spite of the threats of the neighboring Arab countries, it was reported here today by three leaders of the Histadruth...Abba Khoushi, Joseph Biankower and Don Pines...

Did the Arabs invade before May 15, 1948?

February 5, 1948
British Repulse Arab Attack at Palestine-syria Frontier; Capture Iraqis and Syrians

One Arab was killed and several wounded in a fight between British frontier troops and an Arab unit dressed in military uniform which attempted to cross from Syria into Palestine to attack Jewish settlements in the Mishmar Hayarden area. Two Iraqis and four Syrians were captured in the battle, while the others retreated into Syria.

And this from March 4, 1948

Approximately 5,000 Arabs invaded Palestine from neighboring countries since the adoption of the partition decision by the General assembly, it was reported today in the House of Commons during a debate on the Palestine question in which Foreign Secretary. Ernest Bevin participated.

What else went on that I could recalll to you?  Ah, this:

Nuri Pasha es-Said, ex-Premier of Iraq and President of the Iraq Senate, submitted to the recent meeting of Arab state premiers a plan worked out by British officials providing for the annexation by King Abdullah of Transjordan of the projected Arab part of Palestine, to be set up under United Nations auspices as a separate state, it was learned here.The Arab part of Palestine, under the British plan, would then be used as a British advance base in the Middle East.

Did Jews assert their rights?  Yes.  The Jewish Agency described:-

...the statement made yesterday by Jamal Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, to the opening session of the second part of the London Conference as a "complete disregard of the fundamental facts of history and the present position of the Jews," the Jewish Agency office here today stated that the Arabs need not fear the emergence of a Jewish state.  Maintaining that the Zionists have always taken into account the presence of the Arabs in Palestine, and the fact that it is surrounded on three sides by Arab-speaking countries, the statement declares that Husseini and his friends ignore the attachment of the Jewish people to Palestine and their determination to renew their national life there, and the international recognition given their right to do so. "To call Jews returning to Palestine 'aliens' is to fly in the face of the most patent reality affecting the country's political future," the Agency continued. "The Jews are returning as sons of the country, ready to share it with the Arab inhabitants, but not conceding the latter's exclusive or predominant mastery in it. "The Jewish claim to statcheed is as natural and as elementary as any other peoples'.

There is so much to be reminded of.

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