ARAB-ISRAELI WAR PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs of the defining moment in 20th-century Middle Eastern history.

A group of 28 press photographs, dated 1946-1949, various sizes (largest approx. 260 x 205 mm., and smaller), most with typescript descriptions on versos, stamps and serial numbers of various British, American, French and German press agencies. (Some light marginal creasing.)

A WIDE-RANGING GROUP OF IMAGES, showing the end of British Mandatory rule, the establishment of the independent state of Israel, polling for the first Knesset, international diplomacy and demonstrations in neighbouring Arab countries.

Perhaps the most striking photograph, dated 10 March 1947, shows a line of German and Austrian Jews entraining at Lydda in order to be repatriated to their former countries, while passing them in the opposite direction are British troops entering Palestine to shore up the deteriorating security situation in the Mandate. The caption on the reverse declares that 400 Jews from the professional classes who escaped from Germany and Austria in 1939 are now returning to Europe. Although the caption does not clarify whether they were returning of their own free will or otherwise, it notes there had been Jewish demonstrations in Jerusalem against this emigration, and that the Jewish Agency were against it.

This image, and others, including one of a British sapper using a metal detector on Jewish baggage, and one of the illegal Jewish immigrant ships, show the difficult security situation, and the failure of the British to militarily contain it; one photograph shows the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem surrounded by barbed wire, while another shows a negotiated truce between Arabs and Jews in January 1948 for an exchange of elderly persons besieged 'behind lines' in the Old City.

5 images are reproductions of press photographs, but seemingly used by various media with various associated markings.