Actors

This is the list of individuals that were involved with Arab/Israeli War and the Leaders that were responsible with trying to keep peace in Mandate Palestine. 

            ARAB SIDE

  


Hajj Amin al-Husayni- leader of Supreme Muslim Council (1922) Mufti of Jerusalem (control waff) leader of Palestine Arab Party (1935) Amin supported Nazi Germany and met with Hitler.  Al – hajj-reestablished Arab higher committee declares UN Resolution null and void.  1936-1939: General strikes of Arab revolt: higher Arab command led by Al-hajj violent uprising.  Suppression by British Al-hajj fled to avoid arrest; but came back before 1948 war. 


Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
-  Influental preacher during the British Mandate Period Of Palestine.  he started the Black Hand militant group that was anti-zinist and anti-british.

Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni-was a Palestinian nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, (Munazzamat al-Jihad al-Muqaddas), which he and Hasan Salama commanded in 1948 Palestinian-Israeli war.



                Jewish Side


Theodore Herzl
Started the World Zionist Organization: wrote the book: “ State of the Jews” he was an Austrian Journalist.  Man of enlightenment.  Herzl is one of the first people express Zionism around 1880’s in a form of Political Zionism.


Ze'ev Jabotinsky- Russian Jew- was a right-wing Revisionist Zionist Leader, author, Soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa.  He was the founder and leader of the clandestine Jewish armed Organization Irgun. He advocated retaliation and not self-defense.  He split from the WZO in 1925. 

Moshe Dian
Was an Israeli Military leader and politician.  He was the fighting symbol to the world of the new state of Israel. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was the commander of the defense in the Jordan valley.  He was extremely well-liked by Israel's founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and became his protégé, together with Shimon Peres (a future Prime Minister and President). He became defense Minister and later Foreign Minister of Israel.


Chaim Weizmann- Practical/pragmatic Zionist: he was a Zionist leader, President of the World Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on February 1, 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was also a chemist who developed a new process of producing acetone through bacterial fermentation. In his earlier years he helped in developing agriculture infrastructure to support later migration of Jews.


Ben Gurion- was the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, culminated in his instrumental role in the founding of the state of Israel. After leading Israel to victory in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ben-Gurion helped build the state institutions and oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world.  


    Actors on the Outside


UN Mediator

FolkeBernadotte: UN Mediator: Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations' mediator in Palestine, the first official mediator in the UN's history. In this capacity, he succeeded in achieving a truce in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and laid the groundwork for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. He proposed in modifying 1947 partion by redrawing the boundries between Jewish and Arab Palestine.  Palestine will be apart of TransJordan.  The Arabs thought of this and opposed to unite with Jordan, and decided on a total rejection of a Jewish state.  Through this resolution, Jerusalem was an international site and is divided into jewish controlled west and Arab controlled East.


Colonial Secretary of State Malcolm MacDonaldIn 1939 MacDonald oversaw and introduced the so-called MacDonald White Paper which aimed at the creation of a unified state, with controls on Jewish immigration.

Ralph Bunche:
Beginning in 1947, Bunche was involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the U.N. Palestine Commission. In 1948 he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the U.N. to mediate the conflict. In September, Bernadotte was assassinated by members of the underground Jewish group Lehi. Bunche became the U.N.'s chief mediator and concluded the task with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements.


References:
Ralph Bunche: http://flickr.com/photo/39735679@N00/286476833
Moshe Dian:  http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/Assets/19
Malcolm MacDonald:  http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kenanderson/histempsequel/_wp_generated/wp037d4329.jpg
Folke Bernadotte: Portrait of Count en:Folke Bernadotte * Date: Circa 1945 * Locale: Sweden * Photographer: Unknown * Credit: USHMM, courtesy of National Archives, http://www.ushmm.org/ * Copyright: Public Domain copied from DE Wiki
David Ben-Gurion:   [http://147.237.72.31/scripts/topsrch/topapi.dll?Issues&H1&1&006610&d:\\web\\wwwroot\\topsrch\\datafile\\wwwi4833.ans&0&file:///d:/web/wwwroot/topsrch/datafile/48330109.gif&2KW:דודבןגוריו
Chaim Weizmann: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=816
Ze'ev Jabotinsky:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeev_Jabotinsky
Theodore Herzl:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Theodore_Herzl.jpg#file
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Husayni.jpg Abd al-Kadir al-Husayni (1907-1948) Reproduced from http://www.passia.org with permission (Mahmoud Abu Rumieleh, Webmaster). Free to use with acknowledgement
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EzeldinQassam.jpg
Hajj Amin al-Husayni-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MAal-Husayni.jpg Mohammad Amin al-Husayni (ca. 1895 - 4 July 1974, أمين الحسيني, alternatively known as al-Husseini, el-Husseini, Al-Hajj Amin or Haj Amin). Reproduced from http://www.passia.org