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During the five months from the issuance of the partition resolution on 29 November 1947 until shortly before the British withdrawal from Palestine, the Palestinians were able to inflict heavy losses on the Jews on many occasions and control the situation despite the weakness of their means and the small quantity of modern weapons, ammunition, and military technical resources in their possession compared with the weapons the Jews obtained from Europe and America and those they conspired with the British to steal or purchase at derisory prices from the British Army’s weapons in Palestine, its depots, and its camps, including entire camps such as the famous Sarafand camp. In another deal they obtained 1,000 large transport vehicles. The Jewish Agency purchased equipment and various weapons, observation devices, and 24 training aircraft worth five million pounds from the remnants of the British Army in the Middle East. The nucleus of the Jewish air force consisted of 50 Jewish pilots who had served in the British Royal Air Force unit in Palestine.

The Jews had organized and armed their forces before the Second World War came to an end. They wanted to seize the opportunity so that the war would not end without Palestine having been transformed into a Jewish country. They were driven by the following motives:

1. Their fear that a broad Arab movement would arise and force Britain and America to delay establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. 2. Their fear that some Britons, for reasons connected with the interests of the British Empire, would oppose transforming Palestine into a Jewish state. 3. Their desire for their Jewish state to be established before Western countries’ sympathy for them disappeared, which they had managed to obtain through their extensive propaganda against Nazi Germany and its persecution of the Jews.

The Jews then began a broad, organized terrorist campaign in Palestine to compel Britain to hasten the handover of Palestine to them. They formed their terrorist gangs and publicly named them the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern organization. The two carried out many terrible terrorist acts against the British and Arabs. Against the British, they compelled them to hasten the handover, as mentioned above. Against the Arabs, they terrorized them and drove them to leave Palestine and abandon their properties and lands.