The Israeli-Arab Wars

A popular and most recent debate has been whether Israel should exist as a state. Currently, Israel is the only country in the world that has a relatively extensive Jewish population. More recently, Israel has been combatting against Palestinian soldiers in Gaza to prevent attacks on Israel coming from the Palestinian Government. This war has gone on for quite some time now; for years, actually. But how did this conflict develop? It certainly didn’t happen overnight.

“The problem is, simply put, a dispute over real estate” (Gelvin 3). This conflict has resulted in major wars during the period of time following World War II. The 1948-1949 Arab Israeli war began when Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Palestine. The second war that occurred, was the 1956 Suez Canal War, at the end of this war Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip

Zionists and Palestinian Arabs wanted individual nations and both felt they had a claim to Palestine. Shortly after in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGAR) called for a partition, which divided the country so that each state would have a majority of its own population. This divide meant that some of the Jewish settlements would fall within the proposed Arab state while an extremely large number of Palestinian Arabs would become part of the proposed Jewish state. (Beinin and Hajjar 2014). A year later in May, Israel unilaterally declared their independence and the State of Israel was established. This of course started a war, and neighboring Arab states invaded Israel almost immediately. During this war about 750,000 Arab Palestinians fled to Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. (http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/%E2%80%9Cpalestine-refugees-unresolved-question-time-syria-crisis%E2%80%9D) Also during this fight, Israel expanded its borders far beyond the UN partition lines, leaving Egypt to take hold of the Gaza Strip & Jordan to control the West

(History of Zionism Web). “The success of Zionism has meant that the percentage of the world's Jewish population who live in Israel has steadily grown over the years and today 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel. There is no other example in human history of a nation being reestablished after such a long period of existence as a diaspora.”(History of Zionism) That diaspora was cause by anti-Semitism and persecution, but the Jews managed to still thrive. Even with the creation of their own state there are still problems among them. “The 1967 war between Israel and the Arab states (the "Six-Day War") marked a major turning point in the history of both Israel and of Zionism. Israeli forces captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple.” (History of Zionism Web) The Palestinians and the Jews fought for power over the state. The Zionist pursued and gain most land in Israel. They were not going to let their promised land go. They took power over the Gaza strip, Golan Heights and West Bank. In 1968 the “Jerusalem Program” was established as the start of modern

The United States has engaged in numerous international interventions in the Middle East. The two major events that have shaped the politics of U.S. foreign policy, Israel, and the Arab states are the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Six Day War of 1967. President Eisenhower and President Johnson each took different approaches while confronting these crises. The personalities, motives and predispositions of the Presidents and their circle of closest advisors explain how they shaped their policies and how they responded to the events. The decisions these Presidents made have had a long-lasting effect on the region. Over the course of this paper, I will compare Eisenhower’s policies in the 1956 Suez Crisis and Johnson’s policies in the 1967 Six

There are lots of debates concerning the causes that gave birth to this endless conflict; some believe that religion has been the main reason of the dispute due to the importance of the holy city of Jerusalem for both Islamism and Judaism. Others believe that it has been caused by the Western colonialism, which has favoured the self-determination of the Zionists by denying the self-determination of the Arabs of Palestine. Others even think it is an ethnic dimension that has led the two populations to the war.

The Yom kippur war of 1973 was a short but powerful war that proved to the Israelis that the Egyptians are stronger than once perceived to be. Although Sadat did not regain all of the territory that was lost during the Six-Day war, he got his point across to the Israelis that he is able to put up a good fight against them. The Yom Kippur war not only shook the confidence of the Israeli government, but also led to a peace treaty between the arabs and the Israelis(Browne). This was just one step towards peace in the Middle East, but it could eventually help to end all disagreement in the Middle

The Yom Kippur war (מלחמת יום כיפור) started on October sixth, 1973 when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal in concert with Syrian allies attacking Israel from the north (Dayan, 1976, p. 24). Israeli Defense Forces responded, defeating and eventually chasing the Egyptians back across the Sinai and the Suez Canal. Israel upon threatening the direct military control of a strategic chokepoint, the Suez Canal; drew immediate response from Russian military forces. What had been the defense of Israel’s homeland, resulting from an unprovoked attack, in a regional conflict – suddenly elicited superpower intervention.

