in america and europe popular sympathy for a jewish state had been growing and when david ben gurion proclaimed the state of israel on may fourteenth two thousand nine hundred forty eight he knew that he had the backing of many governments including the soviet union but israel's claim to sovereignty was immediately challenged by the surrounding arab states egypt lebanon syria iraq and saudi arabia and within twenty four hours the ongoing border skirmishes became a full scale war the battle was hard fought in some areas such as lot but the arab armies were no match for the israelis the jewish militia the hog quickly defeated the various arab forces that sword in their way as thousands of terrified palestinians fled their villages or were forcibly removed by the advancing organization not quite as much manpower then but by the spring they they were much better off and one of the myth of this whole period is that you had a little israel or small zionists against the palestinians and then later on in the war when the arab states invaded that it was david versus goliath they were facing overwhelming odds and it was simply not true because even then israel had more troops than the arab states who had very small me so but that's one of those things that many people believe one of the other arguments that has come down which has now been refuted by benny morris in the second edition of his book on the birth of the palestinian refugee problem was that the arab states called for the palestinians to flee in the spring of forty eight there's no evidence of that what really did happen was many and this is unfortunate for the palestinians  designers were had a nucleus of good fighters that a much better command structure and leadership and finally in march they begin a push to ensure their control of areas that would become israel under the partition and if that happened you begin to get many more palestinian arabs fleeing particularly after a massacre in a place called their scene although people now think it was probably somewhat over one hundred but not two hundred but begun and in the stern game it's auctioneer was part of that there was a combined attack on this palestinian village that massacred many people and the palestinians did carry out a retaliatory raid killing about seventy jewish doctors on the road to jerusalem shortly thereafter but after that you had mobile radio bands the big and put into play threatening more derriere scenes at the arabs didn't flee in other words you'll be massacred just like there is seen so it became part of the propaganda that alternately there's a lot of film of this people just flat and in one case the mayor of hyper jewish mayor asked people to stay but in most cases nobody did morris now shows out people were strongly encouraged to leave they were trustees on both sides but people were raped people were shot period and about half the people fled or were forced to leave before israeli independence and then major influx of people going to what we call the west bank and you therefore have the armistice that set up in the one nine hundred forty nine that sets up lines but are an armistice means a state of war still exists that i mean so technically day because most people including people in the west and in europe in the united states if you study middle east history you study middle east history and that's true although with variations in the arab world or elsewhere in israel however the curricula has the history of the jews being entirely separate from any history of europe or the middle east or anything else so if you study middle east history it's not that the arab world in africa  e israel is not in it so this is not necessarily true for israeli scholars but it is true for many people that their whole history in israel is line ism is the sting from anything that happened in the middle east you say but for the average person it's very easy if you have a system like this to fall into the trap of looking at this totally in terms of reacting to injustice and this became all the more understandable because of the holocaust which nothing was deserved so why did this happen you say so this also creates a mindset that if the arabs are doing this how could they do this to us look what happened to us here except that's understandable it's also understandable for arabs to look at israel however small it was as a much more powerful country than they were which they did from the beginning they feared israel regardless of how people will be here looked at this in terms of geography and territory etc and they had a right to fear israelis were europeans technologically they were way ahead they brought technology with them they were superior in all of this militarily to arabs and this came up in the forty eight war i might explain some things that occurred at this become jordan which includes the west bank after one thousand nine hundred eighty eight well when they invaded there was no coordination because no one trusted trans jordan because he had been dealing with what we call a trance jordanian attack against israel in fact it was really no attack per se they were holding on to positions in the west bank but where you did of conflict was over jerusalem but the israelis were able to violence while they were israelis after may fourteenth when they were confronting the egyptians for example or other people they really didn't have to worry about their backs in terms of where the jordanians were because the jordanians were going to attack that you see to me so if you actually had a coordinated attack it might have been quite different but what i wanted to do essentially was to get that land or a lot of it that he'd been promised in the one nine hundred thirty seven peel commission report memory he's going to get part of palestine and they're going to be part of trans toward they're not going to have their own state and there's been a tacit alliance between the zionists and the transfer of jordanian leadership all along to deny the palestinians a state they divided up among themselves and this was always the case the men of a jordanian history until the one nine hundred ninety s was pretty much that way to deny palestinians any opportunity of recognition as as a people with a right to a state so in the in the fighting that occurs then the israelis are able to hold back the egyptians and and ultimately to be successful and you do have this fierce battle for jerusalem which will then be divided with western jerusalem the more european  quarter becoming israel and then divided and then the old city which is only about a quarter of a mile is an area would be jordanian now so you