Preparing For War

Israels leaders thoguht they were vastly outnumbered and believed the arab armies would have more weapons

• Yigael Yadin ( Chief of War Operations) told Ben Gurion, "The best we can tell you is that we have a 50-50 chance".

Haganah had 60,000 trained fighters but only 60% of them were armed and prepared for war Although the United States supported the U.N Partition plan, they refused to provide Israel with arms because they did not want to antagonize the Arabs Jews began smuggling in weapons to defend themselves

• Zionists knew that if they lost the war their dream of statehood would be over and they could face annihilation.