Talk:1948 Palestine war

The lede of this article is too long. With 793 words, this article almost matches WWII's lead, which stands at 869 words. In the meantime, this article has a readable prose of just under 30% of the WWII article. Let's fix it to summarize the main points. The German article, labelled as an "Excellent article" in German Wikipedia, might be a good reference. This article's lead should summarize the key points in a short manner. It may be helpful to look at this article's German Wikipedia equivalent, which is rated as "Excellent". Tombah (talk) 08:23, 29 June 2022 (UTC)```

agree the lead is too long, disagree on the non-neutral edits attempting to skew the content to "denying Israel's right to exist". nableezy - 12:56, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most scholars do not use the terminology "1947–1949 Palestine war." It's 2 separate wars. I searched for that phrase and got very few results. I think this article should probably be renamed, or re-structured somehow. Andre🚐 21:33, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

They usually call it the Palestine War, with or without a 1948. But it covers a bit more than just 1948 so for accuracy this article was changed to 1947-1949 here. Wasnt really discussed and never really objected to, but the Palestine War part is the common name for both phases combined, the 1947-1949 part is a bit of a Wikipedian invention. nableezy - 22:15, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Take a look at Talk:1947–1949 Palestine war/Archive 4#Requested Move: Please vote below and other places in the archives. Selfstudier (talk) 22:16, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks both, I'll review the prior discussion, but based on the number of results for 1947-1949, I tend to agree with Nableezy that it is an original turn of phrase; therefore, we should move it back to 1948 or to another less original name, to use the WP:COMMONNAME. "Palestine War" refers, I believe, to what we call "1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine," but 1948 Arab-Israeli War is the more common name for the overall war, as far as I can tell. Or maybe just go to "Wars in Palestine 1947-1949," or "Arab-Israeli wars 1947-1949". Andre🚐 22:25, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

No thats slightly off, 1948 Arab-Israeli War is the common name for the international war between the newly declared state of Israel and several Arab states. That name is not used for the first phase of the Palestine War, the civil war between the Yishuv paramilitary forces and the Palestinian Arabs in the final months of the British mandate. The term 1948 Palestine War is used to encompass both. Its just that it includes the last six weeks of 1947, making 1948 problematic for its own reason. nableezy - 22:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

OK, that sounds fine, I stand slightly corrected, but I think we should still move it back to 1948 not 1947-1949, or change it to something else. Andre🚐 22:59, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

1947–1949 Palestine war → ? – See above section. Not the most common name for this. Andre🚐 21:22, 5 September 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Shadow007 (talk) 03:08, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• At a minimum, I think 1947-1949 should be moved to 1948. Even though the war might have started before 1948 and lasted longer, 1948 is the common name of all of the different wars and names for those wars. 1948 Palestine War or 1948 Arab-Israeli War or 1948 Palestine-Israeli War are all acceptable to me and an improvement over the present name, which seems to have been created by Wikipedia in some original coinage, and is not used by many sources. Andre🚐 22:49, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
• Im fine with 1948 Palestine War, with the lead detailing it started a bit before the new year. The others are non-starters imo, there was no Israel for the first phase of the war, making Israeli incorrect, and Arab-Israeli is used for the second internationalized phase after Israel's declaration of independence. nableezy - 14:41, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

  1948 Palestine War works for me. Andre🚐 14:49, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I think 1948 Palestine War suffices - it would be more consistent with and apply the same principles as the naming of the two child articles of this one. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with 1948 Palestine War, though I don't see a great deal wrong with the current title. Zero^talk 02:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose a move to "1948 Palestine War". Why make the title less accurate? This is an overview article. I previously suggested 1947–1949 Palestine wars. (See archive 5.) Srnec (talk) 23:50, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support a move to a 1948 title, per the vast majority of sources – example book titles below:

• Rogan, E.L.; Shlaim, A. (2007). The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87598-1. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Hazkani, S. (2021). Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War. Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-2766-6. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Reinhart, T. (2011). Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. Open Media Series. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-60980-122-9. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Karsh, E. (2014). The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948. Guide to... Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-1001-4. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Kadish, A. (2019). The British Army in Palestine and the 1948 War: Containment, Withdrawal and Evacuation. Israeli History, Politics and Society. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-84332-7. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Gelber, Y.; Gelber, Y. (2001). Palestine, 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-902210-67-4. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Morris, B. (2009). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15112-1. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
• Rogan, E.L.; Shlaim, A.; Shlaim, P.I.R.U.O.F.A. (2001). The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79476-3. Retrieved 2022-09-20.

