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Arab-Israeli wars

The first Arab-Israeli war formally began on 15 May 1948 when the League of Arab States announced its ‘intervention’ against the state of Israel which David Ben-Gurion had proclaimed hours before. In fact, the final months of the British Mandate in Palestine, from the vote in the UN General Assembly on 29 November 1947 to partition the country into Arab and Jewish states until the end of the Mandate on 14 May 1948, had seen an increasingly bitter civil war as Arabs and Jews fought to control territory. The Arabs of Palestine, supported by virtually the entire Arab world, rejected partition, while the Jews regarded it as a unique opportunity for statehood. The aim of the Arab coalition was to sustain the Palestinian Arabs. The armies which attacked Israel were those of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan; in addition, there was the 10, 000-strong Arab Liberation Army, a semi-regular force led by the Syrian Fauji el-Kaukji. The military contribution of the various elements in the Arab command was mixed. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Iraq made little more than token efforts, while el-Kaukji proved to be an erratic field commander. Overall military command rested, in theory at least, with Abdullah of Jordan, but he was suspected of fighting to acquire parts of Palestine for himself. In reality, there was no central command of the Arab forces. Even so, the Arabs began the war with certain advantages. Egypt, Iraq, and Syria had air forces. Egypt and Syria had tanks, while all had some modern artillery. They had been trained for modern warfare by British and French instructors. This was particularly true of the strongest Arab formation, Jordan's Arab Legion of 10, 000 men commanded by Lt Gen Sir John Glubb.

By contrast, the Israelis started the war with few modern weapons beyond mortars, some ancient artillery, and no aircraft. They were being forced to defend a narrow coastal plain and isolated Jewish settlements, which made defence in depth impossible. Even so, they enjoyed certain assets. With some 40, 000 troops organized in nine brigades, they had a coherent military force, many of whose members, unlike the Arabs, had seen service in WW II. They were fighting in defence of the first Jewish homeland since Roman times, and in the knowledge of the recent Holocaust. Moreover, in contrast to the Arabs, they had a clear overall strategy, Plan Dallet, designed to secure the area assigned to the Jewish state under the UN partition resolution and to safeguard outlying Jewish settlements.

The first phase of the war saw the Israelis repel Syrian attacks in the north, as well as serious fighting with a strong Egyptian force advancing into the Negev desert. But the decisive battle was on the Jerusalem front where the Arab Legion succeeded in capturing the historic Jewish quarter of the Old City, which held the Western Wall, sacred to Jews. The Legion also secured the strategic Latrun salient, which dominated the lines of communication from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, although the Israelis circumvented this by cutting a new road between the two cities. On the outbreak of war, Sweden's Count Folke Bernadotte had been appointed UN mediator. He succeeded in negotiating a truce which lasted from 11 June until 8 July, a breathing space which worked greatly to Israel's advantage. Ben-Gurion's government, which had established close links with Czechoslovakia, used the truce to bring in tanks, artillery, and, above all, modern aircraft. These enabled the Israelis to make important strategic advances once the war resumed. Extensive areas of Galilee were taken, as well as the key towns of Lydda, with its airport, and Ramle. On 12 July, the Arab inhabitants of the Lydda-Ramle area, amounting to some 70, 000, were expelled in what became known as the ‘Lydda Death March’. A second truce, which came into force on 18 July, found the Israelis in a much stronger position and permitted Bernadotte to work for a negotiated settlement. His proposals, submitted on 16 September, would have allowed Israel to retain Galilee in return for surrendering much of the Negev desert, and returning Lydda and Ramle to the Arabs. In addition, Jerusalem was to be an international city and Palestinian refugees were to be allowed to return. The following day, he was murdered in Jerusalem by members of the right-wing Jewish group, Lehʿi.

Faced with the implications of the Bernadotte Plan, the Israeli government decided to resolve the future of the Negev, which it believed vital for the state's progress. Manufacturing an attack on a supply convoy, on 15 October the Israelis attacked the Egyptians around the strategic Faluja crossroads. By the end of 1948, they looked set to gain their final objective, the coastal strip from Rafah to Gaza. But in January 1949 their fighters shot down five British Spitfires across the Egyptian frontier. The consequent international pressure persuaded Ben-Gurion to halt operations. An armistice agreement between Egypt and Israel, signed at Rhodes on 24 January, was followed by others with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The war had enabled Israel to sustain its independence within frontiers, which, if not strategically ideal, were considerably larger than those set out in the UN partition resolution. For the Palestinian Arabs it had been a disaster. Not only had their country ceased to exist, but over 750, 000 were refugees. Defeat also set the scene for the Arab revolutions of the 1950s, particularly that which brought Nasser, a veteran of the war, to power in Egypt.

