Arab Liberation Army
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The Arab Liberation Army (Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi) was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and was set up by the Arab League as a counter to the Arab High Committee's Holy War Army, though in fact the League and Arab governments prevented thousands from joining either force (Sayigh, 2000, p. 14).
At the meeting in Damascus on 5 February, 1948 to organize Palestinian Field Commands, Northern Palestine including Samaria was allocated to Qawuqji's forces, although Samaria was de facto already under the control of Transjordan (Levenberg, 1993, p. 198).
The target figure for recruitment was 10,000, but by mid-March 1948 the number of volunteers to have joined the Army reached around 6,000 and did not increase much beyond this figure. The actual number deployed might have been as low as 3,500, according to General Safwat. Its ranks included Syrians, Lebanese, including a few hundred Druze and Circassians, Iraqis, Transjordians, Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Palestinians trained in Syria. There were also a few Yugoslavs, Germans, Turks and British deserters.
The disposition and control of forces
The Arab League Military Committee, with headquarters in Damascus, was responsible for the movements and servicing of the Army. The Committee consisted of General Ismail Safwat (Iraq, Commander-in-Chief), General Taha al-Hashimi (Iraq), Colonel Shuqayri (Lebanon), Colonel Muhammed al-Hindi (Syria) and Colonel Abd al-Qadir al-Jundi (Transjordan). All of the countries represented related to King Abdullah's long-held plans to re-form Greater Syria. This Greater Syria Plan (Mashru Suriya al-Kubra) had been supported by the British Empire throughout the thirties and forties (Aruri, 1972, p. 23).
| Disposition of Army of Salvation (ALA) Forces | |
| Samaria | 3,000 - 4,000 |
| Galilee | 1,000, in groups of 50-100 under a central command |
| Haifa | 200-300 |
| Jerusalem city | a few hundred |
| Jerusalem district | perhaps 500 |
| Jaffa Town | 200 or more |
| Gaza district | perhaps 100 Egyptians |
This disposition of forces, away from the main warfare areas and close to the Syrian border, where it could create a buffer between Syria and Transjordanian forces, indicates their real objectives and missions (Levenberg, 1993, p. 200).
The Unit of the Minorities
In the early summer of 1948 some Druze fighters, mainly from Syria, along with Palestinian Druze from the villages of Daliyat al-Karmil and Isfiya on Mount Carmel, defected from the Arab Liberation Army to the Israel Defense Forces. These formed the core of the IDF's only Arabic-speaking unit, the Unit of the Minorities (Parsons, 2001, p. 63).References
- Aruri, Naseer Hasan (1972). Jordan: A Study in Political Development (1923-1965). Springer. ISBN 9024712173
- Levenberg, Haim (1993). Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945-1948. London: Routledge. ISBN 0714634395
- Parsons, Laila (2001). The Druze and the birth of Israel. In Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shalim (Eds.). The War for Palestine (pp. 60-78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521794765
- Sayigh, Yezid (2000). Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198296436
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