History of the Arab-Israeli conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a modern phenomenon, which dates back to the end of the 19th century. The conflict became a major international issue after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, and in various forms it continues to this day. The Arab-Israeli conflict has resulted in at least five major wars and a number of "minor conflicts". It has also been the source of two major Palestinian intifadas (uprisings) and is cited by al-Qaeda, a largely Arab organization, as one of the reasons for its conflict with the Western world.

[edit] Before 1947

Tensions between the Jews and Arabs started to emerge after the 1880s, when European Jews began to immigrate and augment Palestinian Jewish communities by buying land from Ottoman and individual Arab landholders, known as effendis, and establishing agricultural settlements in the historic lands of Judea and Israel, which were then part of the Ottoman empire. At the time, Arab Palestinians lived an almost feudal existence on the effendis' land in what was known as Palestine.^[1] The estimated Palestinian Arab population was estimated at "under 590,000, of whom 96 percent were Arabs (Muslim or Christian); roughly 4 percent of the population was Jewish" (Arab Jews or immigrants).^[2]

[edit] British Mandate (1917-1947)

1918. Emir Feisal I and Chaim Weizmann (left, also wearing Arab outfit as a sign of friendship).

During the time of the British Mandate, the Balfour Declaration, signed in 1917, stated that England supported the establishment of a "Jewish National Homeland" in Palestine. This exacerbated tensions between the Arabs living in Mandate Palestine and the Jews who emigrated there during the Ottoman period. Signed in January 1919, the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement promoted Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development of a Jewish National Homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East, though this event had little to no effect on the conflict.^[3]

In 1920, the Sanremo conference largely endorsed the 1916 Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement, allocating to Britain the area of present day Jordan, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and Iraq, while France received Syria and Lebanon. In 1922, the League of Nations formally established the British mandate for Palestine and Transjordan, at least partially fulfilling Britain's commitments from the 1915-1916 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence by assigning all of the land east of the Jordan River to the Emirate of Jordan, ruled by Hashemite King Abdullah but closely dependent on Britain, leaving the remainder west of the Jordan as the League of Nations British mandate of Palestine. While both the Jews and Palestinians felt that the British had made conflicting promises to give them the land, the British claimed they had never promised to give either side all of the land.

The Grand Mufti of Jurusulem, Amin al-Husayni, led opposition to the idea of turning part of Palestine into a Jewish state. He objected to any form of Jewish homeland. The Grand Mufti's opposition was fueled by his pro-Nazi political views and rabid anti-Zionism. He spent much of World War II in Germany and helped form a Muslim SS division. By the 1920s, tension had given way to violence, such as the Riots in Palestine of 1920, and Jaffa riots of 1921. To assuage the Arabs, and due to British inability to control Arab violence in the British Mandate any other way, the semi-autonomous Arab Emirate of Transjordan was created in all Palestinian territory east of the Jordan river (roughly 80% of the mandate).

The conflicting forces of Arab nationalism and the Zionist movement created a situation which the British could neither resolve nor extricate themselves from. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany created a new urgency in the Zionist movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine, and the evident intentions of the Zionists provoked increasingly fierce Arab resistance and attacks against the Jewish population (most notably in the preceding 1929 Hebron massacre, the activities of the Black Hand, and during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The response of the British government was to reinforce its police force, however many of the reinforcements were Arabs who supported and collaborated in the Great Arab Uprising. The Jewish leadership (Yishuv) "adopted a policy of restraint (havlaga) and static defense in response to Arab attacks."^[3]

In 1937, the British Royal Commission proposed the Peel Commission, which was a two-state solution that gave the Arabs control over all of the Negev, much of the present-day West Bank, and Gaza and gave the Jews control over Tel Aviv, Haifa, present-day northern Israel, and surrounding areas. The British were to maintain control over Jaffa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and surrounding areas. The Jews accepted the Peel Commission, but the Arabs rejected it while demanding "an end to Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews, calling for independence of Palestine as an independent Arab state."^[3]

Violence against both the British Mandate continued to mount throughout the 40s, with attacks by Irgun, assassination of British Mandate officials by Lehi, and the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.