The Arab-Israeli war ('Yom Kippur war') of 1973: operations along the Suez canal (left) and on the Golan Heights (right). (Click to enlarge)
The Arab-Israeli war ('Yom Kippur war') of 1973: operations along the Suez canal (left) and on the Golan Heights (right).
(Click to enlarge)


Although tension between Israel and the new Egyptian regime had built up by 1956, the second war between the two countries was provoked by outside pressures. On 19 July 1956, the USA and Britain informed Egypt that they would not provide grants to assist with the building of the Aswan Dam. Nasser retaliated by announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. Choosing to see this as a threat to their security, Britain and France began to assemble military forces in the eastern Mediterranean. But with the Suez Canal operating normally and the American government hostile to military action, the excuse for intervention relentlessly slipped away. Faced with this, the French approached Ben-Gurion's government for collaboration. At a secret meeting between French, British, and Israeli ministers at Sèvres on 22-4 October 1956, Israel was committed to an attack on Egypt in the Sinai desert. This would allow Britain and France to issue an ultimatum for each side to withdraw its forces 10 miles (16 km) on either side of the canal. If, as anticipated, this were not done, Britain and France would intervene to ‘separate the combatants’. On 29 October, Israeli military action began with a paratroop drop at the strategic Mitla Pass. Israel's offensive force, directed by COS Dayan, consisted of ten brigades, two of which were mechanized and one armoured. To oppose them, Egypt deployed an infantry division and an armoured brigade in the Sinai, with a Palestinian division in the Gaza Strip. Despite initial setbacks at the Mitla Pass, by 2 November the Israelis had taken the central Egyptian positions around Abu Ageila. In subsequent operations, Israeli forces captured the Gaza Strip and moved down the Gulf of Aqaba and Gulf of Suez to capture Sharm al-Sheikh on the Strait of Tiran. As they did so, British and French aircraft had begun bombing Egyptian air bases in preparation for a seaborne landing. On 5 November the long-delayed Anglo-French paratroop landings took place on the Suez Canal, to be followed the next day by amphibious landings at Port Said. It proved to be a short-lived adventure since that evening financial pressure from an angry USA government forced the British government to call a ceasefire. The Suez campaign marked the end of Britain and France as major powers in the Middle East. The Americans also forced the Israelis to withdraw from all their conquests, including Gaza and Sharm al-Shaikh. In return, Israel was guaranteed free passage through the Strait of Tiran, symbolized by the presence of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF). Pres Nasser became the hero of the Arab world, but his enhanced status masked deficiencies in his armed forces and their commander, FM Abdul Hakim Amer, which would cost him dear in the next Middle East conflict.

The most significant development of the next decade was the revival of Palestinian activism, chiefly directed by the Movement for the Liberation of Palestine (Fatah), led by Yasser Arafat. Its raids, which began in 1965, measurably increased Arab-Israeli tension. Israel's relations with Syria, never good at the best of times, also worsened as Israeli settlements came under intermittent bombardment from the Golan Heights. The immediate crisis which provoked the 1967 war was a warning, incorrect as it turned out, to Nasser from the USSR that Israel was about to mount an attack on Syria. In an attempt to take the pressure off his Syrian ally, on 14 May the Egyptian leader deployed two armoured divisions in the Sinai desert. There is no evidence that at this stage he wanted war but when the Israelis countered this with a tank brigade it was clear that danger might be at hand. On 16 May, Nasser further escalated the situation by ordering UNEF to concentrate in the Gaza Strip and then on the following day demanding its total withdrawal. The presumption that this would be the signal for diplomatic moves was confounded by the decision of UN Secretary-General U Thant to accede to Nasser's demand. Emboldened by assurances from FM Amer that his forces could match the Israelis, on 21 May Nasser announced a blockade of the Strait of Tiran. This ran counter to assurances he had given in 1957 and was done in knowledge that Israel had insisted such a move would constitute a casus belli. Diplomatic efforts by the USA and the USSR having failed to resolve the crisis, on 5 June Israel launched devastating air strikes against the Egyptian and other Arab air forces. Directed by air force commander Gen Mordechai Hod, it proved to be one of the most daring, and decisive, blows in the history of air power. In a matter of hours the Egyptian air force alone lost 309 of its 340 operational aircraft. Hod and his pilots had won the war for Israel.

