The Arabs not only rejected the UN Partition Plan, but attacked Israel from all sides. On the day that Israel declared its independence, the Arab League Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared "jihad", a holy war. He said, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".(1) The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini stated, "I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!" (2) The armies of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded the tiny new country with the declared intent of destroying it.(3)

1. Howard M Sachar, A History of Israel (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 333.
2. Leonard J. Davis and M. Decter (eds.). Myths and facts 1982; a Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Washington DC: near east report, 1982), p. 199
3. In a formal cablegram to the UN Secretary General on May 15, 1948, the Secretary general of the Arab League declared that the Arab states rejected partition and intended to set up a "United State of Palestine." For a full text of the cablegram, see John N. Moore (ed.), The Arab-Israeli Conflict; Readings and Documents (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, abridged and revised edition, 1977), pp. 938-943.