Predictive History

The Arab Armies and the Phony War

6 min read

The Arab Armies and the Phony War

Core idea: The entry of Arab armies into Palestine on May 15, 1948 — far from being the existential invasion of Israeli mythology — was what Abdullah’s own British Chief of Staff called “the phony war”: a catastrophically uncoordinated, under-equipped, and politically compromised intervention by armies that were weaker than the Zionist forces, led by a Supreme Commander (King Abdullah) who was secretly colluding with the enemy, and whose collective failure was used by Israel to retroactively frame a premeditated ethnic cleansing as a defensive “war of independence.”

The Myth vs. Reality

The standard Israeli narrative, repeated by propagandists like Alan Dershowitz — “At great cost in human life, the ragtag Israeli army defeated the invading Arab armies and the Palestinian attackers” — inverts reality. By May 1948, the Israeli army stood at over 80,000 troops, half of them trained by the British during the Mandate period. They were equipped with tanks, armored cars, heavy artillery, a small air force, and a navy. They had received a large shipment of heavy arms from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

Facing them were less than 50,000 uncoordinated Arab troops from multiple countries with no unified command structure, whose main arms suppliers — Britain and France — had imposed an arms embargo that crippled them while barely affecting the Zionist forces, who found willing suppliers in the Communist Eastern bloc. About 250,000 Palestinians and roughly half of all Arab villages had already been assaulted before any Arab army crossed the border.

The Arab League’s Paralysis

The Arab world in 1948 was in turmoil. Syria and Lebanon had only just achieved formal independence. Iraq and Egypt were engaged in their own struggles for national liberation. The Arab Council — made up of foreign ministers with non-binding decisions — dragged on with ineffective discussions. The Egyptian General Secretary of the Arab League hoped the UN would intervene before May, delaying action.

On April 30, 1948, Arab leaders finally decided to send regular forces by mid-May. But by then, the ethnic cleansing had been underway for five months. The decision came too late to save anyone — it came only in time to be blamed for what had already happened.

Army by Army

Jordan (The Arab Legion): The best-trained and most professional Arab army, but already in a tacit alliance with the Zionists. Most senior officers were British. King Abdullah, chosen as Supreme Commander of all Arab forces despite everyone knowing he was a fraud, used his position to ensure catastrophic coordination. The Legion defended only the territories Abdullah claimed for himself (the West Bank and East Jerusalem) and withdrew from areas like Lydda and Ramle, abandoning 100,000 Palestinians to expulsion. His British Chief of Staff called the entire engagement “the phony war.”

Egypt: Waited until the very end, after American peace efforts failed. Egyptian leaders knew engagement would end in chaos. Egyptian volunteers, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, showed tenacity in holding their lines in the Negev despite poor equipment, but their main mission quickly became protecting the regime, not rescuing Palestine. Their air force managed only a few raids on Tel-Aviv before being redirected to protect Arab capitals.

Syria: More committed to defending Palestine but far too weak after only a few years of independence from France. Syrian troops occupied a few isolated settlements along the border for a few days before being pushed back. The Zionists even considered taking the Golan Heights during the conflict.

Iraq: The Iraqi contingent was compromised by orders to follow Jordanian policy of not attacking the Jewish state. However, Iraqi officers defied their government’s orders and heroically defended villages in the Wadi Ara area, successfully repelling every Israeli attempt to capture the region. These were among the few genuine Arab military successes of the war. When the 1958 military coup brought new rulers to power in Iraq, they brought their generals to trial for their role during the ethnic cleansing.

Lebanon: Forces were much weaker than any other participant.

The Arab Liberation Army (ALA): Under Fawzi al-Qawuqji, a Lebanese-born commander, the ALA numbered roughly 2,000 volunteers. From as early as January 1948, al-Qawuqji sought a non-aggression pact with the Zionists. By the end of March, he offered direct contact to the Consultancy. The ALA operated only in areas the UN had assigned to the Palestinian state and was never a serious military threat. It was set up by the Arab League partly as a counter to indigenous Palestinian fighters.

The Arms Embargo

France and Britain — the Arab armies’ main arms suppliers — declared an arms embargo on Palestine. This crippled the Arab armies while barely affecting the Zionist forces, who found willing suppliers in the Communist Eastern bloc. Israel received heavy arms from Czechoslovakia (facilitated by a Czech foreign minister who was a liberal friend of Chaim Weizmann) and the Soviet Union. A few weeks into the war, the Israeli army possessed artillery unmatched not only by the Arab troops in Palestine but by all the Arab armies put together.

Why It Matters

The “phony war” framing is essential because it destroys the foundational myth of Israeli independence. If the Arab armies were never a serious threat — if the strongest army was secretly allied with the Zionists, if the others were under-equipped and uncoordinated, if 250,000 Palestinians were already expelled before any soldier crossed the border — then the entire “war of independence” narrative collapses. What happened in 1948 was not a war between armies but a colonial campaign against a civilian population, with a brief and ineffective military sideshow involving compromised Arab states.

The Aftermath

The failure of the Arab armies had devastating consequences beyond Palestine. Massive upheavals swept the Arab world as populations turned against the rulers who had betrayed them. The 1958 Iraqi military coup explicitly brought generals to trial for their role during the ethnic cleansing. The discrediting of the old Arab regimes created the conditions for the rise of pan-Arabism and Nasserism. In Jordan, the Hashemites — who had started negotiations with the Zionists roughly thirty years before the Nakba — continue their corrupted rule to this day.

Key Insight

The “phony war” reveals that the Arab armies’ entry into Palestine was not an invasion to destroy Israel but a performance staged for domestic audiences by regimes that had neither the capacity nor the genuine intention to stop the ethnic cleansing — and their failure became the pretext for reframing a premeditated colonial campaign against civilians as a heroic war of national survival.

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