Although the diplomatic crisis saw Moshe Dayan appointed as defence minister, the real genius behind the land campaign was COS Yitzhak Rabin. His plan was for a three-pronged offensive in Sinai by armoured and mechanized forces led by Gens Israel Tal, Avraham Joffe, and Ariel Sharon. Facing them the Egyptian commander Gen Abd el Mohsen Mortagui had five infantry and two armoured divisions with over 1, 000 tanks, but robbed of air support he had no hope of victory. As the extent of the Egyptians' plight started to emerge, he was further confounded by contradictory orders issuing from Amer's headquarters. On 8 June, Israeli forces reached the Suez Canal, having destroyed the Egyptian forces in the Sinai for a loss of some 300 killed. By then, the focus had switched elsewhere. On 5 June, out of a sense of Arab solidarity, King Hussein of Jordan entered the war. At his disposal he had a well-trained force of eight infantry and two armoured brigades, as well as some Iraqi support, but, like the Egyptians, no air support. Israeli forces in the central sector were largely reservists of the Jerusalem brigade but once Jordan's intentions became clear these were reinforced by Col Mordechai Gur's 55th Parachute Brigade, diverted from the Sinai front. While Israeli aircraft disrupted communications between the Arab Legion in Jerusalem and its headquarters, Gur's paratroopers attacked the Old City from the north. After intense fighting, on 7 June his men entered the Old City. Their arrival at the Western Wall was, for Israelis, the emotional pinnacle of the war. With the collapse of the Jerusalem sector, the Jordanians had no hope of holding the remainder of the West Bank. The territory, with its key cities of Nablus, Ramalah, Bethlehem, and Hebron, fell to the Israelis. With the Gaza Strip captured from the Egyptians, Israel now controlled all of pre-1948 Palestine.

Having secured their southern and central fronts, the Israeli command now resolved to remove the threat from the Golan Heights. On 9 June, armoured units of Gen David Elazar's Northern Command began an assault on strongly held Syrian positions, preceded by ground-attack (see fighter) aircraft. In the face of a tenacious resistance, by the next day the Israeli forces had taken the Heights and, with positions on Mount Hermon, could look towards Damascus. All that clouded Israel's victory was the attack on 8 June on the USS Liberty, a surveillance vessel off Gaza, with the death of 34 American sailors. The explanation that it had been a case of mistaken identity was not accepted in Washington. Otherwise, Israel had secured one of the decisive victories of recent history, but with extensive Arab territories under her control it was one which held the seeds of future conflict, should a diplomatic solution fail.

Fail it did. The period after the 1967 war saw the reorganization of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat, and the beginning of armed Palestinian actions against Israel and Israelis at home and overseas. Palestinian activism also threatened the stability of other Arab states. In September 1970 there was bitter fighting in Jordan between King Hussein's troops and PLO guerrillas. While negotiating a ceasefire, Pres Nasser died. His successor, Anwar al-Sadat, was determined to restore Egypt's lost territories in the Sinai. By 1972, having failed to achieve diplomatic momentum, he began planning a military campaign, together with the Syrian president, Hafiz al-Assad. Their training and planning were intense. In contrast, the edge had gone off the IDF (Israeli Defence Force).

In the early hours of 6 October 1973, 700 Syrian tanks attacked on the Golan, their commandos seizing key positions on Mount Hermon. Only tenacious fighting and the sacrifice of some 40 aircraft allowed the Israelis to stabilize the front by 9 October. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Second and Third Armies crossed the Suez Canal with textbook precision and broke through the poorly held Bar-Lev Line. Heavy fighting on 8 and 9 October, in which the Egyptians operated from behind concentrated missile batteries, resulted in the virtual destruction of the Israeli 190th Armoured Brigade. The 9th proved pivotal. An Egyptian armoured assault was broken up, and the Israelis persuaded US Pres Nixon to send replacements, allowing Israel to commit her reserves. On 16 October, with the American resupply operation in full swing, an Israeli force under Gen Sharon crossed the canal just north of the Great Bitter Lake, opening a gap between the Second and Third Armies. The Israeli counter-attack on the northern front began on 11 October. As in the Sinai, fighting was intense, with the Syrians supported by Jordanian and Iraqi units. But by 22 October, the Israelis had recaptured Mount Hermon and had Damascus potentially within their grasp. By the time a ceasefire, largely brokered by US Secretary of State Kissinger, took effect on 27 October, the Egyptian Third Army and the city of Suez had been encircled.

