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Question: Why did the U.S. place an arms embargo on all belligerents in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
Answer:
The United States cut off weapons shipments to the region 5 months prior to the hostilities breaking out Dec 5, 1947. It did so because the United States a few days earlier had just helped negotiate a partition agreement UN Resolution 181(III) Nov 29th 1947 in the General Assemble. Part of that resolution called for the UN Security Council to secure the peace. This coincided with the US's discontinuing export licenses of arms December 5 not a formal embargo.
Now in addition to the US discontinuing export licensing of arms in 1947, The United States also participated in the United Nations arms embargo in June of 1948. This embargo coincided with a UN negotiated cease fire in the conflict and the embargo was designed to ensure neither side used the cease fire to improve their strategic position.
The US primary motivation in it's action in 1947 - 49 was to secure a negotiated peace in the ME through the United Nations and then directly after hostilities began. When War broke out the US's efforts focused on brokering an Armistice; which the American Ralph Bunche successfully negotiated in 1949, after the assassination of his predecessor, for which Mr. Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.
Timelne
Upvote:4
This is quite complicated but from the information I found online it looks like the US in 1947 had two reasons for having an embargo. This is from an article called Arms and Influence: British arms policy and the decline of British influence in the Middle East, 1948-49
Following World War II, the US government adopted a policy of providing very limited arms supplies to the Middle East, usually small quantities for internal security purposes only.30 During the course of Anglo-American military talks, known as the “Pentagon Talks”31 held in October and November 1947, the United States acknowledged Britain’s dominate influence in the Middle East.32 In November 1947 the State Department decided to impose a unilateral arms embargo on the Middle East to prevent the Arabs using “arms of US origin against Jews, or Jews using them against Arabs” to prevent bitter recrimination against the USA.33 The embargo became public policy after the State Department issued a statement on 5 December 1947, which included a detailed breakdown of the inconsequential US arms supplies to the region.34
So it looks like the US didn't want to take sides and wanted to not get involved as the British were more established in the region. And the US was also worried about the future and oil. There's anotherarticle called U.S. Policy in Israel/Palestine, 1948: The Forgotten History which says more about this, and that there were also disagreements in the US adminstration about what to do.