After the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, most of what was Ottoman territory was split up into "Mandates" to be governed by European powers, primarily France and Britain. The important part here is that in 1922 Britain took over the Mandate of Palestine, which is all of modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. When they did this, they committed additionally to the Balfour Declaration, that they would facilitate an independent Jewish state and Jewish immigration to that state. By 1936, Jewish immigration caused Jews to make up over a quarter of the population of Palestine, where the mostly resided in kibbutzim, basically communal farming towns. The Arabs were displeased with this development, naturally. Now, Jews, Arabs, and the British had been having skirmishes off an on since 1922, but in 1936 is when the Arab Revolt began, an insurgency fought by the Arabs against the British stationed there and the Jewish militias. This lasted until 1939, when Britain reversed themselves from the Balfour Declaration, publishing the 1939 White Paper, which significantly limited Jewish immigration, prevented Jews from buying Arab land, and promised a united, independent Palestine within 10 years, after which the Jews would be subject to the authority of the Arab majority. Naturally, the Jews didn't take this well, and Jewish terror groups, primarily Irgun and Lehi, begin an insurgency against the British. During WWII, there was a pretty significant event in Europe which affected Jews quite a bit, and the new UN advocated for a two state, partitioned solution, with Jerusalem under an international UN mandate with free access by all. Britain told the UN to eat shit and moved forward with its 1939 plan. The Jewish National Council, or JNC, announced that they absolutely would not accept this, and would declare independence as soon as the mandate ended. The Arab League, made up of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt, threatened to invade the moment Israel declared independence. Thus began the ethnic conflict between Jewish militias led by the JNC (the three primary Jewish militias at the time being the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi, with about 35,000 Haganah and 5,000 split between Irgun and Lehi at the beginning of the 1948 war, to give some reference). In November of 1947, the US, alarmed by the escalating ethnic violence in Palestine, took the common sense stance of tacitly endorsing Jewish extermination by implementing an arms embargo on "all belligerents." This was a joke because it was referring to the belligerents in Palestine only, meaning primarily Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi in the Jewish side and the ALA and Holy War Army on the Arab side, it did nothing to stop arms flows to the Arab League which were arming and training the Arab Palestinians. In 1948, despite the fact that order in Palestine was rapidly breaking down, the UK just left, because their mandate was concluded and they could no longer give a fuck about pretending to care about preventing genocide. As promised, Israel declared independence immediately, and within 24 hours, the Arab League declared war and invaded. The US, alarmed by this and wanting to remain neutral, doubled down on endorsing Jewish extermination and forced through a binding UNSC resolution expanding the arms embargo to "all belligerents" in the First Arab-Israel War. This was also a cruel joke, because while Israel was comically deficient in ammo and weapons, the Arab League has been preparing for this. Moreover, at this time, the Arab Legion, the official army of Jordan, was officered and led by active duty British officers. The commander-in-chief of the Arab Legion was Sir John Glubb, aka Glubb Pasha, a white British officer born in the UK. The UK would lead and supply the Jordanians in their war against Israel while actively helping the US enforce an arms embargo on Israel, because they were neutral, of course. The primary supplier of arms and ammo to Israel during the war was Czechoslovakia, who straight up just told the UN to get fucked and send them equipment anyway.