Despite Israeli successes in the second phase of the conflict, the war had revealed new potential on the part of the Egyptian and Syrian armed forces and dented the myth of Israeli invincibility. The war also saw the effective use of the Arab ‘oil weapon’ by oil-exporting states. In subsequent negotiations, Sadat and Assad succeeded in recovering territory, and the war helped create the conditions for the Camp David Agreements of 1978 and the subsequent Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. But the basic quarrel between Israel and the Palestinians was far from resolved. By 1981 there was serious tension between Israel and PLO guerrilla forces in southern Lebanon. An attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London by dissident Palestinians gave the Israeli government of Menahem Begin the occasion for an invasion of Lebanon on 6 June 1982, titled PEACE FOR GALILEE, to create a 25 mile (40 km) security zone in southern Lebanon; it was soon apparent that Begin's government was in pursuit of a wider agenda. By 13 June, despite determined PLO resistance, Israeli forces were on the outskirts of Beirut, opening up the prospect of street fighting in which there would be heavy Lebanese casualties. By then, there was widespread opposition to the war in Israel and the US administration of Pres Ronald Reagan was deeply unhappy. On 12 August, after heavy bombardment of west Beirut, Reagan demanded a ceasefire. A multinational force of American, French, and Italian troops supervised the evacuation of PLO guerrillas. Tragedy then followed. The assassination of Israel's Christian ally Bashir Gemayel led to an Israeli occupation of west Beirut. On 16 September, Lebanese Christian forces entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila where they massacred hundreds of elderly men, women, and children. Such was the outcry at this in an area under Israeli military control that Israeli forces withdrew from west Beirut. They were replaced by a reconstituted multinational force but this, too, ended in tragedy. On 23 October 1983, suicide car bombers attacked the French and American bases, killing 78 French troops and 241 American marines. In 1985, Israeli troops evacuated most of Lebanon, leaving a security zone in the south of the country, finally withdrawing in 2000.

In December 1987, a new phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict started with the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in the Occupied Territories. Despite widespread Palestinian casualties, there were moves towards a diplomatic settlement. In September 1993, after secret contacts in Norway, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin concluded an agreement which seemed to open up the prospect of a more peaceful resolution of one of the world's most intractable conflicts, even though Rabin, Israel's most distinguished soldier, was later murdered by a fellow Israeli opposed to what he had done.

Bibliography

  • Bickerton, I. J., and Pearson, M. N., The Arab-Israeli Conflict (London, 1993).
  • Cordesman, A. H., and Wagner, A. R., Lessons of Modern War: The Arab-Israeli Conflict 1973-1989 (New York, 1991).
  • Dupuy, T. N., Elusive Victory (London, 1978).
  • Fraser, T. G., The Arab-Israeli Conflict (London, 1995).
  • Herzog, C., The Arab-Israeli Wars (London, 1984)

— Tom Fraser

 
 

Series of military conflicts fought between various Arab countries and Israel (1948 – 49, 1956, 1967, 1969 – 70, 1973, and 1982). The first war (1948 – 49) began when Israel declared itself an independent state following the United Nations' partition of Palestine. Protesting this move, five Arab countries — Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria — attacked Israel. The conflict ended with Israel gaining considerable territory. The 1956 Suez Crisis began after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. A French, British, and Israeli coalition attacked Egypt and occupied the canal zone but soon withdrew under international pressure. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The war ended with the Israel occupying substantial amounts of Arab territory. An undeclared war of attrition (1969 – 70) was fought between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal and ended with the help of international diplomacy. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), but, despite early Arab success, the conflict ended inconclusively. In 1979 Egypt made peace with Israel. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon in order to expel Palestinian guerrillas based there. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon by 1985 but maintained a narrow buffer zone inside that country until 2000. See also Yasir 'Arafat; Hafiz al-Assad; Menachem Begin; David Ben-Gurion; Camp David Accords; Moshe Dayan; Hezbollah; Gamal Abdel Nasser; Yitzhak Rabin; Sabra and Shatila massacres; Anwar el-Sadat.

For more information on Arab-Israeli wars, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Arab-Israeli Wars,
conflicts in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973–74, and 1982 between Israel and the Arab states. Tensions between Israel and the Arabs have been complicated and heightened by the political, strategic, and economic interests in the area of the great powers.

The 1948–49 War

Although Israel's independence on May 14, 1948, triggered the first full-scale war, armed conflicts between Jews and Arabs had been frequent since Great Britain received the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1920. From 1945 to 1948 Zionists waged guerrilla war against British troops and against Palestinian Arabs supported by the Arab League, and they had made substantial gains by 1948. The 1948–49 War reflected the opposition of the Arab states to the formation of the Jewish state of Israel in what they considered to be Arab territory.

As independence was declared, Arab forces from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan (later Jordan), Lebanon, and Iraq invaded Israel. The Egyptians gained some territory in the south and the Jordanians took Jerusalem's Old City, but the other Arab forces were soon halted. In June the United Nations succeeded in establishing a four-week truce. This was followed in July by significant Israeli advances before another truce. Fighting erupted again in August and continued sporadically until the end of 1948. An Israeli advance in Jan., 1949, isolated Egyptian forces and led to a cease-fire (Jan. 7, 1949).

