Palestine 1948: The Cryptography of the Arab Volunteers

The Army of Sacred Jihad and the Rescue Army were the two main forces which fought for the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war, prior to the invasion of the Arab regular armies. It is the purpose of this article to examine the cryptography of these two militias and show how their attempt to develop reliable ciphers failed, which was both a symptom and a factor in their general failure in the Palestine war against the Jews.