[edit] War of 1948

Main article: 1948 Arab-Israeli War

May 15 - June 10

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known as the "Israeli War of Independence" or "al-Nakba" (The Disaster), 1948-1949, began after the November 1947 UN Partition Plan, which proposed the establishment of Arab and Jewish states in Palestine. The Arabs had rejected the plan while the Jews had accepted it. Arab militias had begun campaigns to control territory inside and outside the designated borders, and an open war between the two population emerged. Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi troops invaded Palestine subsequent to the British withdrawal and the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. Israel, the US, the Soviet Union, and UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie called this illegal aggression, while China broadly backed the Arab claims. The Arab states proclaimed their aim of a "United State of Palestine"^[4] in place of Israel and an Arab state. They considered the UN Plan to be invalid because it was opposed by Palestine's Arab majority, and claimed that the British withdrawal led to an absence of legal authority, making it necessary for them to protect Arab lives and property.^[5] About two thirds of Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories which came under Jewish control; the rest became Arab citizens of Israel. Practically all of the much smaller number of Jews in the territories captured by the Arabs, for example the Old City of Jerusalem, also fled or were expelled. The official United Nations estimate was that 711,000^[6] Arabs became refugees during the fighting.

See also: Palestinian exodus

The fighting ended with signing of the several Armistice Agreements in 1949 between Israel and its warring neighbors (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria), which formalized Israeli control of the area allotted to the Jewish state plus just over half of the area allotted to the Arab state. The Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan until June 1967 when they were seized by Israel during the Six-Day War.

[edit] Aftermath of the 1948 war

Comparison between partition plan and armistice lines

The 630,000-700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from the areas that became Israel were not allowed to return to their homes, and took up residence in refugee camps in surrounding countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the area that was later to be known as the Gaza Strip; they were usually not allowed to leave refugee camps and mix with the local Arab society either, leaving the Palestinian refugee problem unsolved even today. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established to alleviate their condition.^[3]

After the war, "[t]he Arab states insisted on two main demands," neither of which were accepted by Israel:

Israel should withdraw to the borders of the UN Partition Plan — Israel argued "that the new borders—which could be changed, under consent only—had been established as a result of war, and because the UN blueprint took no account of defense needs and was militarily untenable, there was no going back to that blueprint."
The Palestinian refugees deserve a full right of return back into Israel — Israel argued that this was "out of the question, not only because they were hostile to the Jewish state, but they would also fundamentally alter the Jewish character of the state."^[3]

Over the next two decades after the 1948 war ended, between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews fled the Arab countries they were living in, in many cases owing to anti-Jewish sentiment, expulsion (in the case of Egypt), or, in the case of Iraq, legal oppression; of this number, two thirds ended up in refugee camps in Israel, while the remainder migrated to France, the United States and other Western or Latin American countries. The Jewish refugee camps in Israel were evacuated with time and the refugees were eventually integrated in the Jewish Israeli society (which in fact consisted almost only of refugees from Arab and European states). Israel argued that this and the Palestinian exodus represented a population exchange between Arab nations and the Jewish nation.^[3]

Further information: Jewish exodus from Arab lands

For the nineteen years from the end of the Mandate until the Six-Day War, Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. In 1950, Jordan annexed the West Bank, but this annexation was recognized only by the United Kingdom. Both territories were conquered (but not annexed) from Jordan and Egypt by Israel in the Six-Day War. Neither Jordan nor Egypt allowed the creation of a Palestinian state in these territories. The effect this had on Israel during this period "were frequent border clashes ... terror and sabotage acts by individuals and small groups of Palestinian Arabs."^[3]

[edit] War of 1956

Main article: Suez Crisis

The 1956 Suez War was a joint Israeli-British-French operation, in which Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and British and French forces landed at the port of Suez, ostensibly to separate the warring parties, though the real motivation of the United Kingdom and France was to protect the interests of investors in those countries who were affected by Egyptian President Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. Israel justified its invasion of Egypt as an attempt to stop attacks (see the Fedayeen) upon Israeli civilians, and to restore Israeli shipping rights through the Straits of Tiran, which Egypt claimed was within its territorial waters. The invading forces agreed to withdraw under U.S. and international pressure, and Israel withdrew from the Sinai as well, in return for the installation of U.N. separation forces and guarantees of Israeli freedom of shipment. The canal was left in Egyptian (rather than British and French) hands.

