To focus on just one of the numerous misstatements, errors. and outright lies consider:
"Subsequently, Israelis made much of the danger they faced from five Arab armies in the 1948-49 war, but in reality their forces were greater than all their opponents' combined, and the latter ill equipped and poorly trained."
What are the facts?
Look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab-Israeli_War#Initial_balance_of_forcesSection 3, 'Initial Balance of Forces'.
1) Israel had a total strength estimated at 35,000 men and very limited equipment with no heavy weapons.
>snip "Yishuv forces
In November 1947, the Haganah was an underground paramilitary force that had existed as a highly organised, national force since the riots of 1920-21, riots of 1929 (also known as the Hebron Massacre), and Great Uprising of 1936-39<28> It had a mobile force, the HISH, which had 2,000 full time fighters (men and women) and 10,000 reservists (all aged between 18 and 25) and an elite unit, the Palmach composed of 2,100 fighters and 1,000 reservists. The reservists trained 3-4 days a month and went back to civilian life the rest of the time. These mobile forces could rely on a garrison force, the HIM (Heil Mishmar, or guard force), composed of people aged more than 25. The Yishuv's total strength was around 35,000 with 15,000 to 18,000 fighters and a garrison force of roughly 20,000.<29> The two clandestine groups Irgun and Lehi had respectively 2000-4000 and 500-800 members. There were also several thousand men and women who had served in the British Army in World War II who did not serve in any of the underground militias but would provide valuable military experience during the war.<30>
Few of the units had been trained by December 1947.<31>
In 1946 Ben-Gurion decided that the Yishuv would probably have to defend itself against both the Palestinian Arabs and neighbouring Arab states and accordingly began a "massive, covert arms acquisition campaign in the West". By September 1947 the Haganah had "10,489 rifles, 702 light machine-guns, 2,666 submachine guns, 186 medium machine-guns, 672 two-inch mortars and 92 three-inch mortars" and acquired many more during the first few months of hostilities. The Yishuv also had "a relatively advanced arms producing capacity," that between October 1947 and July 1948 "produced 3 million 9mm bullets, 150,000 mills grenades, 16,000 submachine guns (Sten Guns) and 210 three-inch mortars".<32> Still, however, before the arrival of arms shipments from Czechoslovakia as part of Operation Balak, there was roughly one weapon for every three fighters and even the Palmach armed only two out of every three of its active members. Initially, the Haganah had no heavy machine guns, artillery, armoured vehicles, anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons.<33> <snip"
2) Showing only forces actually committed to combat in Palestine, not their total armed forces:
Transjordan: 8,000-12,000
Iraq: 15,000-18,000
Egypt: 40,000
Syria: 12,000
Lebanon: 1,000
Saudi Arabia: 800-1200
Total: 76,800-84,200
As indicated on the Wikipedia source site the combined Arab military heavy equipment including planes, artillery, armoured vehicles, heavy machine guns also dwarfed the Yishuv forces which at the beginning of the war were non-existent. In particular the Jordanian military was fully equipped and combat capable by modern standards and trained and led by British officers.
Israel lost 6,373 killed in action in the 48-49 War of Independence, an incredible 1% of their entire population of (estimated) 650,000. This is equivalent to the U.S. losing about 2.9 MILLION PEOPLE IN A WAR. (Total U.S. KIA in WWII were 440,000).
It is apparently very difficult for many people to accept that Israel's 650,000 Jews in 1948 could defeat 6 Arab countries with a combined population in excess of 40 million. The fact that Israel lost nearly 1% of their total population in doing so is ignored or belittled. The statement that the Yishuv's armies were "greater than all their opponents' combined" is not just false but in Orwellian fashion the exact opposite of the truth. Apparenly, even the once commonplace notion that
the Palestinian Jews in 1948 fought bravely against great odds, and suffered terrible losses, must now be denied the pariah state called Israel.
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