Arab Liberation Army

Official emblem of the Liberation Army, which has the Jewish Star of David stabbed by the curved Arab dagger, Chandjar

The Arab Liberation Army ( Arabic جيش الإنقاذ Jaish al-Inqadh , DMG Ǧayš al-Inqāḏ  'Army of Salvation') was aparamilitary organization set upby the Arab League in the Palestine War under the command of Fausi al-Kawukdschi , a former agent of the Wehrmacht in Palestine.

The Arab Liberation Army was set up in Qatana near Damascus in November 1947 . From December 1947, units infiltrated into the Mandate Palestine. The mandate given to the units by the Arab League was to protect Arab population centers from the end of the mandate to the intervention of regular troops after the British withdrawal. The Arab League saw the formation as a counterpart to the Army of the Holy War , which was under the influence of Mohammed Amin al-Husseini .

The army was supposed to consist of eight battalions , of which only four came close to their nominal strength. The others stayed at company strength despite their name . In the summer of 1948 the association reached its highest personnel strength with around 4,000 soldiers. The majority of them came from Syria. Furthermore, also served Palestinian Arabs, Iraqis and Egyptians in the army, as well as a number of non-Arab Muslims .

It was broken up by the Israelis in late October 1948 and driven out of Palestine.

Web links

• Militant petrel - Fauzi cannot be killed , DER SPIEGEL 7/1948, p. 11
• With German greetings for Palestine - arabesque made of blood and oil , DER SPIEGEL 51/1947 p. 11

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Benny Morris : 1948 - A History of the First Arab-Israeli War; New Haven, 2008; P. 90.
2. ^ Yoav Gelber : Palestine, 1948 , 2nd edition, Portland, 2006, pp. 5f
3. ↑ Kamal Salibi : The Modern History of Jordan , 2nd edition, London, 1998, p. 159 f.
4. ↑ Kenneth Pollack : Arabs at War, Lincoln, 2004; Pp. 430, 450.