have the situation with and which is going to last until the one nine hundred sixty seven war and from israel's point of view it has become secure but on the other hand there is great insecurity because many of the palestinians who have been dispossessed are in the west bank in the west bank could be from here to the house next door in turn the way you are and you're looking at people who are now farming your land jews etc first of all the major tensions for a lot of this period in the early fifty's were on the jordanian israeli border and why you did have some attacks aiming to try and kill israelis the vast majority were pilfering stealing etc and they were by palestinians coming refused that why are we going to kill people for cheap and ultimately with the u n intervention the sheep were returned they said that the ram was a little bit the worse for wear obviously had been breeding problems didn't sheeple run the west bank but it was done without any retaliation but the like palestinian assaults or intervention quite often they were doing training missions where they would provoke the action in order to then training in fighting the jordanian army so the institute this the israelis that you had a crisis in israeli political life in the early fifty's fifty three fifty four because most of charade who had been prime minister was much more cautious about using military  retaliation and was more interested in negotiation or exchanges and the big gorean is what he was a coward in what happened here which has a lot to do with the suez crisis  hundred square mile area it's not like it's a little strip and this would happen by june of fifty six well the british had many troops there obviously and you had a lot of fights and chaos and strife there particularly in fifty fifty one fifty two  so you have a situation where the british this is a tremendous triumph for an answer and israelis who are in the government sure right now is prime minister being gorean is going into semi retirement not necessarily totally committed to it but he's still in touch with all his people who are in the charette government and people in the administration the israeli government decide that they will activate a spy ring in his in egypt to put off bombs to make people think that the egyptians are incapable of protecting foreigners that way the british will stay and keep the troops in a sue is can answer that i mean now this is the cockeyed idea was even worse about it is that it was done without threats knowledge it was done behind the back of the prime minister by people who were these hard right wing guys and they were caught the people in egypt and they were thrown into jail they were trials too  persecutor nasser operating with no justification when in fact you had the spy ring all along and couldn't admit that he had known about this and not come on until nine hundred sixty so this begins tensions and the israelis are very upset and the public is very upset that seems to be a threat from egypt here big gorean comes in back in february of fifty five as minister of defense he still charette the stay out of the way you have a major retaliation against e in the gaza strip for your fiftieth killed and this is going to set off an arms race that will ultimately be a major factor in the suez crisis part of the sea is simply is not just arab israeli stuff it's in this case israeli domestic politics and people going behind the back of their prime minister and not admitting it so we have to go along so he doesn't make the israelis think that their legal is you know what i mean now in sixty seven we're going to see this in the opposite way because it looks like the egyptian military operated behind that switch back to do certain things that created the crisis in the sixty seven war now nasser then looks for weapons from the united states but there are too many strings attached so he goes to the soviet union this in fifty five and he gets to czechoslovakia a major arms deal that is going to set off an arms race in the meantime he has fully blockaded the suez canal he had allowed to is a stranglehold although economically not as serious as it was presented but to the sovereignty of israel clearly it's a major affront so the israelis are furious but this is in reaction to all these things that have been going on in fifty four and fifty five so the israelis who already have been getting on for the french have another arms deal with the french and you're building up tensions where diane and gloria and can't get the cabinet to agree want to invade egypt and take going and the british were going to fund that as one dam in egypt the building of nasser place footsie with the russians to see if they can get a better deal the british are getting very angry and nasser because he's and to use the sleighs and up of the egyptian he's awad you know he's not acting with proper respect to the british and he seems to be interfering in jordanian politics which infuriate the british there are a number of issues causing the americans and the british to become angry at nasser and for john f dulles at the time one of the major things was that he'd been recognised as communist china in may of fifty six because we always fought in the un at the time your young listeners here will not know what i'm talking about to keep communist china or out of the un is a major victory now hundred six this causes an immense crisis in which the united states objects to military intervention which the british and french want wants to they want to have simply the u n get involved in the goes here nasser promises compensation to the company shareholders the suez canal company etc behind the scenes the israelis and the french are using this as a pretext to prepare an attack on nasser saying he's a danger to civilization nasser now becomes the hitler just as saddam did and nine hundred ninety and you have to take him out because he's a threat to world peace the french are involved the israelis they've been arming the israelis all along they're very close they were they were those who were encouraging the suez the israeli nuclear developments at the time but also the french you see were holding on to a jury and they just lost in vietnam and fifty four they were going to have to withdraw they were ultimately going to give up to knees and morocco which flank algeria after not too much nationalist protest this is an arab decolonisation after world war two but algeria they were in eight hundred thirty th algerians off the land they had made this what we call a printed they part of france it's like a province is like a state like kansas in the united states and so it was