Jewish intelligence and the question of the Arab countries invasion prior to the 1948 War of Independence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Before the end of the British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel, the Yishuv’s intelligence services assessed that King Abdullah would be willing to accept the existence of a Jewish state and that the other Arab countries, for internal and external reasons, would not be interested in getting involved in war. They concluded that an invasion by regular Arab armies in response to a declaration of a Jewish state would be a ‘low probability’ and that Arab propaganda calling for the destruction of Israel only amounted to a war of nerves. Today it is abundantly clear that the intelligence agencies failed to weigh these factors correctly. In fact, what primarily motivated the Arab regimes to launch an all-out war was indeed their internal and external situation, since by so doing they could divert public attention away from their internal problems and ameliorate their external status.