ABSTRACT
In the days that followed the meeting of the Arab heads of states, the Arab governments were engaged, on the one hand, in fulfilling their commitments to the Palestinians’ struggle, and, on the other, to working out the possibility of military intervention. However, it was not until April 1948 that the Arab governments, besides Jordan, seriously discussed that latter possibility. The subject was raised again at the Arab League’s Political Committee in Cairo in February 1948, and the only subject that all agreed upon was to rescind earlier decisions about the assistance that the Arab States should provide to the Palestinians. The Political Committee demanded that those Arab States which had not met the obligations set by the Arab League in December 1947, regarding military and financial aid to the Palestine Arabs and the volunteers, should do so. It also decided that the Chiefs of Staff of the Arab Armies would meet in March to discuss the military measures necessary to rescue Palestine.1 The trend to deprive the Palestinians of their war continued. A Palestinian delegation, headed by the ex-Mufti, also participated in the meeting, making a series of demands that aimed to give the Palestinians and the AHC a leading role in the conduct of the war: the appointment of a Palestinian to be a member of the Military Committee, who would be in charge of the civil and political issues of the Palestinian Arabs; the establishment of a provisional Palestinian government, that would assume responsibility over Palestine with the termination of the British Mandate; and that the AHC should be supplied with funds to compensate the Palestinians who were injured in the war against the Jews. All these demands were overruled. The Political Committee rescinded its earlier decision that the arms and funds that the Arab governments were due to provide would be handed to the Arab League’s appointed Military Committee, and that the Palestinian
volunteers and the ALA would be placed under Safwat command.2 As to military intervention, ‘Azzam Pasha, the Arab League’s Secretary General, summarized, in February, the division among the League members on this matter. Syria was at the forefront in its call for the invasion of the Arab Armies after the termination of the Mandate, to take over all of Palestine-including the Jewish parts-and to present the United Nations with a fait accompli. The other camp, in which Egypt was dominant, feared international reaction to any blatant violation of UN policy, and preferred to leave it to the guerrillas infiltrating Palestine to fight against the Partition Resolution.3 Hence the Egyptian government refused to allow the meeting of the Arab Armies’ Chiefs of Staff before a political decision had been made on the extent of active Arab involvement in the fighting in Palestine.4
