Palestinians

===War (1947–1949)===
{{main|1948 Arab–Israeli War}}
[[File:Abdel Kader al-Husseini.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.7|[[Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni]], leader of the [[Army of the Holy War]] in 1948]]
In November 1947, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] adopted the [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|Partition Plan]], which divided the mandate of Palestine into two states: one majority Arab and one majority Jewish. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and attacked Jewish civilian areas and paramilitary targets. Following [[Israeli Declaration of Independence|Israel's declaration of independence]] in May 1948, five Arab armies (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan) came to the Palestinian Arabs' aid against the newly founded [[State of Israel]].<ref name="Milestones">[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war "Milestones: 1945–1952."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200607114752/https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war |date=7 June 2020 }} ''Office of the Historian''. 7 December 2018.</ref>

The Palestinian Arabs suffered such a major defeat at the end of the war, that the term they use to describe the war is [[Nakba]] (the "catastrophe").<ref name="Caplan">Sela and Neil Caplan. "Epilogue: Reflections on Post-Oslo Israeli and Palestinian History and Memory of 1948." The War of 1948: Representations of Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Narratives, edited by Sela and Alon Kadish, Indiana University Press, 2016, pp. 203–221.</ref> Israel took control of much of the territory that would have been allocated to the Arab state had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the UN partition plan.<ref name="Milestones" /> Along with a military defeat, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians [[1948 Palestinian exodus|fled or were expelled]] from what became the State of Israel. Israel did not allow the [[Palestinian refugees]] of the war to return to Israel.<ref>Thrall, Nathan. [http://time.com/5273108/back-to-the-future-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ "How 1948 Still Influences the ..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231023230401/https://time.com/5273108/back-to-the-future-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ |date=23 October 2023 }} ''Time''. 14 May 2018. 7 December 2018.</ref>[[File:1947-UN-Partition-Plan-1949-Armistice-Comparison.svg|thumb|upright|right|alt=Map comparing the borders of the 1947 partition plan and the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949.|{{Partition Plan-Armistice Lines comparison map legend}}]]