Israelian War of 1948 (and lots of related things)

Split from "Best Commander of all times"

That is largely a myth tough.

While it's true that 6 arab nations were at war with Israel, these countries did not sent considerable troops.
When the war began in 1948 some 65.000 israelis were opposed to some 40.000 Arabs.
A year later, the israelis were already more than 120.000(volunteers coming from all over the world), while the arab strength never grew above 60.000-70.000 men.

On paper indeed, the arabs seemed to be bether equipped, but in reality the picture looks rather different.
From the 200 warplanes they had, only some 15-20 were serviceable, the rest being in a catastrophic technical state.
Similar story for tanks and artillery.

All over the war, the IDF was largely superior in firepower.This, combined with it's more educated and skillfull personal did not led the arabs much of a chance.
There was no need for the IDF to be commanded by a genius to achieve victory....

 

The Arabs had Shermans, Spitfires, along with the best Artillery and guns the West had to offer. Throughout the war they consistently had superior fire power.

Israel was able to get numerical advantage by calling up women to thr front line to fight on equal footing with the men.

Both men and women were untrained in combat on the Israeli side for the most part at the start of the war because they had in the past trusted in Britain to protect them from the Arabs.

 

As far as I know, the only Shermans the arabs had, was a single egyptian company.
Their shermans were all scavenged from WW2 north african battlefields....
Other armour used by the arabs were lebanese FT 17, syrian Renault 35 and egyptian Mathildas.(All in quite limited numbers)

But it's true that the IDF was not really bether of with it's Hotchkiss 39.
They had a few Cromwells tough....


As for the arab air forces,well for some reason the israelis had air superiority for most, if not all of the conflict.
They even could afford the "luxury" to bomb Cairo....

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This may be true for the beginning of the war, but later, volunteers from all over the world joined them, most of them WW2 veterans.
Also I doubt the training of the arabs was much bether.
Apparently, over 80% of their soldiers were illetrates, quite a disadvantage in a modern conflict....

 

Although at the start of the war, Israel had no planes at all, and the Arab nations had complete control of the air, Transport planes were used to bomb Israeli positions.

Well, there was the Haganah - basically a terrorist force that had been attacking Brits & Palestinians in Israel since before WW2. Many of their members had gained military experience in the British Army during WW2.

 

The Haganah wasn't a terrorist organization. It was founded at the start of the war by Ben Gurion, and it was melded into the IDF after the sinking of the Atalanta. The terror organization you were reffering to was the Irgun, which was destroyed by the Haganah after Deir Yassin. The sinking of the weapons filled Atalanta is the most famous clash between the Haganah and Irgun.

One major Arab mistake was they decided to bomb civilians at places like Tel Aviv while Israelis bombed the Arab Army, so while the Arabs killed a bunch of 80 year olds, the Israeli Airforce killed enemy soldiers which was a major advantage. Ben Gurion used the few aircraft that were smuggled in well.

That is one of the reasons the Israelis gained air superiority, Israel used the few aircraft it had wisely, while the Arabs threw their airforce at Israeli Cities like they were toys, and threw them at non military targets which only helped to encourage they IDF and kill grandmothers.

You are right the Arabs Soldiers were mostly illeterate, and the Israeli side over all did have better education. But in terms of Combat Training the Arabs definately had an edge over the Israelis for the first half of the war. Many of the Arab Soldiers were trained by Haj Amin Al Husseinie's nazi agents that he convinced Hitler to send during World War Two. They really were trained by Germany's best. When the British disbanded the Jewish Brigade which was made up of Israelis the Israelis got the edge.

 

From http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/haganah.htm

"Haganah was a secret organisation created in 1936. Haganah was created as a protection force for Jews who emigrated to Palestine; it’s original purpose was to defend Jewish communities from attacks by Arabs. Haganah became the military arm of the Jewish Agency but it was not part of the two most famous Jewish terrorist organisations that existed at that time - the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvai Leumi – both of whose activities were condemned by Haganah."

'Terrorist' depends on your viewpoint. For the peacekeeping British Army, they were. For Israel, they were protectors, while other groups really were more terrorism-orientated.

 

However they did not kill a single Briton, and only defended against Arab incursions.

 

But they were still an unlawful armed group.
It all depends on your frame of reference.

I freely admit that the Haganah did not actually commit any terrorist acts, but were only there for defence purposes.

I withdraw the unfortunate label I gave them.

Ok, how is this:

There did exist several groups of armed & trained Israelis who had been in existance since at least the 1930s. Some of these groups (notably the Haganah) were formed as purely a defence against Arab incursions, while some (notably the Irgun) were formed to attack Arab and British targets.

 

They Haganah was an exception, not the rule.

The vast majority of the Israeli Soldiers, the Druze included, were inexperienced at best. Boys and Girls were called up from High School to fight in the front lines.

The Haganah was well a small minority in the defenders.

Because the terrorist organizations commited terrorism during the war the Haganah had to destroy them which really hurt Israel, the destruction of the Irgun from a strictly military point of view was a one sided shoot yourself in the foot act by Israel.

Even the Haganah had it's discipline and training leaving something to be desired because the British did not allow them to be trained openly, and so what they learned before the war was mainly individual combat and martial arts instead of learning to fight in a modern battlefield.