See also below, quotations from scholars discussing the name of the war:

• Caplan, Neil (19 September 2011). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories. John Wiley & Sons. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4443-5786-8. Perhaps the most famous case of differences over the naming of events is the 1948 war (more accurately, the fighting from December 1947 through January 1949). For Israel it is their "War of Liberation" or "War of Independence" (in Hebrew, milhemet ha-atzama'ut) full of the joys and overtones of deliverance and redemption. For Palestinians, it is Al-Nakba, translated as "The Catastrophe" and including in its scope the destruction of their society and the expulsion and flight of some 700,000 refugees.
• Firestone, Reuven (2 July 2012). Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-19-997715-4. In a study such as this, terminology can carry a lot of baggage. A classic case in point is the names that are applied to wars. To Jews, the Jewish-Arab war of 1947–1948 is the War of Independence (milchemet ha`atzma' ut). To Arabs, and especially Palestinians, it is the nakba, or calamity. I therefore refrain from assigning names to wars. I refer to the wars between the State of Israel and its Arab and Palestinian neighbors according to their dates: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982.
• Benny Morris, 1948: A History of The First Arab-Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9: "The 1948 War – called by the Arab world the First Palestine War and by the Palestinians al-nakba (the disaster), and by the Jews the War of Independence (milhemet ha’atzma’ut), the War of Liberation (milhemet hashihrur) or the War of Establishment (milhemet hakomemiyut) – was to have two distinct stages: a civil war, beginning on 30 November 1947 and ending on 14 May 1948, and a conventional war, beginning when the armies of the surrounding Arab states invaded Palestine on 15 May and ending in 1949"
• Ilan Pappe: The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951, p.ix: "Finally, a note on the choice of an adequate name for the first Arab–Israeli war. Arabs and Jews describe the same event in contradictory ways...I have chosen to call the war by its calendar name - the war of 1948"
• Shourideh C. Molavi (28 June 2013). Stateless Citizenship: The Palestinian-Arab Citizens of Israel. BRILL. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-90-04-25407-7. "Thus, it is for reasons of practicality, that this book will refer to the civil war and military and ethnic cleansing operations that took place between late 1947 to January 1949 by its popular title, the ‘1948 war’"
• Naor, Moshe (21 August 2013). Social Mobilization in the Arab/Israeli War of 1948: On the Israeli Home Front. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-136-77648-9. The changing perspectives on the war and the diverse names by which it is called – the First Israeli-Arab War, the First Palestine War, the Israeli War of Independence, and the Palestinian Nakba – thus illustrate the nature of this war and its essence as a catalyst for change in the history of the Middle East. The 1948 War erupted during a period of local, regional, and global transition
• Auron, Yair (4 October 2017). The Holocaust, Rebirth, and the Nakba: Memory and Contemporary Israeli–Arab Relations. Lexington Books. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-4985-5949-2. There are different names for the war that took place in the land of Israel in 1948: the Independence War, the War of Liberation, the War of Independence, the 1948 War when the State of Israel was established—or perhaps, the Nakba
• Carter, Judy; Irani, George; Volkan, Vamik D. (2009). Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: Perspectives from the Front Lines. Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-189428-0. For example, we consider the 1948 war as both Israel's Milhemet ha- Atzma'ut (War of Independence) and the Palestinians' Al Nakba.
• Bernard-Donals, Michael; Fernheimer, Janice W. (2 December 2014). Jewish Rhetorics: History, Theory, Practice. Brandeis University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-61168-640-1. The last military operation of the 1948 War —the First Arab-Israeli War, the Israeli War of Liberation and Independence, the Palestinian Nakba or Catastrophe—was concluded merely six months earlier.

The current title fails WP:COMMONNAME. 90%+ of all scholarly sources covering this war use the term 1948. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:27, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment "The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1947–1949 Palestine war" is the opening sentence of 1948 Arab–Israeli War so it will change to "The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war", looks a bit odd. The second sentence of this article says "It is known in Israel as the War of Independence" which it isn't, at least until May 48. I too see nothing wrong with the current title or even the proposed one if that's what we want but I do think we need to point up the six month gap more clearly somehow in both articles, early on in the lead, otherwise why bother having two articles at all? Just explain it all in one. Selfstudier (talk) 14:22, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree. Our article structure has the potential to be confusing. Does a reader looking for information on the "1948 war" want an overview that includes the civil war phase or just the state conflict that started later? Deliberately avoiding 1948 in the title of the overview article may help orient readers who will not know in advance that we have a three-article structure. This article should mention the two phases of the war in the second sentence. Srnec (talk) 15:13, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  We have analyzed this previously - all scholars who write about "1948 war" cover both phases as a single topic. Our split between the "civil war" and the "state conflict" is as artificial as splitting up the Syrian civil war article into phases delineated by who was involved.

  We have consensus from three years ago supporting the proposal of all three articles having a common prefix.[1]

  Onceinawhile (talk) 18:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)