Since the last shots were fired on June 11, 1967, countless writers, journalists, scholars, and politicians, have attempted to decode the complex circumstances that brought about the six-day war, which radically changed the Arab-Israeli relationship forever. A myriad of explanations of the different aspects of the war have been offered in an attempt to uncover the events that resulted in Israel’s greatest military victory they would ever achieve, and the greatest humiliation the Arabs would ever suffer, in their more than one hundred years of intractable conflict. In recent years, professional historians have also joined the investigation. Since forty nine years have passed, archives relevant to the period have been uncovered and many of the

Following the Six-Day war of 1967, it was clear peace treaties needed to be established. The Arabs refused to agree to these peace treaties, so the tension was left hanging in the air. In the view of the Israelis, the post-war state was just fine, but the Egyptians and Syrians saw the need for war (Tal). The Arabs and Israelis reached a stalemate

On May 14 1948, Israel declared its independence as a new state. A war that officially lasted approximately 19 months ended with the Israelis’ victorious and proud owners of a legal Jewish homeland. Despite the fact that there is a vast array of sources, especially with the opening of the Israeli and foreign archives, they are all immeasurably biased and all tend to have opposing opinions one nearly every aspect of both the Arab-Israeli conflict and War. A number of factors led to this outcome namely foreign involvement, military strength, impetus, leadership, and the lack of timing and preparation of the invading states. “The first war began as a civil conflict between Palestinian Jews and Arabs following the United Nations recommendation

The War of 1948, also known as the War of Independence, was fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The war began May 15, 1948 when units from the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq invaded Israel launching a war that lasted until December 1948.# The war resulted in the defeat of the Arab forces and the success of Israel as a newly established state. It is evident that the Arab forces were not successful in the first Arab-Israeli war because the Arab army lacked motivation, education, and proper equipment.# Despite the support from Arab states outside of Palestine, the Arabs were unable to gain enough strength to overcome the Israeli forces. In contrast, the Israeli army was able to succeed because they had

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is just one of the many facets that have shaped modern day politics in the Middle East. It is a conflict rooted in generations of violence, discrimination and prejudice that is complicated by a history older than any of the modern day superpowers. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel by the 1947 UN partition of Palestine

Between the period of 1948 and 1973 there was quite a bit of animosity and conflict between the Arab world and Israeli’s. This was caused by a struggle for land in the state of what was known as Palestine but to many it is now known as Israel. This conflict in the Middle East caused many wars between Israel and its surrounding Arab states. At the same time both USA and the USSR were trying to spread their ideologies and get a foothold in the Middle East because of strategic position, they would have access to the Indian and Mediterranean Oceans through the Suez Canal. They would also gain a resource advantage of oil as the Middle East is rich in oil. The involvement of these Superpowers was not the initial cause of the conflict it did “add fuel to the fire”. However the USSR and USA did not engage in any of this conflict because they did not partake in any of the wars by sending no troops what so ever so it could be said that they had little if any involvement in the conflict happening in the Middle East.

the conflict in the middle east between 1948-1973 was not purely fuelled by the interest and concerns of the superpowers but rather of a series of conflictual incidents, aswell as the main wars that took place from the years from 1948-1967 such as the: 1948 War, The Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. But although the conflict was not fuelled by the superpowers, the influence of the superpowers and the reach of the superpowers into the Middle East was evident in the years both prior and following 1978. But even despite the influence and interests of the superpowers between and including 1948-1967 being undeniably evident, the extent of this influence cannot be said to have “fuelled the conflict”.