Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

The miraculous genesis of Israel was achieved through a heroic and desperate battle for survival. Outnumbered and outgunned, the fledgling Jewish state held its own against overwhelming military odds and persevered.

I’m certain that such a narrative makes for some great story-telling, not to mention indoctrination; tales of plucky underdogs overcoming their powerful bullies have always resonated with people and elicited their sympathies. However, as far as foundational tales in the context of nation building tend to be, they are more mythology than reality. Such tall stories cannot withstand even elementary research or scrutiny.

It is not difficult to understand the allure of such a narrative for Israelis and their supporters, as it functions on multiple levels. It evokes a modern-day David and Goliath, which bestows moral superiority to the Zionist colonists, further reinforcing notions that they were favored by God, karma, justice, the universe or whatever metaphysical force you believe in (or don’t). This interplays wonderfully with the claimed Israeli purity of arms (Tohar HaNeshek) where Israeli weapons are framed as “pure” because they are used only in self-defence and never against innocents [You can read more about this here]. It also serves to augment Zionist claims of technical superiority over the natives, as a small number of the enlightened and civilized colonists managed to hold out against seven whole nations! If this isn’t further proof that they are more deserving of the land by virtue of their ingenuity and strength then nothing is.

Unfortunately, as many myths regarding Israel tend to be, this is an enduring one that is still widespread today, especially within Israel itself. Up until relatively recently it was virtually unchallenged in the world outside the Arab states and those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It began to be challenged seriously with the advent of the so-called Israeli New Historians, who with access to declassified Israeli war archives offered a “new”, more critical look at Israel’s foundational myths. As far as Orientalism goes, this is nothing new, Palestinian and Arab claims are often dismissed as biased and unscientific, while Israeli claims are accepted with hardly any scrutiny at all. For example, the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba, including acknowledging the ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by Zionist militias did not even earn a glance from Western audiences until it was confirmed by Israeli scholars, but this is a different topic for a different article.

Avi Shlaim argues that the disconnect between the Israeli narrative and reality is further aided by the fact that:

“Most of the voluminous literature on the war was written not by professional historians but by participants, by politicians, soldiers, official historians and by a large host of sympathetic chroniclers, journalists, biographers and hagiographers.”

Therefore, most “historical” writings on the war are relegated to the realm of political claim-making rather than honestly reflecting the history and events of the war.

With this in mind, what does the historical data say on the question of Israelis being outnumbered in the 1948 war?

Unsurprisingly, the data says that it was in fact the Arab armies which were outnumbered. The actual debate here is about the degree to which the Arab armies were outnumbered. Let us look at a few sources:

Let us begin with the numbers of John Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion during the war, who estimated that on May 15th -the outbreak of the war- the numbers of troops were roughly as follows:

How could this be? How could such a numerical advantage be swept under the rug and be so grossly misrepresented? Perhaps as commander of the Arab Legion, he purposefully exaggerated the number of Israeli troops, and downplayed the number of Arab troops.

Let us look at another source, this time the estimates of the brothers Kimche, who have been very vocal about their Zionism. They estimated the balance of power on May the 15th as such:

The main differences in these estimates, is that Kimche added the Arab Liberation Army to their estimates for the Arab side, and trimmed the Israeli total down to 25000. Even in this very conservative estimate, the Israeli army outnumbered every single Arab army combined. But what is the reason for such a large discrepancy? How did 65000 become 25000?

Walid Khalidi sheds some light on this, as he differentiates between first-line mobilized Zionist soldiers and second-line troops in the settlements. Glubb partially accounted for these in his numbers, Kimche elected to omit them completely. Here are Khalidi’s numbers:

Shlaim goes even further and estimates that the number of first-line Israeli troops was at 35000 on May 15th. So even if we were to omit these second-line forces -for some reason- there is a solid scholarly consensus that it was actually the Arab armies that were outnumbered. Remember that these numbers are for May 15th, the first day of the war. The numbers did not remain static. As a matter of fact, the longer the war went on for, the more the numerical gap between the sides widened in Israel’s favor. Between March and July, almost 13,000 trained men arrived from abroad to join the war on the Israeli side, by mid-June Ben Gurion noted that the IDF stood at 41,000, in addition to the 90,000 second line units as a complement to the IDF. There were efforts to increase these 90000 to 112000. The Arab states also reinforced their armies, but they were never able to keep up with the numbers of the Israeli side. At the end stages of the war, the Israeli army actually outnumbered the Arab armies by 2 to 1. This is not even delving into the qualitative difference in troops, as many troops on the Israeli side had combat experience from the world wars as well as superior equipment and tools after the first truce.

However, another aspect that is often ignored in this narrative is the inter-Arab rivalries and disunity that were the main cause for the intervention in 1948. Contrary to popular framings of the 1948 war, and despite their fiery rhetoric, the Arab countries and leaders were not interested in a war with Israel. Barely coming out from under colonialism, their actions during the war showed that they never really joined the war with eliminationist intent, as the popular narrative goes. The Jordanians were more interested in acquiring the West Bank as a stepping stone to their real ambition, which was Greater Syria. As a matter of fact, there is ample evidence of collusion between the Israelis and Jordanians during the 1948 war, with deals under the table pretty much gifting parts of the West Bank to Jordan in return for not interfering in other areas. This is why Glubb Pasha, commander of the Arab Legion, described the 1948 war as a “phoney war“.

The Egyptians intervened in an attempt to counter the Hashemite power-play that could change the balance of power in the region. This is why the Arab armies generally intervened in the territories of the mandate destined to be part of the Palestinian Arab state according to the 1947 partition plan, and with very few exceptions, stayed away from the area destined to be part of the Jewish state. Yes, support for Palestine and Palestinians played a large role in the legitimization of such interventions, but they were never the real reason behind them. As per usual when it comes to international relations, interests are always at the center of any maneuver despite the espoused noble and altruistic motivations.

Ultimately, Israel enjoyed a number of advantages which are often downplayed if not completely omitted from this “underdog” mythical version of history:

Significant superiority in numbers, technical and military training courtesy of veterans of the world wars, sympathetic allies in Europe who smuggled advanced weaponry and equipment and troops into the country, as well as a centralized command which ensured unity in goals, organization and tactics.

In short, there was nothing “miraculous” about the Israeli victory in 1948. The better organized, better armed and most numerous side won. This is why when spreading this narrative the only numbers mentioned are the number of Arab states that wanted to team up on Israel but still couldn’t win. This is an attempt to imply numerical superiority on the side of the Arab states without explicitly claiming it, as it is complete nonsense when even briefly researched.

The endurance of this myth stems from the desperate need of the Zionist settlers for the illusion of moral superiority in the foundation of their colony. After all, it is hard to sell the scrappy, righteous underdog survivor story if the numbers show you to be the top dog in this situation. This is not a uniquely Israeli quality, however, as in most foundational narratives, it is mostly myth legitimizing horrible acts of cruelty. One need look no further than foundational myths in other settler colonies like the United States or Canada to see how twisting and omitting history is used to legitimize the powers that be.

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• Institut des études palestiniennes (Beyrouth). From haven to conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine problem until 1948. Ed. Walid Khalidi. No. 2. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971.
• Shlaim, Avi. Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist movement, and the partition of Palestine. Clarendon Press, 1988.
• Shlaim, Avi. “The debate about 1948.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27.3, 1995: 287-304.
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• Hughes, Matthew. “The Conduct of Operations: Glubb Pasha, the Arab Legion, and the First Arab–Israeli War, 1948–49.” War in History 26.4, 2019: 539-562.