Conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours started as soon as the United Nations gave the State of Israel official existence in 1948. Since then there have been three major wars, in 1956, 1967 and 1973, and a massive military intervention in Lebanon in 1982. More accurately though, there has never been a period of total peace between Israel and its neighbours since 1948, because guerrilla attacks by Palestinian groups and Israeli military strikes have been endemic. The original war in 1948 principally involved armed forces from Transjordan (which became Jordan in 1949), although troops from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria were also present, fighting a hastily-created Israeli military largely based on the kibbutz movement and the irregular armed movement that had been fighting the British (which had held a Mandate to administer Palestine since 1923). Israel extended its borders beyond those fixed by the UN as a result of this war, while the West Bank came under Jordanian control and Jerusalem was partitioned between Arab and Israeli control.
The next war, in 1956, was an invasion by Israeli forces in which they captured the Sinai peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt. This war was fought as a result of a secret alliance with Britain and France, who wanted an opportunity to humiliate Egypt to force the country’s president, Gamal Abd an-Nasser, to reverse the nationalization of the Suez Canal which had taken place earlier in the year. Israel had withdrawn from all territories occupied by early 1957, and the diplomatic losers of these incidents were clearly Israel, France and Britain, whose prime minister, Anthony Eden, was eventually obliged to resign.
In 1967 Israel was aware of an impending attack by Egypt, to be assisted by Jordan, Iraq and Syria, and won a brilliant and total victory in only six days (consequently the fighting is known as the ‘Six-Day War’), largely because they launched a pre-emptive attack on the Arab air forces, effectively removing the ability of Egypt and Jordan to provide air cover for their ground troops. Israel took control of the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and, finally, the whole of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.
The 1973 ‘Yom Kippur’ war, when Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria, was vastly different. To start with the Egyptians and Syrians achieved tactical surprise, and the attacking Arab forces were much better trained and equipped. The Israelis did finally repulse the attacks, but at great cost, and in a way that showed they could not expect easy victories in the future. The cease-fire was followed by extensive peace negotiations, led by the USA, and finally a formal peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979; this, however, led to Egypt being shunned elsewhere in the Arab world.
The wars were essentially caused by the unwillingness of Israel’s neighbours to accept its legitimacy as a state at all, and were only made possible by massive military aid to Israel from the USA and to the Arab states from the Soviet Union. The basic principle of Israel’s right to existence and within which borders, together with its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and elsewhere, remain the main areas of conflict. It is improbable, however, that any further major wars will be fought between Arabs and Israelis, particularly as the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union has left US influence in the Middle East essentially unchallenged. This was demonstrated when Iraq tried, by attacking Israel with missiles during the Gulf War, to raise the anti-Israel standard again, and the Arab members of the US-led United Nations action stayed loyal to the alliance. However, continual conflict with Palestinian movements (see PLO), will continue until a lasting settlement of these areas of dispute is achieved. Even the creation of a Palestinian National Authority in 1994, and the restricted independence given to parts of historic Palestine thereafter, has not brought peace. Continuing violence from militant Palestinian Islamist movements, and conflict over the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, have ensured that a state of tension amounting to near war continues in the area.
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