July 20: Israel’s Armistice

Israel’s 19-month War of Independence concluded on this date in 1949 with the signing of a final armistice agreement with Syria. Seven separate armistice agreements had to be brokered by the United Nations mediator Ralph Bunche (with Arab negotiators refusing to sit in the same room with Jews), who took over following the assassination of chief negotiator Count Folke Bernadotte by Israel’s rightwing underground Stern Gang. The War of Independence cost Israel 6,373 lives, 1 percent of its population, while the invading Arab countries lost between 8,000 and 10,000 soldiers. Some 700,000 Palestinians became refugees. In the three years following Israel’s successful self-defense, more 700,000 Jews came to Israel, including about 136,000 from DP camps in Europe and 300,000 in a first wave of hurried emigration from the Arab world.

“May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us.” —Ralph Bunche, 1950 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech