The beginning of the Palestinian military and political war against Israel
1. Resolution 181
When resolution 181 -- dividing the Holy land into Israel and Palestine -- was passed on November 29, 1947, not many people, especially in the Arabic world, thought that the state of Israel would last very long. Every Muslim country voted against resolution 181 (33 votes were in favor in favor (Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Belorussian S.S.R., Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian S.S.R., Union of South Africa, USA, USSR, Uruguay, Venezuela.), 13 against (Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.) and 10, including England obtained votes).
2. Arabs first attack on State of Israel and its results
Shortly after the resolution was passed (months before Israel was established), Arabs attacked the embrical Jewish state. The war lasted 15 months. It was fought along the entire border of Israel: against Lebanon and Syria in the north; Iraq and Jordan in the east; Egypt and Palestine, assisted by Sudan - in the south. It was the bloodiest of all Israeli-Arab wars and killed one of every 100 Jews living in Israel.
In the end Israel not only ejected the invading Arab forces -- it also captured and held 5,000 km2 in addition to the area allocated to it by the United Nations.
3. War refugees and the use of propaganda to promote Palestinian causes and terrorism
The long term effect of Israel's War for Independence were hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. Right after the war, there were about 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arabic states (and millions more in the years to come) and 720,000 Arabic refugees from Israel. While Israel greeted Jewish refugees with open arms and provided them with livable conditions, Arabs used the Muslim refugees to put pressure on Israel. Arabs refused to help their "cousins" (why not give them the money, jobs, houses Jewish refugees left?) and even now -- almost 50 years later -- there are still hundreds of thousands Palestinians living in refugee camps. Arabic countries use this people to show the cruelty of the Jewish state and to recruit terrorists against Israel there. Such tactics worked perfectly.
By inviting the media to see the conditions in which Palestinian refugees live in, Arabic states were able to pass dozens of U.N. resolutions condemning Israel, while not a single resolution was passed condemning the Arabs for Jewish refugees. Pictures of the people in refugee camp appeared at one point or the other in almost all main-stream newspapers, magazines and TV stations. And while the world looks at the pictures of these poor, malnutritioned children, everyone feels sorry for Palestinians and criticizes Israel.
The refugees are not only used for external propaganda. Most terrorists have roots in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and other countries. Arabic, especially Syrian and Lebanese media constantly attacks Israel. The Jewish ("evil") state, Arabs claim, is the cause of all problems. Such propaganda promotes hatred towards Israel. Fatah and other PLO groups used this propaganda to recruit terrorists in refugee camps and outside of them. To be sure, most of the founding fathers of the Palestinian Revolution grew up in Gaza, studied together in Cairo and became active in terrorism as members of Moslem Brotherhood, a fundamentalist, terrorist movement in Egypt.
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