Protracted peace talks resulted in armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan by July, but no formal peace. In addition, about 400,000 Palestinian Arabs had fled from Israel and were settled in refugee camps near Israel's border; their status became a volatile factor in Arab-Israeli relations.

The 1956 War

From 1949 to 1956 the armed truce between Israel and the Arabs, enforced in part by the UN forces, was punctuated by raids and reprisals. Among the world powers, the United States, Great Britain, and France sided with Israel, while the Soviet Union supported Arab demands. Tensions mounted during 1956 as Israel became convinced that the Arabs were preparing for war. The nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt's Gamal Abdal Nasser in July, 1956, resulted in the further alienation of Great Britain and France, which made new agreements with Israel.

On Oct. 29, 1956, Israeli forces, directed by Moshe Dayan, launched a combined air and ground assault into Egypt's Sinai peninsula. Early Israeli successes were reinforced by an Anglo-French invasion along the canal. Although the action against Egypt was severely condemned by the nations of the world, the cease-fire of Nov. 6, which was promoted by the United Nations with U.S. and Soviet support, came only after Israel had captured several key objectives, including the Gaza strip and Sharm el Sheikh, which commanded the approaches to the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel withdrew from these positions in 1957, turning them over to the UN emergency force after access to the Gulf of Aqaba, without which Israel was cut off from the Indian Ocean, had been guaranteed.

The 1967 War (The Six-Day War)

After a period of relative calm, border incidents between Israel and Syria, Egypt, and Jordan increased during the early 1960s, with Palestinian guerrilla groups actively supported by Syria. In May, 1967, President Nasser, his prestige much eroded through his inaction in the face of Israeli raids, requested the withdrawal of UN forces from Egyptian territory, mobilized units in the Sinai, and closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israel. Israel (which had no UN forces stationed on its territory) responded by mobilizing.

The escalation of threats and provocations continued until June 5, 1967, when Israel launched a massive air assault that crippled Arab air capability. With air superiority protecting its ground forces, Israel controlled the Sinai peninsula within three days and then concentrated on the Jordanian frontier, capturing Jerusalem's Old City (subsequently annexed), and on the Syrian border, gaining the strategic Golan Heights. The war, which ended on June 10, is known as the Six-Day War.

The Suez Canal was closed by the war, and Israel declared that it would not give up Jerusalem and that it would hold the other captured territories until significant progress had been made in Arab-Israeli relations. The end of active, conventional fighting was followed by frequent artillery duels along the frontiers and by clashes between Israelis and Palestinian guerrillas.

The 1973–74 War (The Yom Kippur War)

During 1973 the Arab states, believing that their complaints against Israel were going unheeded (despite the mounting use by the Arabs of threats to cut off oil supplies in an attempt to soften the pro-Israel stance of the United States), quietly prepared for war, led by Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. On Oct. 6, 1973, the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur, a two-pronged assault on Israel was launched. Egyptian forces struck eastward across the Suez Canal and pushed the Israelis back, while the Syrians advanced from the north. Iraqi forces joined the war and, in addition, Syria received some support from Jordan, Libya, and the smaller Arab states. The attacks caught Israel off guard, and it was several days before the country was fully mobilized; Israel then forced the Syrians and Egyptians back and, in the last hours of the war, established a salient on the west bank of the Suez Canal, but these advances were achieved at a high cost in soldiers and equipment.

Through U.S. and Soviet diplomatic pressures and the efforts of the United Nations, a tenuous cease-fire was implemented by Oct. 25. Israel and Egypt signed a cease-fire agreement in November, but Israeli-Syrian fighting continued until a cease-fire was negotiated in 1974. Largely as a result of the diplomatic efforts of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Israel withdrew back across the Suez Canal and several miles inland from the east bank behind a UN-supervised cease-fire zone. On the Syrian front too, Israeli territorial gains made in the war were given up.

After the war Egyptian and Syrian diplomatic relations with the United States, broken since the 1967 war, were resumed, and clearance of the Suez Canal began. The 1973–74 War brought about a major shift of power in the Middle East and ultimately led to the signing of the Camp David accords.

The 1982 War

In 1978 Palestinian guerrillas, from their base in Lebanon, launched an air raid on Israel; in retaliation, Israel sent troops into S Lebanon to occupy a strip 4–6 mi (6–10 km) deep and thus protect Israel's border. Eventually a UN peacekeeping force was set up there, but occasional fighting continued. In 1982 Israel launched a massive attack to destroy all military bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization in S Lebanon and, after a 10-week siege of the Muslim sector of West Beirut, a PLO stronghold, forced the Palestinians to accept a U.S.-sponsored plan whereby the PLO guerrillas would evacuate Beirut and go to several Arab countries that had agreed to accept them. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 1985 but continues to maintain a Lebanese-Christian–policed buffer zone north of its border.

