Meanwhile, growing Arab discontent with the developing situation culminated in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, which the British were only able to put down with considerable military force. With the outbreak of World War II, Zionist leaders patched up their relationship with the British to support the war effort against Germany-despite the notorious 1939 White Paper, which forbade any meaningful Jewish immigra- tion to Palestine. The Arabs, discouraged by England's ambiguity, negotiated with the Germans for control of Palestine and largely supported the Nazis. PARTITION AND WAR THE 1948 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. Shortly after the conclusion of World War II, Great Britain submitted the question of Palestine to the newly formed United Nations. The UN General Assembly voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted the resolution with some reluctance, while Palestinian Arab leaders and the governments of neighboring Arab states rejected the plan completely, denying the UN's authority to divide and distribute territories they considered to be Arab patrimony. As the British prepared to evacuate Palestine in accordance with the partition resolution, Jews and Arabs clashed in sporadic skirmishes, purchased arms overseas, and planned for war. On May 14, 1948, the British mandate over Palestine ended and David Ben- Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel. The next day, a combined army of Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Saudi, Egyptian, and Jordanian troops marched in. In the previous skirmishes, Israel had secured not only its UN-allotted territory but also some land in the north and in the West Bank designated for Palestine by the UN. The Gaza Strip was secured during the 1948 war by Egypt, and the West Bank and half of Jerusalem by Jordan. Thousands of Palestinian refugees crowded into camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and bordering Arab states. The dispossessed Pales- tinians came to bitterly remember the 1948 war as "al-Nakba," or The Catastrophe. King Abdullah of Jordan took control of the West Bank in I960 and declared a uni- fied Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; this move met an icy reception from Palestinians and other Arab governments. To many Palestinians, Jordanian rule was not much different from any other foreign occupation. THE SUEZ CRISIS AND PAN-ARABISM. Egypt, weakened by struggles between nationalists and the monarchy, fell into shambles after its 1948 loss to Israel. In 1952, following a bloody confrontation between British soldiers and Egyptian poUce officers, a group of young army officers, led by Colonel Gamal Abd al-Nasser, WAR AND PEACE: 1 9 70- 1 9 88 I 13 seized power from the late King Fouad's corrupt son. Drawing from the writings of countless Arab nationalists, Nasser espoused a highly emotional brand of pan-Ara- bism, hoping to unify the Arabic-speaking masses into one state powerful enough to resist imperial encroachments and to take control of Palestine.