Israel Declares Independence: State Born Amidst Arab War
David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, reading the Declaration of Independence under a portrait of Theodor Herzl at the Tel Aviv Museum. Within hours, armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded. The United States recognized Israel eleven minutes after the declaration; the Soviet Union followed three days later. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War lasted until March 1949 and resulted in Israeli control of 78% of mandatory Palestine, far more than the 56% allocated by the UN Partition Plan. Approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the conflict, an event Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). No peace treaty was signed; only armistice agreements that established the borders known as the Green Line.
May 14, 1948
78 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on May 14
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