Bibliography

See E. O'Ballance, The Sinai Campaign of 1956 (1960) and The Third Arab-Israeli War (1972); R. MacLeish, The Sun Stood Still (1967); S. L. A. Marshall et al., ed., Swift Sword (1967); F. J. Khouri, The Arab-Israeli Dilemma (1968); W. Z. Laqueur, The Road to Jerusalem (1968); I. Abu-Lughod, ed., The Arab-Israeli Confrontation of June 1967: An Arab Perspective (1970); D. Kurzman, Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (1970); S. L. A. Marshall, Sinai Victory (rev. ed. 1971); D. A. Schmidt, Armageddon in the Middle East (1974); E. Hammel, Six Days in June (1992); U. Savir, The Process (1998); B. Morris, Righteous Victims (rev. ed. 2001) and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2d ed. 2004); M. B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (2002); C. Enderlin, Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, 1995–2002 (2003); A. Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War (2004); S. Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli Arab Tragedy (2006); T. Segev, 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East (2007).


 
Politics: Arab-Israeli conflict

A conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs in the Middle East. The United Nations established Israel, a nation under control of Jews, in Palestine in the late 1940s, in territory inhabited by Palestinian Arabs. Israel was placed in the midst of four Arab nations — Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt — and the presence of Israel has led to constant contention between Israel and the Arab world. Both the Israelis and the Arabs claim land in Palestine as theirs by ancestral rights, and war has periodically broken out between them. (See also Yasir Arafat; Gamal Abdel Nasser; intifada; Oslo Accord; Palestine Liberation Organization; Yitzhak Rabin; Anwar Sadat; and Six-Day War.)

 
Wikipedia: Arab-Israeli conflict
Arab-Israeli conflict
Arab_Israeli_Conflict_6.png
Israel and members of the Arab League
     Arab League      Israel
     Have been at war with Israel      Gaza Strip and West Bank
Date Early 20th century-present
Location Greater Middle East
Result Ongoing
Combatants
border

Israel

Arab-Israeli conflict series
Participants

The Arab-Israeli conflict (Arabic: الصراع العربي الإسرائيلي, Hebrew: הסכסוך הישראלי ערבי‎) spans about a century of political tensions and open hostilities. It involves the establishment of the modern State of Israel, as well as the establishment and independence of several Arab countries at the same time, and the relationship between the Arab nations and Israel (see related Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Scope of the conflict

See also: History of the Middle East

Some uses of the term Middle East conflict refer to this matter; however, the region has been host to other conflicts not involving Israel (see List of conflicts in the Middle East).

Despite involving a relatively small land area and number of casualties,[1][2] the conflict has been the focus of worldwide media and diplomatic attention for decades. Many countries, individuals and non-governmental organizations elsewhere in the world feel involved in this conflict for reasons such as cultural and religious ties with Islam, Arab culture, Christianity, Judaism or Jewish culture, or for ideological, human rights, strategic or financial reasons.

Because Israel is a democracy with a free press,[3] the media have easier access to the conflict which also increases media coverage. Some consider the Arab-Israeli conflict a part of (or a precursor to) a wider clash of civilizations between the Western World and the Arab or Muslim world.[4][5] Others claim that the religious dimension is a relatively new matter in this conflict.[6] This conflict has engendered animosities igniting numerous attacks on and by supporters (or perceived supporters) of opposing sides in countries throughout the world.

History of the conflict

End of 19th century-1948

Tensions between the native Arab population of the Palestinian part of the Middle East and the small, but increasing number of Jewish settlers in the area were on the increase towards the late 19th century. The Middle East was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

After the end of World War I the area came under British rule under the British mandate of Palestine. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased. This together with the dire economic situation in the land, as a result of internal factors and as a result of the world-wide economic difficulties, led to a large Arab immigration and further increased tensions in the region.[7][8] These led to riots and general civil unrest.

The situation was at a boiling point by 1939. However, with the winds of war in the air, the issue was put on hold for the duration of the war. At the end of World War II, Britain wanted a resolution of the problem. It referred the issue to the United Nations. Its solution was a two-state solution. The UN partition plan [9] was approved by the United Nations in November 1947 by 33 votes to 13 with 10 absentions, but was rejected by Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states which constituted the Arab League.

The main differences between the 1947 partition proposal and 1949 armistice lines are highlighted in light red and magenta
Enlarge
The main differences between the 1947 partition proposal and 1949 armistice lines are highlighted in light red and magenta

Israel declared its independence on 14 May 1948. Almost immediately the Arab League countries Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq declared war on the new state. By the conclusion of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel had signed ceasefire agreements with all its Arab neighbors. In relation to the UN Partition Plan, Israel's territory after the armistice agreements was considerably greater than that allocated to the Jewish State by the UN partition plan.

