World Service

In the fifth of 10 programmes exploring the origins and tracing the history of the Middle East conflict, we reach the key years of 1945-49, when the United Nations voted for two states in Palestine, the State of Israel was established, and Israel and its Arab neighbours fought their first war – by the end of which 700,000 Palestinians had lost their homes. Presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by Gudrun Kraemer, professor of Islamic Studies at the Free University of Berlin, Eugene Rogan, professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Oxford University and the BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen, author of The Making of the Modern Middle East. They discuss the impact of World War Two on British-ruled Palestine, British attempts to prevent Jewish immigration into the country after the Holocaust, Jewish paramilitary attacks on British targets, the UN decision in 1947 to partition Palestine, the outbreak of civil war between Jews and Arabs, the British withdrawal in 1948, the declaration of Israeli statehood, and the invasion of what had been British Palestine by neighbouring Arab states. They conclude by discussing how the 1948-9 war ended, and the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem.