Arab-Israeli Wars Essay, Research Paper

Arab-Israeli Wars

Essay written by Unknown

Since the United Nations partition of PALESTINE in 1947 and the

establishment of the modern state of ISRAEL in 1948, there have been

four major Arab-Israeli wars (1947-49, 1956, 1967, and 1973) and

numerous intermittent battles. Although Egypt and Israel signed a

peace treaty in 1979, hostility between Israel and the rest of its Arab

neighbors, complicated by the demands of Palestinian Arabs,

continued into the 1980s.

THE FIRST PALESTINE WAR (1947-49)

The first war began as a civil conflict between Palestinian Jews and

Arabs following the United Nations recommendation of Nov. 29, 1947,

to partition Palestine, then still under British mandate, into an Arab

state and a Jewish state. Fighting quickly spread as Arab guerrillas

attacked Jewish settlements and communication links to prevent

implementation of the UN plan.

Jewish forces prevented seizure of most settlements, but Arab

guerrillas, supported by the Transjordanian Arab Legion under the

command of British officers, besieged Jerusalem. By April, Haganah,

the principal Jewish military group, seized the offensive, scoring

victories against the Arab Liberation Army in northern Palestine, Jaffa,

and Jerusalem. British military forces withdrew to Haifa; although

officially neutral, some commanders assisted one side or the other.

After the British had departed and the state of Israel had been

established on May 15, 1948, under the premiership of David

BEN-GURION, the Palestine Arab forces and foreign volunteers were

joined by regular armies of Transjordan (now the kingdom of JORDAN),

IRAQ, LEBANON, and SYRIA, with token support from SAUDI ARABIA.

Efforts by the UN to halt the fighting were unsuccessful until June 11,

when a 4-week truce was declared. When the Arab states refused to

renew the truce, ten more days of fighting erupted. In that time Israel

greatly extended the area under its control and broke the siege of

Jerusalem. Fighting on a smaller scale continued during the second UN

truce beginning in mid-July, and Israel acquired more territory,

especially in Galilee and the Negev. By January 1949, when the last

battles ended, Israel had extended its frontiers by about 5,000 sq km

(1,930 sq mi) beyond the 15,500 sq km (4,983 sq mi) allocated to the

Jewish state in the UN partition resolution. It had also secured its

independence. During 1949, armistice agreements were signed under

UN auspices between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

The armistice frontiers were unofficial boundaries until 1967.

SUEZ-SINAI WAR (1956)

Border conflicts between Israel and the Arabs continued despite

provisions in the 1949 armistice agreements for peace negotiations.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs who had left Israeli-held

territory during the first war concentrated in refugee camps along

Israel’s frontiers and became a major source of friction when they

infiltrated back to their homes or attacked Israeli border settlements.

A major tension point was the Egyptian-controlled GAZA STRIP, which

was used by Arab guerrillas for raids into southern Israel. Egypt’s

blockade of Israeli shipping in the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba

intensified the hostilities.

These escalating tensions converged with the SUEZ CRISIS caused by

the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egyptian president Gamal

NASSER. Great Britain and France strenuously objected to Nasser’s

policies, and a joint military campaign was planned against Egypt with

the understanding that Israel would take the initiative by seizing the

Sinai Peninsula. The war began on Oct. 29, 1956, after an

announcement that the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were to be

integrated under the Egyptian commander in chief. Israel’s Operation

Kadesh, commanded by Moshe DAYAN, lasted less than a week; its

forces reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in about 100

hours, seizing the Gaza Strip and nearly all the Sinai Peninsula. The

Sinai operations were supplemented by an Anglo-French invasion of

Egypt on November 5, giving the allies control of the northern sector

of the Suez Canal.

The war was halted by a UN General Assembly resolution calling for an

immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of all occupying forces from

Egyptian territory. The General Assembly also established a United

Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to replace the allied troops on the

Egyptian side of the borders in Suez, Sinai, and Gaza. By December 22

the last British and French troops had left Egypt. Israel, however,

delayed withdrawal, insisting that it receive security guarantees

against further Egyptian attack. After several additional UN resolutions

calling for withdrawal and after pressure from the United States,

Israel’s forces left in March 1957.

SIX-DAY WAR (1967)

Relations between Israel and Egypt remained fairly stable in the

following decade. The Suez Canal remained closed to Israeli shipping,

the Arab boycott of Israel was maintained, and periodic border

clashes occurred between Israel, Syria, and Jordan. However, UNEF

prevented direct military encounters between Egypt and Israel.

By 1967 the Arab confrontation states-Egypt, Syria, and

Jordan-became impatient with the status quo, the propaganda war

with Israel escalated, and border incidents increased dangerously.

Tensions culminated in May when Egyptian forces were massed in

Sinai, and Cairo ordered the UNEF to leave Sinai and Gaza. President

Nasser also announced that the Gulf of Aqaba would be closed again

to Israeli shipping. At the end of May, Egypt and Jordan signed a new

defense pact placing Jordan’s armed forces under Egyptian command.

Efforts to de-escalate the crisis were of no avail. Israeli and Egyptian

leaders visited the United States, but President Lyndon Johnson’s

attempts to persuade Western powers to guarantee free passage

through the Gulf failed.

Believing that war was inevitable, Israeli Premier Levi ESHKOL, Minister

of Defense Moshe Dayan, and Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak RABIN

approved preemptive Israeli strikes at Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and

Iraqi airfields on June 5, 1967. By the evening of June 6, Israel had

destroyed the combat effectiveness of the major Arab air forces,

destroying more than 400 planes and losing only 26 of its own. Israel

also swept into Sinai, reaching the Suez Canal and occupying most of

the peninsula in less than four days.

King HUSSEIN of Jordon rejected an offer of neutrality and opened fire

on Israeli forces in Jerusalem on June 5. But a lightning Israeli

campaign placed all of Arab Jerusalem and the Jordanian West Bank in

Israeli hands by June 8. As the war ended on the Jordanian and

Egyptian fronts, Israel opened an attack on Syria in the north. In a

little more than two days of fierce fighting, Syrian forces were driven

from the Golan Heights, from which they had shelled Jewish

settlements across the border. The Six-Day War ended on June 10

when the UN negotiated cease-fire agreements on all fronts.

The Six-Day War increased severalfold the area under Israel’s control.

Through the occupation of Sinai, Gaza, Arab Jerusalem, the West

Bank, and Golan Heights, Israel shortened its land frontiers with Egypt

and Jordan, removed the most heavily populated Jewish areas from

direct Arab artillery range, and temporarily increased its strategic

advantages.

OCTOBER WAR (1973)

Israel was the dominant military power in the region for the next six

years. Led by Golda MEIR from 1969, it was generally satisfied with

the status quo, but Arab impatience mounted. Between 1967 and

1973, Arab leaders repeatedly warned that they would not accept

continued Israeli occupation of the lands lost in 1967.

After Anwar al-SADAT succeeded Nasser as president of Egypt in

1970, threats about “the year of decision” were more frequent, as

was periodic massing of troops along the Suez Canal. Egyptian and

Syrian forces underwent massive rearmament with the most

sophisticated Soviet equipment. Sadat consolidated war preparations

in secret agreements with President Hafez al-ASSAD of Syria for a

joint attack and with King FAISAL of Saudi Arabia to finance the

operations.

Egypt and Syria attacked on Oct. 6, 1973, pushing Israeli forces

several miles behind the 1967 cease-fire lines. Israel was thrown off

guard, partly because the attack came on Yom Kippur (the Day of

Atonement), the most sacred Jewish religious day (coinciding with the

Muslim fast of Ramadan). Although Israel recovered from the initial

setback, it failed to regain all the territory lost in the first days of

fighting. In counterattacks on the Egyptian front, Israel seized a

major bridgehead behind the Egyptian lines on the west bank of the

canal. In the north, Israel drove a wedge into the Syrian lines, giving

it a foothold a few miles west of Damascus.

After 18 days of fighting in the longest Arab-Israeli war since 1948,

hostilities were again halted by the UN. The costs were the greatest

in any battles fought since World War II. The Arabs lost some 2,000

tanks and more than 500 planes; the Israelis, 804 tanks and 114

planes. The 3-week war cost Egypt and Israel about $7 billion each, in

material and losses from declining industrial production or damage.

The political phase of the 1973 war ended with disengagement

agreements accepted by Israel, Egypt, and Syria after negotiations in

1974 and 1975 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. KISSINGER. The

agreements provided for Egyptian reoccupation of a strip of land in

Sinai along the east bank of the Suez Canal and for Syrian control of

a small area around the Golan Heights town of Kuneitra. UN forces

were stationed on both fronts to oversee observance of the

agreements, which reestablished a political balance between Israel

and the Arab confrontation states.

Under the terms of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed on Mar.

26, 1979, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt. Hopes for an

expansion of the peace process to include other Arab nations waned,

however, when Egypt and Israel were subsequently unable to agree

on a formula for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the 1980s regional tensions were increased by the activities of

militant Palestinians and other Arab extremists and by several Israeli

actions. The latter included the formal proclamation of the entire city

of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital (1980), the annexation of the Golan

Heights (1981), the invasion of southern Lebanon (1982), and the

continued expansion of Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

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