Israel was prepared to accept a peaceful partition of the land
There are sources saying that Israeli leaders were publicly willing to accept partition, but privately not. I’m uncertain how true this is, but haven’t been able to find any push back on it. (I brought it up in a FB discussion and the pro-Israeli participants just ignored it.)
Leading Israeli historian Benny Morris documented the intention of Israel’s founding fathers to occupy all of the land. Ben-Gurion and Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, lobbied strongly for the Partition Plan at the time of the vote 68 years ago. Both leaders, Morris wrote, “saw partition as a stepping stone to further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine.”
Does the establishment of a Jewish state [in only part of Palestine] advance or retard the conversion of this country into a Jewish country? My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.… This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.
My impression reading the book is that whilst the Israelis definitely had ambitions on far more, they were prepared to grudgingly accept the partition plan. They were heavily dependent on international support for their cause and far weaker than the surrounding Arab States so would have had no incentive for war in the founding days of the state if it wasn’t forced on them.
Certainly there weren’t any concrete plans by the Yishuv or Haganah to take over any land pre the UN partition vote. This is despite the Haganah generally being quite well organised in that way, and having lots of contingency plans prepared. On the other hand that may well have been as a result of uncertainty about what the UN partition plan would mean in concrete terms, especially for the British.
Whether things would have stayed peaceful long term if the Palestinians had accepted partition, or war would have eventually flared up, is anybody’s guess. In practice what happened was that the Arabs denounced the partition plan and initiated concrete efforts to undermine it, and Israel accepted it and mostly kept to it till far later in the war.
There are sources saying that Israeli leaders were publicly willing to accept partition, but privately not. I’m uncertain how true this is, but haven’t been able to find any push back on it. (I brought it up in a FB discussion and the pro-Israeli participants just ignored it.)
https://www.salon.com/2015/11/30/u_n_voted_to_partition_palestine_68_years_ago_in_an_unfair_plan_made_even_worse_by_israels_ethnic_cleansing/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter
My impression reading the book is that whilst the Israelis definitely had ambitions on far more, they were prepared to grudgingly accept the partition plan. They were heavily dependent on international support for their cause and far weaker than the surrounding Arab States so would have had no incentive for war in the founding days of the state if it wasn’t forced on them.
Certainly there weren’t any concrete plans by the Yishuv or Haganah to take over any land pre the UN partition vote. This is despite the Haganah generally being quite well organised in that way, and having lots of contingency plans prepared. On the other hand that may well have been as a result of uncertainty about what the UN partition plan would mean in concrete terms, especially for the British.
Whether things would have stayed peaceful long term if the Palestinians had accepted partition, or war would have eventually flared up, is anybody’s guess. In practice what happened was that the Arabs denounced the partition plan and initiated concrete efforts to undermine it, and Israel accepted it and mostly kept to it till far later in the war.