Editing 1948 Arab–Israeli War (section)

===Arab League as a whole===
[[File:Clause 10 of Cablegram dated 15 May 1948 addressed to the Secretary-General by the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.jpg|thumb|Clause 10 of the 15 May 1948 [[Arab League]] cablegram explaining the reasons for their entry into the territory]]
The [[Arab League]] had unanimously rejected the UN partition plan and were officially opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab one.

The Arab League before partition affirmed the right to the independence of Palestine, while blocking the creation of a Palestinian government.{{clarify|date=January 2013}} Towards the end of 1947, the League established a military committee commanded by the retired Iraqi general Isma'il Safwat whose mission was to analyse the chance of victory of the Palestinians against the Jews.<ref name="Gelber 2006 p.11">Gelber (2006), p. 11</ref> His conclusions were that they had no chance of victory and that an invasion of the Arab regular armies was mandatory.<ref name="Gelber 2006 p.11"/> The political committee nevertheless rejected these conclusions and decided to support an armed opposition to the Partition Plan excluding the participation of their regular armed forces.<ref>[[Henry Laurens (scholar)|Henry Laurens]], ''La Question de Palestine'', Fayard, 2007 p. 32.</ref>

In April with the Palestinian defeat, the [[1948 Palestinian exodus|refugees coming from Palestine]] and the pressure of their public opinion, the Arab leaders decided to invade Palestine.<ref name="Gelber 2006 p.11"/>

The Arab League gave reasons for its invasion in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] in the [[:s:Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations|cablegram]]:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/649818 |title=Cablegram dated 15 May 1948 addressed to the Secretary-General by the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States |publisher=UN.org |date= 16 May 1948 |access-date=6 Nov 2023 }}</ref>
* the Arab states find themselves compelled to intervene in order to restore law and order and to check further bloodshed.
* the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority.
* the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian state.

British diplomat [[Alec Kirkbride]] wrote in his 1976 memoirs about a conversation with the Arab League's secretary-general [[Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam|Azzam Pasha]] a week before the armies marched: "...when I asked him for his estimate of the size of the Jewish forces, [he] waved his hands and said: 'It does not matter how many there are. We will sweep them into the sea.'"<ref>Morris 2008 p. 187; quoting p. 24 of [https://books.google.com/books?id=i8FcAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 Kirkbride's memoirs]</ref>

According to Gelber, the Arab countries were "drawn into the war by the collapse of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab Liberation Army [and] the Arab governments' primary goal was preventing the Palestinian Arabs' total ruin and the flooding of their own countries by more refugees. According to their own perception, had the invasion not taken place, there was no Arab force in Palestine capable of checking the Haganah's offensive".<ref name="Gelber1">Yoav Gelber, 2006, p. 137.</ref>