[edit] Between 1956 and 1967

This period saw the rise of Nasserism; the founding of the United Arab Republic in 1958 and its collapse in 1961; Syrian plans for the diversion of water from the Jordan River; continued fedayeen raids, mostly from Syria and Jordan, and Israeli reprisals; and the increasing alignment of the Arab states with the Soviet Union, who became their largest arms supplier.

In 1964, the PLO was established by mostly Palestinian refugees mostly from Jordan.^[3] The Article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 [1] stated: "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area."

Pre-1967 war cartoon showing President Nasser of Egypt, backed by Arab states, kicks Israel into the Gulf of Aqaba. Al-Jarida newspaper, Lebanon (Oren, 2002)

[edit] War of 1967

Main article: Six-Day War

The fighting in the Six-Day War of 1967 began with a strike by Israel, which many consider preemptive, against Egypt and Syria following the breakdown of international diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis begun by the Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran on May 21-22, 1957 (thus "blocking all shipping to and from Eilat ... a casus belli" according to a possible interpretation of international law),^[3] expulsion of U.N. peacekeepers from the Sinai, stationing some 100,000 Egyptian troops at the peninsula, a public announcement by Nasser that he intended to destroy Israel [2], and a build up of troops along the Syrian border. Surprise Israeli air strikes destroyed the entire Egyptian air force while still on the ground. A subsequent ground invasion into Egyptian territory led to Israel's conquest of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. In spite of Israel's request to Jordan to desist from attacking it, both Jordan and Syria began to shell Israeli targets; Israel responded by capturing the West Bank from Jordan on June 7, and the Golan Heights from Syria on June 9.

Following the Six-Day War, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 242 which proposed a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The resolution was accepted by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, but rejected by Syria. To this day, Resolution 242 remains controversial due to conflicting interpretations over how much territory Israel would be required to withdraw from in order conform with the resolution. Also, after the war, Palestinian nationalism substantially increased. Armed resistance was encouraged from within the newly occupied territories and from the Arab nations that lost in the war.^[3]

[edit] War of 1968-1970

Main article: War of Attrition

The War of Attrition was a limited war fought between Egypt and Israel from 1968 to 1970. It was initiated by Egypt as a way to recapture the Sinai from Israel which had occupied it since the Six-Day War. The war ended with a cease-fire signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers at the same place as when the war started.

[edit] War of 1973

Main article: Yom Kippur War

When the cease fire came into effect, Israel had lost territory on the east side of the Suez Canal to Egypt (show in red) but gained territory west of the canal and in the Golan Heights (shown in green)

The 1973 Yom Kippur War began when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise joint attack, on the Jewish day of fasting, in the Sinai and Golan Heights. The Egyptians and Syrians advanced during the first 24–48 hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel's favor. By the second week of the war, the Syrians had been pushed entirely out of the Golan Heights. In the Sinai to the south, the Israelis had struck at the "hinge" between two invading Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (where the old cease-fire line had been), and cut off an entire Egyptian army just as a United Nations cease-fire came into effect. During this time, the United States airlifted military supplies to Israel while the Soviet Union airlifted military supplies to Egypt.^[3]

Israeli troops eventually withdrew from the west of the Canal and the Egyptians kept their positions on a narrow strip on the east allowing them to re-open the Suez Canal and claim victory. Israel clearly had the military victory over both Syria and Egypt, but it suffered a large blow to morale as well as substantial human casualties. The outcome of the Yom Kippur War set the stage for "a new phase in Israeli-Egyptian relations" ending ultimately in the signing of the Camp David Accords.^[3]

[edit] Operation Litani of 1978

Main article: Operation Litani

Operation Litani was the official name of Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon up to the Litani river. The invasion was a military success, as PLO forces were pushed north of the river. However, international outcry led to the creation of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force and a partial Israeli retreat.

