A tank unit of the Israeli defence forces prepares to continue its advance during the 1948 (or First) Arab-Israeli War, the second and final stage of the 1947-1949 Palestine War. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of British Palestine in the morning of 15 May. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In 1921, Herbert Samuel, the British high commissioner of Mandatory Palestine, appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini grand mufti of Jerusalem. It would prove to be a mistake. Husseini would spend his career fomenting violence against the Jews of Palestine and promulgating a reading of the Koran that was genocidally antisemitic.
A wrecked Arab bus after an explosion at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem in 1947 during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the Mandatory Palestine. Two British constables and 11 Arabs were killed and 32 Arabs wounded when Irgun members threw a bomb from a taxi at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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