Is it true that in 1947 after the U.N. divided arab and jewish in 2 states, the first attack was from the arabs?
Executive summary
The immediate aftermath of the UN General Assembly’s adoption of Resolution 181 (the Partition Plan) on 29 November 1947 saw a rapid descent into communal violence in Mandatory Palestine—violence that historians describe as a civil war phase in which both Palestinian Arab and Jewish (Yishuv/Zionist) forces launched attacks at different times and places rather than a single, unambiguous “first” strike by one side alone [1] [2] [3]. Contemporaneous accounts record early Arab attacks—such as the widely cited ambush of a bus near Lod on 30 November 1947—as among the first lethal incidents after the vote, but substantial and organized Jewish offensives also occurred in the ensuing months, and full-scale interstate war began only after Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948 when Arab armies invaded [1] [3] [4].
1. The immediate days after the UN vote: documented Arab strikes and protests
Multiple mainstream accounts place the first widely noted lethal incident the morning after the UN vote: an ambush near Lod (Lydda) which killed Jewish passengers and is “often cited as the start of the civil war in Palestine” [1], and other sources document Arab-organized strikes and riots beginning immediately, including a three-day general strike called by the Arab Higher Committee [2] [5]. These reports show that Palestinian Arab political leadership and parts of the population rejected partition outright and that protests and armed confrontations erupted within hours to days of the UN decision [6] [7].
2. Violence was reciprocal and escalated into a civil war, not a one-sided offensive
While early Arab attacks are recorded, the pattern through late 1947 and early 1948 was mutual escalation: Jewish militias organized defensive—and at times offensive—operations in response to attacks, with both sides conducting raids, ambushes and strikes across mixed towns and supply routes [8] [3]. Historians and contemporary chroniclers characterize the period between December 1947 and May 1948 as a civil war phase in which underground Jewish organizations and assorted Arab militias fought intermittently, and large-scale offensives and population displacements occurred on both sides [8] [2] [3].
3. Organized campaigns and claims of “first attack” vary by source and definition
Different sources pick different starting points depending on what they treat as the decisive “first” attack: some cite early incidents like the Lod ambush or the 10 December convoy killings as the first organized lethal actions by Arab forces [1] [2], while others emphasize Jewish operations—such as attacks in Jewish-controlled areas in December and the later Plan Dalet campaign beginning April 1948—that targeted Arab towns and contributed to major depopulations [9] [10] [3]. The disagreement often reflects divergent definitions—single incident vs. organized campaign vs. interstate invasion—and political perspectives embedded in the sources [9] [10].
4. The interstate war that followed was launched after Israeli independence
Whatever the sequence of communal attacks in late 1947–spring 1948, the transition to a formal international war is clear: after the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, regular armies from Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Syria, Lebanon and Iraq intervened and invaded the former Mandate territory, marking a distinct new phase beyond the internal civil conflict [4] [11]. U.S. and official histories emphasize that the major Arab states’ invasion on and after 15 May constituted the broader Arab-Israeli War of 1948 [4] [11].
5. Bottom line and limits of the record
It is not accurate to answer the question with a simple “yes” that the first attack after the UN partition was from the Arabs without qualification: early lethal incidents attributed to Arab attackers occurred within a day of the vote and are well documented (e.g., Lod), but violence was reciprocal, escalated into a civil war involving organized actions by both sides, and culminated in interstate invasion only after Israel’s independence [1] [3] [4]. Sources disagree on which event constitutes the definitive “first attack” because the term depends on definitions—isolated ambush, organized militia operation, or formal army invasion—so the record supports a nuanced answer rather than a binary one [2] [9].