[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-38007-en":3,"doc-seo-38007-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":83},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},38007,13056703019662,"Evangeline","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253a8e92610077?_k=1778726343310543188",8,"Research & Report","The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, Palestinians","The chapter explains how Palestinian society was transformed and ultimately defeated in 1948, arguing that decisive causes preceded Israel’s declaration on 15 May. It traces the disintegration to escalating violence after UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (29 Nov 1947), culminating in the Zionist movement’s military superiority from early March to mid-May. The analysis links Palestinian political failure to institutional constraints, factionalism among leading elites, and serious leadership shortcomings, leading to dispossession and the first refugee exodus.","1 The Palestinians and 1948: the underlying causes of failure  \nRashid Khalidi  \nBetween early spring and late fall of 1948, Arab Palestine was radically transformed. At the beginning of that year, Arabs constituted over twothirds of the population of the country, and were a majority in fifteen of the country’s sixteen sub-districts.1 Beyond this, Arabs owned nearly 90 percent of Palestine’s privately owned land.2 In a few months of heavy fighting in the early spring of 1948, the military forces of a well-organized Jewish population of just over 600,000 people routed those of an Arab majority more than twice its size. In the months that followed, they decisively defeated several Arab armies, which had entered the country on 15 May 1948. Over this turbulent period, more than half of the nearly 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs were driven from or fled their homes. Those Palestinians who did not flee the conquered areas were reduced to a small minority within the new state of Israel (which now controlled about 77 percent of the territory of Mandatory Palestine) . At the end of the fighting, Jordan took over the areas of Palestine controlled by its army west of the Jordan River, while the Egyptian army administered the strip it retained around Gaza, adjacent to its borders. In the wake of this catastrophe – al-Nakba, as it was inscribed in Palestinian memory3 – the Palestinians found themselves living under a variety of alien regimes, were dispossessed of the vast bulk of their property, and had lost control over most aspects of their lives.  \nHow and why did this momentous transformation happen? Most conventional accounts of the 1948 War tend to focus on events after 15 May 1948, the date when the state of Israel was founded, and the Arab armies intervened unsuccessfully in Palestine in the wake of the stunning collapse of the Palestinians. In fact, however, the decisive blows to the cohesion of Palestinian society were struck even before 15 May, during the early spring of 1948. Furthermore, it is the central argument of this chapter that the underlying causes of this collapse, and of the larger Palestinian political failure, lay even further in the past, and were related to the constraints on and the structural weaknesses of the Palestinian political institutions, factionalism among the notable stratum which  \n12  \nDownloaded from [https:/www.cambridge.org/core. New York University](https:/www.cambridge.org/core. New York University), on 29 Jun 2017 at 03:56:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at [https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms](https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms). [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781](https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781)139167413.005  \nThe Palestinians and 1948 13  \ndominated Palestinian society and politics, and grave shortcomings in leadership.4  \nThe specific shocks which led Palestinian society to disintegrate in the weeks before 15 May came as the climax of an escalating series of bombings, ambushes, skirmishes, and pitched battles sparked by the passage of United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 on 29 November 1947, which called for the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. During the first few months of this savage civil war, there were successes and subsequent reverses for both sides in heavy fighting in many parts of the country. However, from the beginning of March until mid-May of 1948, the striking superiority of the armed forces of the Zionist movement, and the concomitant weaknesses of their Arab foes began to tell, and they won a series of conclusive victories over the Palestinians. These victories led to the fall of numerous Arab cities and towns, including several of the largest and most important ones, and of hundreds of Palestinian villages, and the capture of a number of strategic roads, junctions, and positions. The main consequence of these crushing defeats in the spring of 1948 was the expulsion of the first wave of Arabs from Palestine.5 This first exodus,","cbCaialvdNfg1jpR","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaialvdNfg1jpR","pdf",164340,1,25,"English","en",105,"# The transformation of Arab Palestine in 1948\n## Prelude to collapse before 15 May 1948\n## Violence after UN resolution 181 and early exodus","[{\"question\":\"Which factors does the chapter identify as underlying causes of Palestinian political failure?\",\"answer\":\"The chapter links failure to constraints and structural weaknesses in Palestinian political institutions, factionalism among the notable elite stratum, and grave leadership shortcomings.\"}]",1783057087,63,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":78,"head_meta":80,"extra_data":82,"updated_unix":27},"the-war-for-palestine-rewriting-the-history-of-1948-palestinians","",{"@graph":35,"@context":77},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-war-for-palestine-rewriting-the-history-of-1948-palestinians/38007/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-07","2026-07-03",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"Which factors does the chapter identify as underlying causes of Palestinian political failure?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The chapter links failure to constraints and structural weaknesses in Palestinian political institutions, factionalism among the notable elite stratum, and grave leadership shortcomings.","Answer","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":79,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":81,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":84},[85,89,93,97,102,107,112,115,120,123,127],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":86,"show_sort_weight":87,"slug":88},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":90,"show_sort_weight":91,"slug":92},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":98,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":99,"show_sort_weight":100,"slug":101},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":103,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":104,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":106},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":108,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},30,"research-report",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":122},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":126},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":128,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":130},19,"General","general"]