Arab-Israeli Conflict

I

Introduction

Arab-Israeli Conflict, conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East over the land of historic Palestine. The conflict has led to several wars, beginning in 1948, among Arab nations, Palestinian refugees, and the state of Israel. Since 1979 several peace accords have been signed, addressing parts of the conflict.

II

Origins of Zionism and the Arab-Jewish Conflict

Throughout recorded history the region of Palestine, located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was conquered many times by invaders. Among these were the Jewish people, who were subsequently expelled by the Romans in ad 135 but maintained the idea of regaining control of the area, which they considered home. In the 1890s Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist living in Austria, advocated re-establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Herzl believed Zionism (the reuniting of Jewish people in Palestine) would match “a people without a land with a land without a people”.

Palestine was already inhabited, however. The countryside was home to Arabs, most of them Muslims, while the larger towns contained both Arabs and Jews. Some of the Jews were long established there, while others were religious pilgrims from Europe who had moved to the region to live near the holy sites in Jerusalem and other cities. (Because the vast majority of Palestinians were Muslim Arabs, the term Palestinians now usually refers only to them, not to the Jews of Palestine. Most Palestinians are Muslims.) The land was part of the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottomans saw little of value in Palestine and neglected the area. Consequently, poverty, disease, and malnutrition were widespread. Nonetheless, the area served as a land corridor between Europe, Asia, and Africa and thus had strategic importance. It was also near the Suez Canal, which, when opened in Egypt in 1869, connected the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. Palestine was therefore important to the British, who occupied Egypt in 1882 and depended on control of the canal for their trading links with their empire, in particular with India.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Zionist movement gained strength in Europe, and large numbers of Jews migrated to Palestine. The movement focused on self-reliance through agriculture, and many immigrants settled in the countryside. To do so, Jews had to buy land from local Arab holders of small tracts and from absentee Arab landlords of large areas. As a result, Jews and Arabs came into increasing contact; at times, Jewish purchases led to the displacement of Arab peasants from the land. Although the Ottoman government sought to slow the Zionist movement, Jews established a significant and expanded presence. Their success furthered the world debate about whether and how to establish a Jewish homeland, and it also created apprehension among Arabs.

III

The British Mandate

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, control of Palestine shifted from Muslim to Western powers. In return for their help in the war Britain had promised autonomy to both Zionists and Arabs. In a series of letters known as the Husein-McMahon Correspondence (between Husein ibn Ali of Mecca, who ruled Arabs in the Al Ḩijāz on the Arabian Peninsula, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt), the Arabs were promised the right to a new Arab nation in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire. The promise to the Jews came in the form of the Balfour Declaration, named after Lord Arthur Balfour. Issued by the British in 1917, it read:

The British were not troubled by potential contradictions between the Husein-McMahon Correspondence and the Balfour Declaration. They explained that they had not promised all the land of the Ottomans to either the Arabs or the Jews; they had merely promised parts of it to each group. The British did not elaborate on what would happen if both groups wanted the same land. Following the war, Britain sought and received a mandate from the League of Nations to rule Palestine and develop it according to the premise of the Balfour Declaration.

In 1922 the British separated Palestine into two territories: land east of the Jordan River became the Emirate of Transjordan (now Jordan); land to the west, from Lebanon and Syria in the north to Egypt in the south, remained Palestine. It was in this limited territory that Zionists clashed with Palestinian Arab nationalists. Both Jews and Arabs conducted terrorist attacks and intermittent, low-level warfare. Both groups resisted the British, particularly when a British policy was believed to benefit one side over the other. The struggle was reflected in political efforts to control land, institutions, and the economy.

Initially, Britain took several steps to aid the Arab side. For example, before World War II the British did not allow large numbers of Jews to move to Palestine from Europe, where they were often persecuted. Nonetheless, Zionists gradually gained the upper hand through steady land purchases and slow but continual immigration. After World War II the world became aware of the murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust, and opinion began to favour creating an independent Jewish state. Arabs in Palestine and elsewhere continued to resist the idea, but on November 29, 1947, the United Nations (UN) passed Resolution 181, which called for a partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. The Jews accepted the resolution, but the Arabs opposed it. On May 14, 1948, the British mandate was terminated and at midnight the Jewish state of Israel declared its independence. The new state came under immediate attack from the Palestinian population and Arabs of the surrounding countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.

IV

The Arab-Israeli War of 1948

In the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 Arab forces (including the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as well as Palestinian guerrillas) had expected an easy victory over the small and isolated Jewish state, but despite heavy casualties Israel survived. Israel also increased the land under its control beyond that it had been given by the partition plan. The region just west of the Jordan River known as the West Bank came under the control of Transjordan. Egypt gained control of the Gaza Strip, a small region bordering the southern end of Israel’s Mediterranean coast. The demoralized Arab world was unwilling to accept the Israeli victory, and shortly after the war the Arabs began to regroup for more fighting. The war had also created a large population of Palestinian Arab refugees who fled Israel for camps maintained by the UN in neighbouring Arab states. With the exception of Jordan, Arab countries generally refused to allow Palestinians to settle outside the camps or to be granted citizenship. As a result, the conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs continued to fester.

In the mid-1950s the Egyptian government began to support Palestinian guerrilla raids into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Egypt also refused to allow Israeli ships to use the Suez Canal and in 1951 blockaded the Strait of Tiran (Israel’s access to the Red Sea), which Israel regarded as an act of war. In June 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been jointly owned by Britain and France (see Suez Crisis). In late October, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, defeating Egyptian forces there. Britain and France attacked Egypt a few days later. Although the fighting was brief and Israel eventually withdrew from the Sinai and Gaza, the conflict further exacerbated regional tensions.