1948 Arab-Israeli War
First Mideast conflict
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was the conflict surrounding Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948, when armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the newly declared state.
Israelis call it the War of Independence; Palestinians call it the Nakba ("catastrophe"), referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs.
The war ended with armistice agreements in 1949, leaving Israel with more territory than the UN partition plan had allotted.
- lost homelandNative land now inaccessible
- displaced personsPeople forced from home
- ZionismAdvocacy for Hebrew homeland
- Balfour DeclarationLetter backing Jewish state
- green lineStripe of verdant hue
ethnic tensions · demographic shifts · Jewish immigration · memorials · historical textbooks · regional alliances · political speeches · war of independence · right of return · oral histories · museum exhibits · Transjordan · refugee camps · post-war reconstruction · 1948
- Jewish WarfareIDF, Maccabees, Masada, Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War
1948 Arab-Israeli WarCamp David Accords
1978 peace framework
Oslo Accords · two-state solution · Middle East peace process · coexistence · reconciliation
1948 Arab-Israeli Warcivil war
Domestic armed conflict
internal conflict · insurgency · sectarian conflict · revolution