Battle Predicted After British Leave, United Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 12, 1948.

Arabs Plan Blitzkrieg in Palestine

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There is no shortage of volunteers for the Arab armies. Tribesmen from all over the Middle East have swarmed in to volunteer. Shooting a gun has always been preferred by the Arabs to hoeing corn.

By ROBERT C. MILLER

United Press Staff writer

NEW YORK, March 11—Arab leaders say they expect to lose “a million men” before the strife in Palestine is over.

They predict a three-month blitzkrieg beginning within 24 hours after the British give up their mandate in May. They say tanks, artillery and bombers will attack Jewish communities.

They have repeated their determination to resist to the death “any force which tries to partition Palestine.”

Six months ago such threats would have been ridiculed by Middle Eastern observers. Today they are being heeded and regarded as “possibilities.”

The Arab resistance to partition of Palestine is led by the Arab Higher Executive, a group of Palestinian Arabs headed by the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. It also has the complete support and backing of the Arab League composed of all the Moslem states in the Middle East.

Seldom in Moslem history has anything united the warring, bickering Arabs as has their opposition to partitioning. It has assumed all the aspects of a holy war which their leaders swear they will fight until Zionism is eliminated and a “free, democratic state established in Palestine.”

The Arabs are extremely bitter at the United Nations and the United States. They argue that America pressured the United Nations into voting partition and, therefore, the vote was not an honest parliamentary action.

The Arabs have been conducting small-scale guerrilla raids on Jewish settlements and communications for the last few weeks. They plan to step up these activities in the coming months.

Originally the Arab strategy was to arm quietly and prepare themselves during the winter months, but to give no indication of their strength. Then, once the British evacuated, they planned to close in with a series of surprise attacks and overwhelm the Jews.

Their propaganda, however, had a much greater reaction on the emotional Arabs than was expected. Immediately after the U. N. acted on partition, spontaneous riots broke out in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East.

These attacks tipped the Arab hand and the Jews immediately prepared for a long, tough fight.

The revised Arab strategy is to train, in Syria and neighboring Arab countries, troops for guerrilla warfare. The training schedule has been completed for thousands of these men and they are now filtering across the border into Palestine. Headquarters of the Arab liberation army is near Nablus, deep in Arab territory and surrounded by the rocky Samaritan hills.

These troops are well equipped, armed with rifles, automatic weapons, grenades and machine guns. They are highly mobile units.

The Arabs hope pressure from repeated attacks will so weaken the Jewish economy and defenses that very little effective resistance will be possible when they launch their all out attack.

There is no shortage of volunteers for the Arab armies. Tribesmen from all over the Middle East have swarmed in to volunteer. Shooting a gun has always been preferred by the Arabs to hoeing corn.