part of france you're going to hold on to that you've got a million people french italians over there etc well you're not going to leave and you have a civil war that begins in a war against them in one thousand nine hundred five which was commemorated in this film the battle of algiers which is a classic film now the french were convinced that nasser he was supporting them in a propaganda way but they thought he sent the weapons over there so we can get nasser out here in revolt will collapse and we can keep algeria forever this  nonsense so but they're siding with the israelis and finally they get the british and as of september and they create a clue for the israelis to attack first and then the british and french go in pretending they're separate in the combatants but they're an arm of imperialism britain france the former colonial masters eccentrics cetera israel gained a great deal out of it because it was able to get the un to agree that the sinai would be neutralized and turmel shake the would not be any blockade and the israelis also were able to insist is very significant in the un in march of fifty seven that if egypt ever again blockaded almost shake and stop shipping this would be what we call a case of spelling mainly in international law a legitimate cause for war and nasa will do this in may of sixty seven now what's the united states the british and french were humiliated and the algerian revolt is going to go on anthony eden who is prime minister is lying to the house of commons his career is over he has to resign british imperial power is the century shattered certainly in the way in the mediterranean and its legacy but the united states then jumps in even though had opposed this we then act not with respect to our former position criticizing the attack we act with respect to cold war ideas because the british and the french had allies you know in syria lebanon and iraq even though they were out their jordan they've been humiliated we have to step in we create a night in our doctrine in january fifty seven against anyone supporting communism seems to intervene in affairs of various attempted coups in syria which have been written about by a cia agent called wilbur evil and ropes of sand he says this is one of them he says this is one of the most unprofessional cia operations there was so he writes about driving from beirut up to damascus with a suitcase in the islamic revolution this was our attitude we were doing it in central america guatemala elsewhere and we did it in the eighty's when the reagan you know you get rid of people you don't like their socialist doesn't matter if the people toward them we want our own people in here it's  communist thing what matters to stabilize and to this even though for a couple of years we egypt in the united states a very difficult relations they seem to improve but on the arab israeli side in terms of war you have very little conflict until one thousand nine hundred sixty three sixty four when because of israeli water operations you have major clashes with the syrians and it's out of  this that we begin to get developments leading up to the sixty seven war because the palestinians have begun to organize groups in kuwait and they then spread the fatah for example arafat's group is founded in one nine hundred fifty nine in kuwait there are other arab groups and they all go to beirut beirut a pretty free wheeling area you could publish anything you want money is available and fought under arafat's was a group that wanted really the main arab leader and a lot of these palestinian groups were also pan arab groups which meant that they wanted to have revolutions in the arab world before you were with through israel to intervene so you gain your socialist arab nationalist objectives are fun those people could care less about that you get major tensions developing out of this and a terribly conferences call ingenuous sixty four because the syrians have been accusing nasser this great arab leader of being soft on israel you see syria and egypt united in the united arab republic back in fifty eight the syrians broke off from it in sixty one they resented  rule and one they did that they begin under the baath party which is a socialist party not and that's the party it's the propaganda one goes today they begin to attack nasser saying we need the syrians are the true leaders  nationalism you're a fake you're a phony furthermore you are afraid of israel what are you doing about them so you're hiding behind these u n groups sign up you're saying a lot but what are you doing and in order to respond to this particularly in terms of the syrian israeli exchanges over the water developments in sixty three this arab league conference that nasser calls creates the p l o palestine liberation organization which is not intended to do anything except being sort of a rubber stamp for nasa although it does get a little bit out of hand in terms of recruiting because same throws that out of jordan for example but in our fund these guys are not members of the p l o at that time they don't really join until sixty nine  exploding between israel and syria but also with jordan because the syrians then did these groups through jordan through the west bank and the israelis doing there are in wall approach attack the jordanians leading was they to think they want to overthrow him you can't figure out what's going on because the syrians and jordanians hate each other and the syrians want to overthrow king hussein and yet when the syrians do this the israelis tak the jordanian domestic politics on all sides coming into this well this really heats up because nasser protests that he is strong up against israel the palestinians but you really get the major threat in the in the spring of sixty seven when things heat up with between israel and syria and the egyptians are told you know go into little detail here the egyptians are told that the israelis have threatened and they have weapons and an army on the syrian print here they're going to attack there was no mobilization although rabin and some other people had threatened an independence day celebrations and may have sixty seven to attack the syrians if they continue this but nothing had to mobilize in any case nasser either believe this or chose to believe it which i think in order to make a show of force to go into the sinai in order to show how tough he was against the israelis i mean and he goes in and here's where people now think that his generals undermined because we're not sure what might have happened if the u n and say we're not going to remove our troops we're going to keep  say something might have happened