1949-June 11, 1967

In 1956, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, in contravention of the Constantinople Convention of 1888. Many argued that this was also a violation of the 1949 Armistice Agreements.[10][11] On July 26, 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company, and closed the canal to Israeli shipping.[12]

Israel responded on October 29, 1956, by invading the Sinai Peninsula with British and French support. During the Suez Canal Crisis, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. The United States and the United Nations soon pressured it into a ceasefire.[12][13] Israel agreed to withdraw from Egyptian territory. Egypt agreed to freedom of navigation in the region and the demilitarization of the Sinai. The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was created and deployed to oversee the demilitarization. [14]. The UNEF was only deployed on the Egyptian side of the border, as Israel refused to allow them on its territory.[15]

On May 19, 1967, Egypt expelled UNEF observers,[16] and deployed 100,000 soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.[17] It again closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping,[18][19] returning the region to the pre-1956 status quo.

On May 30, 1967, Jordan entered into the mutual defense pact between Egypt and Syria. President Nasser declared: "Our basic objective is the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."[20]

In response, on June 5 Israel sent almost all of its planes on a preemptive mission in Egypt. The Israeli Air Force (AIF) destroyed most of the surprised Egyptian Air Force, then turned east to pulverize the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces.[21] This strike was the crucial element in Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.[17][19]

June 12, 1967-1973

In the summer of 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum in response to the war, to discuss the Arab position toward Israel. They reached consensus that there should be:

  • No recognition of the State of Israel.
  • No peace with Israel.
  • No negotiations with Israel.

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In 1969, Egypt initiated the War of Attrition, with the goal of exhausting Israel into surrendering the Sinai Peninsula.[23] The war ended following Nasser's death in 1970.

On October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, overwhelming the surprised Israeli military.[24][25] The Yom Kippur War accommodated indirect confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. When Israel had turned the tide of war, the USSR threatened military intervention. The United States, wary of nuclear war, secured a ceasefire on October 25.[24][25]

1974-2000

Egypt

Following the Camp David Accords of the late 1970s, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in March, 1979. Under its terms, the Sinai Peninsula returned to Egyptian hands, and the Gaza Strip remained under Israeli control, to be included in a future Palestinian state.

Jordan

In October, 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement, which stipulated mutual cooperation, an end of hostilities, and a resolution of other unsorted issues.

Iraq

In June, 1981, Israel successfully attacked and destroyed newly built Iraqi nuclear facilities in Operation Opera.

During the Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 missiles into Israel, in the hopes of uniting the Arab world against the coalition which sought to liberate Kuwait. At the behest of the United States, Israel did not respond to this attack in order to prevent a greater outbreak of war.

Lebanon

In 1970, following an extended civil war, King Hussein expelled the PLO from Jordan. The PLO resettled in Lebanon, whence it staged raids into Israel. In 1981, Syria, allied with the PLO, positioned missiles in Lebanon. In June, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Within two months, the PLO agreed to withdraw thence.

In March, 1983, Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire agreement. However, Syria pressured President Amin Gemayel into nullifying the truce in March, 1984. By 1985, Israeli forces had mostly withdrawn from Lebanon, and Israel completed its withdrawal in May 2000, leaving behind a power vacuum which Syria and Hezbollah soon filled.[26]

Palestinians

In 1987, the First Intifada began. The PLO was excluded from negotiations to resolve it until it recognized Israel and renounced terrorism the following year. In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, and their Declaration of Principles, which, together with the Road map for peace, have been loosely used as the guidelines for Israeli-Palestinian relations since.

2000-present

As a response to the al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel raided facilities in major urban centers in the West Bank in 2002. Violence again swept through the region. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began a policy of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2003. This policy was fully implemented in August, 2005.[27]

In July, 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel, attacked and killed eight Israeli soldiers, and kidnapped two others, setting off the 2006 Lebanon War.[28] A UN-sponsored ceasefire went into effect on August 14, 2006, officially ending the conflict.[29]

On September 6, 2007, in Operation Orchard, Israel bombed a northern Syrian complex which was suspected of holding nuclear missiles from North Korea.[30]

References

  1. ^ Mid-Range Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century in Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, compiled by Matthew White
  2. ^ Casualties in Arab-Israeli Wars Jewish Virtual Library, based on OnWar - Armed Conflict Israel 1948-1999)
  3. ^ Freedom of press:
  4. ^ Abdel Mahdi Abdallah (Dec. 2003), More specifically, author Edward Said affirms his belief that if a solution can be found in Israel, the global community may be able to follow this guideline, generating peace and understanding between the cultures of the East and West. "Causes of Anti-Americanism in the Arab World: A Socio-Political Perspective," Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) 7.4, accessed January 9, 2007.
  5. ^ Section 2: "Clash of Civilizations," in Arab-Israeli Conflict: Role of religion, Israel Science and Technology ("the national database and directory of science and technology related sites in Israel"), (c) 1999-2007, accessed January 9, 2007.
  6. ^ Ibrahim Al-Khouli and Wafa Sultan (February 21, 2006), "Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century", transcript of television interview with Sultan conducted by Al-Khouli, broadcast on Al Jazeera, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) February 22, 2006.
  7. ^ Sela, Avraham. "Arab-Israeli Conflict." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 58-121.
  8. ^ "Palestinians: The making of a people", by Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal
  9. ^ On 15 May 1947 the UN appointed a committee, the UNSCOP, composed of representatives from eleven states. To make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented.
  10. ^ Howard M. Sachar. A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our TimePublished by Alfred A. Knopf (New York). 1976. p. 455. ISBN 0-394-28564-5.
  11. ^ Background Note: Israel. US State Department. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  12. ^ a b 1956: Egypt Seizes Suez Canal. British Broadcasting Service. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  13. ^ UN GA Resolution 997. Mideast Web. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  14. ^ http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575008_10/Israel.html
  15. ^ http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/unef1backgr2.html
  16. ^ UN: Middle East - UNEF I, Background. United Nations. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  17. ^ a b Lorch, Netanel. The Arab-Israeli Wars. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  18. ^ 'Egypt Closes Gulf Of Aqaba To Israel Ships: Defiant move by Nasser raises Middle East tension', The Times, Tuesday, May 23, 1967; pg. 1; Issue 56948; col A.
  19. ^ a b The Disaster of 1967. The Jordanian Government. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  20. ^ 1967: Egypt and Jordan Unite Against Israel. British Broadcasting Service. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  21. ^ Course of the Six Day War. Palestine Facts. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  22. ^ President Mubarak Interview with Israeli TV. Egyptian State Information Service. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  23. ^ Israel: The War of Attrition. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-03-03.
  24. ^ a b Israel: The Yom Kippur War. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-03-03.
  25. ^ a b Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Encarta Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
  26. ^ "After the cease-fire", Brandeis University.
  27. ^ "Special Update: Disengagement - August 2005", Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  28. ^ Israel (country), Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia., 2007, p. 12.
  29. ^ "Lebanon truce holds despite clashes", CNN
  30. ^ "Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’", The Sunday Times, 2007-09-16. 


Further reading

  • Associated Press, comp. (1996). Lightning Out of Israel: [The Six-Day War in the Middle East]: The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Commemorative Ed. Western Printing and Lithographing Company for the Associated Press. ASIN B000BGT89M.
  • Bard, Mitchell (1999). Middle East Conflict. Indianapolis: Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-863261-3.
  • Carter, Jimmy (2006). Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-8502-6. Note: Critical analyses such as [1] have pointed to numerous factual errors and misrepresentions in this book.
  • Casper, Lionel L. (2003). Rape of Palestine and the Struggle for Jerusalem. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-297-4.
  • Citron, Sabina (2006). The Indictment: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Historical Perspective. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-373-3.
  • Cramer, Richard Ben (2004). How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5028-1. 
  • Dershowitz, Alan (2004). The Case for Israel. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-67952-6.
  • Falk, Avner (2004). Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Madison: U of Wisconsin P. ISBN 0-299-20250-X
  • Gelvin, James L. (2005). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: 100 Years of War. New York & Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-61804-5. 
  • Gold, Dore (2004). Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. New York: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5475-3. 
  • Goldenberg, Doron (2003). State of Siege. Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-310-5.
  • Hamidullah, Muhammad (January 1986). "Relations of Muslims with non-Muslims". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 7 (1): 9. 
  • Howell, Mark (2007). What Did We Do to Deserve This? Palestinian Life under Occupation in the West Bank, Garnet Publishing. ISBN 1859641954
  • Israeli, Raphael (2002). Dangers of a Palestinian State. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-303-2.
  • Katz, Shmuel (1973). Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine. Shapolsky Pub. ISBN 0-933503-03-2.
  • Khouri, Fred J. (1985). The Arab-Israeli dilemma, 3rd ed., Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-2339-9. 
  • Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. ISBN 0-691-05419-3. 
  • –––. (September 1990). "The Roots of Muslim Rage." The Atlantic Monthly.
  • Morris, Benny (1999). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-679-42120-3. 
  • Rogan, Eugene L., ed., and Avi Shlaim, ed. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.
  • Segev, Tom (1999). One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under British Mandate. New York: Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-6587-3.

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