[edit] War of 1982, following occupation

Main articles: 1982 Lebanon War and 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict

The 1982 Lebanon War began when Israel attacked Lebanon, justified by Israel as an attempt to remove the Fatah militants led by Yasser Arafat from Southern Lebanon (where they had established, during the country's civil war, a semi-independent enclave used to launch terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians). The invasion was widely criticized both in and outside Israel, especially after the Israeli-backed Christian militia's Sabra and Shatila massacre and ultimately led to the death of roughly 1,000 Palestinians. Although through the war, Israel succeeded in exiling the PLO military personnel, including Arafat to Tunisia, it became entangled with various local Muslim militias (particularly Hezbollah), which fought to end the Israeli occupation.

By 1985, Israel retreated from all but a narrow stretch of Lebanese territory designated by Israel as the Israeli Security Zone. UN Security Council Resolution 425 (calling on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon) was not completely fulfilled until that as of June 16, 2000.[3] Despite UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1583, Hezbollah continues active involvement in the conflict.

[edit] Intifada of 1987-1993

Main article: First Intifada

The First Intifada, 1987-1993, began as an uprising of Palestinians, particularly the young, against the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the failure of the PLO to achieve any kind of meaningful diplomatic solution to the Palestinian issue. The exiled PLO leadership in Tunisia quickly assumed a role in the intifada, but the uprising also brought a rise in the importance of Palestinian national and Islamic movements. The intifada was started by a group of young Palestinians who began throwing rocks at the Israeli occupying forces in Jabalia (Gaza Strip) in December 1987. In May 1989, the government of Yitzhak Shamir, the prime minister of Israel at the time, "suggested that violence cease, and that elections should be held in the West Bank and Gaza for a political delegation with whom Israel would come to terms regarding the implementation of Palestinian interim self-governing authority in these areas."^[3] These elections never materialized. The Intifada ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords by Israel and the PLO.

[edit] Gulf War of 1990-1991

Main article: Gulf War

The Gulf War, 1990-1991, began with the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait and did not initially involve direct military engagement with Israel. An international coalition led by the United States which included Arab forces was assembled to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. To draw Israel into the confrontation and fracture the multinational coalition, Iraq launched 39 Scud missiles on Israeli cities and on Israel's nuclear facilities near Dimona.^[3] However, under strong pressure from the U.S., which feared direct Israeli involvement would threaten the unity of the coalition, Israel did not retaliate against Iraq and the multinational coalition ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait. During the war, the Palestinian leadership and King Hussein of Jordan allied themselves with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Kuwait and other Gulf Arab monarchies then expelled just under 400,000 Palestinian refugees ([4]) and withdrew their support from the Palestinian cause, which was one of the factors leading to the PLO signing the Oslo Accords.

[edit] Oslo peace process (1993-2000)

Main article: Oslo Accords

In September 1993, then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) which "shaped the principles for a prospective process of the establishment of a five-year interim self-governing authority" in the Palestinian territories.^[3] In May 1994, the first stage of the DOP was implemented, Arafat arrived in the Gaza Strip, and financial aid started pouring in from the parts of the Western world and Japan. Unfortunately, "the new trend in Israeli-Palestinian relations also entailed a wave of violence by religious fanatics."^[3] In September 1996, after the opening of some ancient tunnels near the Temple Mount, a small wave of violence occurred. This frightened many Israelis into believing that "the new reality created by the Oslo Agreements, namely the presence of an armed police force of approximately 30,000 Palestinians, ... could easily shift from cooperation to hostility."^[3]

In October 1998, Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the Wye Memorandum which "called for the implementation of Israel's first and second redeployments according to the DOP in three phases."^[3] Shortly after, Netanyahu's government fell and the Labor Party (under Ehud Barak) won control of the Knesset. Barak's election campaign was mostly geared toward a lasting peace in the Middle East by further implementation of the Wye Memorandum and the Oslo Accord.

