in less than a minute. The complete absence of natural obstacles and the
rough, rocky, tree- and scrub-clad terrain made it easy for civilian and
military raiders to cross the lines. An Israel police report defined this border
as

an example of how not to demarcate frontiers. The border . . . runs only a few
metres away from vital transportation lines, it separates . . . farmers who live on
one side [from] the lands they have tilled for generations . . . on the other side. . . .
And, the most important thing, it divides . . . Arab villages linked by ties of family
and, even worse, on occasion cuts in half whole villages. ¹

Between 1949 and 1956 these frontiers were plagued by violence. Some of
the violence stemmed from the actual terms of the armistice agreements.
Specifically, the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Syrian accords established
'demilitarized zones' (DMZs) on the Israeli side of the former international
line as a way of finessing territorial disputes. The accords avoided mention
of who would be sovereign over these zones. Almost inevitably, divergent
claims to the DMZs resulted in armed clashes to assert or protect control and
sovereignty. Israel and Syria clashed over them in 1951; Israel and Egypt, in
1955. Given the superiority of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Israel
eventually 'won the arguments' and incorporated most of the zones into
its territory.

The new state of Israel that had emerged from the war was minuscule
covering a mere 8,000 square miles--and impoverished, and lacked almost
all natural resources. It came into the world battered but triumphant. Its
various ministries, departments, services, agencies, and authorities, had
been established in the maelstrom of a war rightly seen by the Yishuv,
the Jewish community in Palestine/ Israel, as a struggle for survival.
National and physical existence had been at stake, at least until July 1948.
The war had been launched by the Palestinian Arabs ( November-December
1947) and the surrounding Arab states ( May 1948), and the Arabs had lost.
The Palestine Arab community had been shattered, some 600,000-760,000
becoming refugees, its territory (as earmarked in the UN Partition Resolu-
tion of November 1947) occupied by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. The Arab
states--all but Jordan--had been defeated, their invading armies battered and
turned back, the Egyptian army barely avoiding annihilation.

But the cost to Israel had been grave. Some 6,000 Jews--of a pre-state

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