top of page
taclandwatsitirajs

The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the Declaration of Statehood to the End



The status of Jewish citizens in Arab states worsened during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. Anti-Jewish riots erupted throughout the Arab World in December 1947, and Jewish communities were hit particularly hard in Aleppo and British-controlled Aden, with hundreds of dead and injured. In Libya, Jews were deprived of citizenship, and in Iraq, their property was seized.[needs context][41] Egypt expelled most of its foreign community, including Jews, after the Suez War 1956,[42] while Algeria denied its French citizens, including Jews, of citizenship upon its independence in 1962.[43] Over the course of twenty years, some 850,000 Jews from Arab countries immigrated to Israel and other countries.[44]


In December 1987, the First Intifada began. The First Intifada was a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian territories.[70] The rebellion began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian actions ranged from civil disobedience to violence. In addition to general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, graffiti and barricades, Palestinian demonstrations that included stone-throwing by youths against the Israel Defense Forces brought the Intifada international attention. The Israeli army's heavy handed response to the demonstrations, with live ammunition, beatings and mass arrests, brought international condemnation. The PLO, which until then had never been recognised as the leaders of the Palestinian people by Israel, was invited to peace negotiations the following year, after it recognized Israel and renounced terrorism.




The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the War of Independence through Lebanon




While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs,[40] the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.[41]


After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). One of the two envisaged States proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war involving neighbouring Arab States expanded to 77 percent of the territory of mandate Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half of the Palestinian Arab population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt controlled the rest of the territory assigned by resolution 181 to the Arab State. In the 1967 war, Israel occupied these territories (Gaza Strip and the West Bank) including East Jerusalem, which was subsequently annexed by Israel. The war brought about a second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) formulated the principles of a just and lasting peace, including an Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the conflict, a just settlement of the refugee problem, and the termination of all claims or states of belligerency. The 1973 hostilities were followed by Security Council Resolution 338, which inter alia called for peace negotiations between the parties concerned. In 1974 the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and to return. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and conferred on the PLO the status of observer in the Assembly and in UN conferences. Read more.


In 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter hosted the Camp David peace talks between Israel and Egypt, which produced two frameworks that would lay a foundation for future Mideast diplomacy. The first called for talks involving Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians about Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank. The second called for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which the two governments signed in 1979 at the White House. Though Jordan was also a party in the 1973 war, it did not join the talks, fearing condemnation from other Arab nations. A separate Israel-Jordan peace treaty was signed in 1994.


While the Soviet Union could through military aid and its diplomatic international clout greatly influence regional politics and hamper the peace process (as it did after Camp David and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty after l979), current Russian policies are premised on realizing the limits of Russian power and the narrowness of Moscow's policy options. After the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation under Clinton at Camp David in July 2000, Russian officials did occasionally mention that Russia, as a co-sponsor of the Madrid Peace Conference, should not be excluded from further efforts of peace-making, but no specific alternative proposals were ever raised. Russian spokesmen reiterated Moscow's commitment to solving the conflict through peaceful means and called on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations, yet no Russian initiative was ever launched. Putin himself insisted to Arafat, during his visit to Moscow after the failure of Camp David, not to declare Palestinian independence unilaterally and urged him to go back to the negotiating table.


Before the Arab Spring, except for Yemen, the countries in the Middle East and North Africa did not fit the profile of countries at risk for civil war. Following independence, most Arab states made substantial socioeconomic progress, nearly all of them achieved middle-income status, reduced extreme poverty and inequality, and improved access to basic services. Importantly, the Arab Spring protests were initially peaceful and drew broad-based support due to widespread dissatisfaction with the erosion in the living standards of the middle class, the shortage of formal sector jobs, and elite capture.


In conclusion, the Middle East region is nowadays considered to be one of the least stable areas in the world. The main factor contributing to this state of affairs is the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict has not been resolved so far. Despite the fact that both sides have repeatedly declared their willingness to resume peace talks, the criteria they set for each other make the negotiations still end in fiasco. All this makes the conflict a source of permanent tension in the region, as well as challenges and threats to the security of the involved parties. At the same time, tensions between the Arab and Jewish populations emerged even before the establishment of the Jewish state. However, the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli war is considered to be the day when the state of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948.


The 1967 armed contest was the third in a series of Arab-Israeli international wars. It was preceded by a conflict in 1948-49 in which Israel secured its independence by defeating invading armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq and suppressing internal resistance from indigenous Palestinian Arabs; and by an unsuccessful 1956 gambit by Israel, in collusion with Britain and France, to secure its southeastern border by invading Egypt and causing the downfall of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.


U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to resolve the mounting crisis by appealing to Nasser to rescind his moves against Israel, by cautioning Israel to rely on peaceful means to ensure its interests, and by organizing a multilateral Western initiative to break the Egyptian blockade through assertive means including naval force. These maneuvers faced numerous political and tactical obstacles, however, and they failed to dissuade Nasser from his confrontational approach or to deter Israel from escalating the hostilities.


The fifth round began for Israel in the form of a well-known intelligence failure. On 6 October, the Egyptian and Syrian armies staged a coordinated surprise attack on Israel.17 After a number of failed attempts at repulsing it, the IDF began a counter-attack that eventually resulted with cease-fire lines west of the Suez Canal about 100 km from Cairo, despite the fact that some Egyptian forces remained cut off to the east of these lines (like the Third Army, which was under siege in the northern Suez Canal). On the Syrian front, IDF cannons threatened Damascus from a distance of only 40 km.18 The disengagement agreements signed between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Syria stipulated the return of troops to their pre-war positions. The Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement laid the basis for the peace treaty of 1979. While the Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement has not served as the basis for a peace treaty, it has been consistently honored until today.


"The inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security, and the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; and the termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."


Economic distress in Jordan results in the overthrow of the Hashemite ruler by Islamist forces, which then leads to increased tensions with Israel and ultimately the abolition of the 1994 peace agreement. Infiltrations from Jordan oblige Israel to build an extensive fence to protect its eastern border.


The ability of the deployed Marine battalion in the Mediterranean-to respond quickly to a potentially dangerous situation was put to the test in the summer of 1958. On 14 July, a coup d'etat toppled a pro-Western government in Iraq and threatened the political stability in the Middle East. Fearing a threat from neighboring countries and the disintegration of his own nation which had been in turmoil for several months, President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon requested the landing of U.S. troops to preserve the peace. At the time of the Lebanese crisis, three Marine landing teams (BLTs 2/2, 3/6, and 1/8) were present in the eastern Mediterranean. Marine units in Lebanon were organized into the 2d Provisional Marine Force under Brigadier General (later Major General) Sidney S. Wade, Commanding General of Force Troops, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, who was designated on 15 July as Commander, American Land Forces, Lebanon. Air-transported elements of the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines began arriving 18 July at the Beirut International Airport from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 2ff7e9595c


0 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page