[edit] Intifada of 2000

Main article: al-Aqsa Intifada

The al-Aqsa Intifada began in late September, 2000, around the time Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon and a large contingent of armed bodyguards visited the Temple Mount/Al-Haram As-Sharif complex in Jerusalem and declared the area eternal Israeli territory. Widespread riots and attacks broke out among Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel in Jerusalem and many major Israeli cities, and spread throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority (PA) involvement in inciting the Intifada was handled by the Tanzim ("Organization), which was the secret armed branch of Arafat's Fatah party within the PLO. In January 2002, the "PA's direct involvement in the Intifada was confirmed ... when the IDF intercepted a cargo ship in the Red Sea carrying tons of rockets, mortars, and other weapons and ammunition from Iran, earmarked for smuggling into PA [Palestinian Authority] areas."^[3] In March 2002, just prior to the Arab Peace Initiative, suicide bombings committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians "intensified ... in buses restaurants, coffee shops, and other public places in Israel."^[3] An Israeli Human Rights group, B'Tselem, estimated the death toll to be 3,396 Palestinians and 994 Israelis [5], although this number is criticized for not showing the whole picture, and not differentiating between combatants and civilians (suicide bombers, for example, are counted in that death toll) [6] [7]. The Intifada also created "heavy economic losses to both sides" of the conflict.^[3]

[edit] Arab Peace Initiative of 2002

Main article: Arab Peace Initiative

In 2002, Saudi Arabia offered a peace plan in The New York Times and at a summit meeting of the Arab League in Beirut. The plan is based on, but goes beyond UN Security Council Resolution 242 and Resolution 338. It essentially calls for full withdrawal, solution of the refugee problem through the Palestinian "right of return," a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and that Israel "put its nuclear installations under international supervision" in return for fully normalized relations with the whole Arab world.^[3] This proposal received the unanimous backing of the Arab League for the first time.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said: "... the details of every peace plan must be discussed directly between Israel and the Palestinians, and to make this possible, the Palestinian Authority must put an end to terror, the horrifying expression of which we witnessed just last night in Netanya", referring to the Netanya suicide attack. [8]

In November 2005, the Bush administration acknowledged that Saudi Arabia has renewed funding to Hamas and other Palestinian insurgency groups. [9]

[edit] Israel's Disengagement of 2005

Main article: Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

In 2005 Israel unilaterally evacuated settlements, and military outposts from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank.

The Disengagement Plan was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government and enacted in August 2005, to remove permanent Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank. The civilians were evacuated (many forcibly) and the residential buildings demolished after August 15, and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip was completed on September 12, 2005, when the last Israeli soldier left the Gaza strip. The military disengagement from the northern West Bank was completed ten days later.

[edit] Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006

Main article: 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

The 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis began on July 12, 2006, with an attack by Hezbollah on Israel. Three Israeli soldiers were killed, and two were kidnapped and taken prisoner into Lebanon. In a search and rescue operation to return the captured soldiers, a further five Israeli Defense Forces troops were killed. It marked the beginning of a new wave of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah which saw the Lebanese capital, the sole Lebanese international Airport, and much of southern Lebanon attacked by Israelis while Lebanese militias, presumeably Hezbollah, have bombarded northern Israel, striking as far south as the Israeli city of Haifa. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, with 90% of the Lebanese casualties of Israeli airstrikes being civilians. Fears were growing that the situation may deteriorate further, with the possibility of either Syria or Iran becoming involved. But a ceasefire was signed and went into effect 14th August.

[edit] Abbreviated timeline

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924 - 1939 by Kenneth W. Stein. Middle Eastern Studies. April 1984. Volume 20 Number 2, pp. 190-205
^ Donner, Fred M. Princeton Alumni Weekly: Letter Box. Princeton University. 26 June 2003. 15 October 2004.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v Sela, Avraham. "Arab-Israeli Conflict." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 58-121.
^ Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations May 15, 1948, at Wikisource. Accessed March 22, 2006.
^ [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/d442111e70e417e3802564740045a309?OpenDocument The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988, PART II, 1947-1977], United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine(UNISPAL), June 20, 1990, ST/SG/SER.F/1
^ General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950, published by the United Nations Concilation Commission, October 23, 1950. (U.N. General Assembly Official Records, 5th Session, Supplement No. 18, Document A/1367/Rev. 1). The Committee believed the estimate to be "as accurate as circumstances permit," and attributed the higher number on relief to, among other things, "duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute."