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)
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
