" The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."
- Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948
" The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."
- The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949
" The 15th May, 1948, arrived ...On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."
- The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963
" For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."
- The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953

Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, in London. Horowitz proposed a plan for coordinating Arab and Jewish interests and ensuring a real peace. Azzam Pasha's response set the tone of all that was to follow:
The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational andlogical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede, they fight. You won'tget anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by force ofarms. We shall try to defeat you. I'm not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. An4
agreement will only be acceptable on our terms. The Arab world regards you as invaders and is ready to fight you. The conflict of interests among nations is, for the most part, not amenable to any settlement exceptarmed clash.(6)

The Prime Ministers of the Arab League states met in Cairo from December 8 to 17 to devise their response to the partition vote. They had already decided in October to provide arms to the Palestinians, to station troops on the border, and to reconsider their oil concessions (a threat never realized).(7) Abdullah, who was anxious to secure the Arab portion of Palestine and was entertaining the possibility of making a deal with the Jews, was reluctant to arm the Palestinians and the Mufti. In early December 1948, he proposed to the Arab League members that they finance a Transjordanian conquest of Palestine. Distrusted due to his pro-British stance and continuing attempts to promote the Greater Syria scheme -- which he had been actively pursuing through the fall of 1947 -- Abdullah's proposal was rejected. The Egyptians, the Mufti, and the Syrians pressed to arm the Palestinians. their views
prevailed and the Arab League set quotas for the arms each member was to send to the Palestinians.(8) It was further decided to recruit and train volunteers to fight alongside the Palestinians. These volunteers would comprise the Arab Liberation Army. Still at this point, according to a British report, it was generally agreed that the open use of Arab armies against the Jews, even after the termination of the
Mandate, was not practicable at present.
In Palestine, forces of the Mufti began to attack the communication lines between the Jewish settlements. On January 15th, they launched their first large scale attach on the Etzion block of settlements in the Hebron hills. The Mufti's plans were clear. As reported to the American Consul General in Jerusalem by Emile Ghory of the Arab
Higher Executive, an Arab administration for all Palestine would be set up the day the Mandate ended. Ghory believed...Abdullah, regardless of private thoughts, must accept Palestine Arab administration although admits possibility various parts of Palestine may be annexed to bordering states. The line is that it is unimportant
who takes over Palestine provided Palestine remains Arab. Preference is for unified Palestinian state. The arming, training and infiltration of Arab irregulars into Palestine had begun in January 1948. Under the direction of the Syran Fawzi al-Qawugji, this rather motley "Arab Liberation Army" would eventually field some 7,000 troops badly organized, undisciplined, and poorly supplied.

At the same time, there were and had been for some months a number of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Jews and various Arab parties
aimed at halting the slide towards full-scale war. Tellingly enough, the negotiations were initiated and undertaken by the interested parties themselves. Eventually one possibility opened by the negotiations between the Jews and Abdullah would be an important element of British and American, and thereby United Nations, thinking on a
solution. But the United Nations itself played no part whatsoever in instigating or assisting in these attempts to avoid war.
Just prior to the passage of the United Nations partition resolution, Golda Myerson (later meir), Ezra Danin and Eliahu Sassoon met with Abdullah to see if they could arrive at an understanding. Abdullah proposed an independent Hebrew republic under a Transjordanian monarchy. The military, economy and legislature would be
divided equally between Jew and Arab in the united state. Myerson said the discussion would have to await the outcome of the partition resolution. It was at this meeting that Abdullah asked Myerson's opinion of a Transjordanian takeover of the Arab part of Palestine. The understanding was reached that this would pose no
problem for the Jews as long as Abdullah did not interfere with the Jewish state or foster confrontation. Abdullah, in turn, agreed not to let Arab armies pass through his kingdom. He promised only to cooperate with other Arab armies if the invasion was centered in his country and the armies were under his jurisdiction.(14) (We could add
information here from Simcha's book on why the Jews were willing to make such a deal with Abdullah.)

The inability of either side to firm and clarify its understanding would effect the abilities of both parties to conclude a lasting peace.
The roots of the conflict were not only in two peoples competing over a single territory, but two peoples who spoke with different cultural baggage that made them prone to misunderstand one another. A community of faith and fate
bred on "survival in hostile human and natural surroundings", understandably super-sensitive to the need for security,
confronted a culture rooted in its natural setting and prone to exaggerations and indirection. Abdullah was not the only one to court the Jews to outflank his Arab rivals. By one account, on November 27, 1947, the Mufti, of all people, sent a message to the Jewish Agency requesting an urgent meeting in Lebanon to
discuss the situation in Palestine. He would speak for himself -- without the participation of any other country --
and indicated a willingness to compromise. The Jewish Agency Executive rejected the overture. It said it would negotiate with any Arab except the Mufti.(17)
There were other attempts at negotiations and compromise, but they proved fruitless. Kaoukji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army and an old enemy of the Mufti's, held secret talks with Yoshua Palmon in late March of 1948.
Kaoukji wanted to be the military commander of a federal state with internal autonomy for Jews in Palestine. The commander of the Arab Liberation Army promised that the army would not attack Jews if it could have one battlefield success to save face. Palmon could not and did not agree to this proposal.
Another approach was made by the Arab moderates centred in Haifa. They sent Rashid Haj Ibrahim to Cairo and Damascus to win Arab League support for moderation and efforts to arrive at an amicable settlement with the Jews on the basis of the partition plan. The Mufti was present at the meeting and crushed the idea. One of the results, however, was the Ibrahim was replaced as Arab military commander in Haifa by a more extremist Syrian. The negotiations demonstrated that the Israelis really had no one with whom to negotiate. Each Arab party had to
insist on unacceptable preconditions to protect its backside from the accusations of extremists in the Arab camp. The prices for this would be paid by the Palestinian Arabs. As Glubb Pasha depicted the Arab approach:
There may be something admirable in this resolution to demand that which is right, regardless of the cost. But the effect on the fate of the Palestinian Arabs was utterly disastrous. Many opportunities for compromise were offered them and might, if accepted, have saved them. But they were utterly intransigent,
and, as a result, they were destroyed.
The only hope of a negotiated agreement depended on the sell-out of Palestinian Arab self-determination through a deal with Abdullah. This possibility would survive as an undercurrent in British, American, Jewish and Jordanian thinking throughout the
period right up to the end of the Mandate. But the other Arab leaders objections to Abdullah's plans would crush all hopes of their easy realization.
Given the inconclusive nature of the Arab-Jewish negotiations, the violence continued unabated. The British refused to become involved in the skirmishes between Jew and Arab, turning a blind eye to the large scale infiltration and activities of Arab irregulars in Palestine and the Jewish moves to strengthen their strategic positions. Both sides struggled to take over important assets as the British withdrew from them. The British commander in Palestine and Suez had wanted to drive the Arab Liberation Army out of Palestine.