Arab-Israeli conflict edit extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (using Wikipedia Reflection Script)

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Arab-Israeli conflict
Israel and members of the Arab League
Arab League	Israel
Have been at war with Israel	Gaza Strip and West Bank
Date Early 20th century-present Location Middle East Result Ongoing
Belligerents
Arab nations	Israel
Arab-Israeli conflict series History of the Arab-Israeli conflict Views of the Arab-Israeli conflict Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict Arab-Israeli conflict facts, figures, and statistics Participants Israeli-Palestinian conflict · Israel-Lebanon conflict · Arab League · Soviet Union / Russia · Israel, Palestine and the United Nations · Iran-Israel relations · Israel-United States relations · Boycott of Israel Peace treaties and proposals Israel-Egypt · Israel-Jordan

v • d • e Arab-Israeli conflict 1920 Palestine riots – 1921 in Jaffa – 1929 Palestine riots – Arab revolt (1936–1939) – Civil War (1947–1948) – Arab-Israeli War (1948–1949) – Suez Crisis (1956) – Six-Day War (1967) – War of Attrition (1968–1970) – Yom Kippur War (1973) – South Lebanon conflict (1978) – Lebanon War (1982) – South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000) – First Intifada (1987–1991) – Gulf War (1990–1991) – Second Intifada (since 2000) – Lebanon War (2006) – Israel–Gaza conflict (2008–2009)

The Arab–Israeli conflict (Arabic: الصراع العربي الإسرائيلي‎ Aṣ-Ṣirāʿ al-ʿArabī al-'Isrā'īlī, Hebrew: הסכסוך הישראלי ערבי‎) spans roughly one century of political tensions and open hostilities, though Israel itself only was established 60 years ago. It involves the establishment of the Zionist movement and the subsequent creation of the modern State of Israel in territory regarded by the Pan-Arab movement as belonging to the Palestinians, be they Muslim, Christian, Druze or other (and in the Pan-Islamic context, in territory regarded as Muslim lands), and by the Jewish people as their historical homeland.

The conflict, which started as a political conflict over territorial ambitions following the decimation of the Ottoman Empire, has shifted over the years from the large scale Arab-Israeli conflict to a more regional Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though the Arab World and Israel generally remain at odds with each other over territory.

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History of the conflict

Main article: History of the Arab-Israeli conflict

End of 19th century-1948

Before World War I, the Middle East, including Palestine, had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years. During the closing years of their empire the Ottomans began to espouse their Turkish ethnic identity, asserting the primacy of Turks within the empire, leading to discrimination against the Arabs.¹ The promise of liberation from the Ottomans led many Jews and Arabs to support the allied powers during World War I, leading to the emergence of widespread Arab nationalism.² During this time tensions between the native Arab population of Palestine and the small, but growing, Jewish population in the area had begun to increase. For details, see Aliyah, First Aliyah, Second Aliyah.

The British Government was favorable to the establishment in the Holy Land of a national home for the Jewish people as stated under the Balfour Declaration of 1917.³

After World War I the area came under British rule as the British mandate of Palestine. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased. This, together with the worsening world wide economic situation and other internal factors, led to a large Arab immigration to the region and further increased tensions in the region.⁴⁵ By 1931, 17 percent of the population of Palestine were Jews, an increase of six percent since 1922.⁶ Jewish immigration increased soon after the Nazis came to power in Germany, causing the Jewish population in Palestine to double.⁷ Palestinian Arabs saw this rapid influx of Jewish immigrants as a threat to their homeland and their identity as a people. Moreover, Jewish policies of purchasing land and prohibiting the employment of Arabs in Jewish owned industries and farms greatly angered the Palestinian Arab communities.⁸ Demonstrations were held as early as 1920, protesting what the Arabs felt were unfair preferences for the Jewish immigrants set forth by the British mandate that governed Palestine at the time. This resentment led to the harassment and persecution of Jews. In August of 1929, Arabs murdered 67 Jews in the city of Hebron, in what became known as the Hebron Massacre. By 1936, escalating tensions led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.⁹

In response to Arab pressure, the British Mandate authorities greatly reduced the number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine (see White Paper of 1939 and the Exodus ship). These restrictions remained in place until the end of the mandate, a period which coincided with the Nazi Holocaust and the flight of Jewish refugees from Europe. As a consequence, most Jewish entrants to Palestine were illegal (see Aliyah Bet), causing further tensions in the region. Following several failed attempts to solve the problem diplomatically, the British asked the newly formed United Nations for help. On 15 May 1947 the UN appointed a committee, the UNSCOP, composed of representatives from eleven states. To make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented.¹⁰ After five weeks of in-country study, the commission recommended creating a partitioned state with separate territories for the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine . This "two state solution" was accepted with resolution 181 by the UN General Assembly in November 1947 by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. The Arab states, which constituted the Arab League, voted against. On the ground, Arab and Jewish Palestinians were fighting openly to control strategic positions in the region. Several major atrocities were committed by both sides.¹¹

The main differences between the 1947 partition proposal and 1949 armistice lines are highlighted in light red and magenta

On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, Israel declared its independence and sovereignty on the portion partitioned by UNSCOP for the Jewish state. The next day, the Arab League reiterated officially their opposition to the "two-state solution" in a letter to the UN.¹² That day, the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq invaded the territory partitioned for the Arab state, thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The nascent Israeli Defense Force repulsed the Arab nations from part of the occupied territories, thus extending its borders beyond the original UNSCOP partition.¹³ By December of 1948, Israel controlled most of the portion of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River. The remainder of the Mandate consisted of Jordan, the area that came to be called the West Bank (controlled by Jordan), and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). Prior to and during this conflict, 711,000¹⁴ Palestinians Arabs fled their original lands to become Palestinian refugees, in part, due to several atrocities committed by the Israeli forces.¹⁵ The War came to an end with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and each of its Arab neighbours. This 1949 armistice line, the so-called green line, is to this day the internationally-recognized border of the state of Israel. It is often referred to as the "pre-1967" border.

1949-1967

Following the adoption by the United Nations of Resolution 181 in November 1947 and the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948, several Arab countries adopted discriminatory measures against their local Jewish populations.¹⁶¹⁷ There were riots in Yemen and Syria. In Libya, Jews were deprived of citizenship, and in Iraq, their property was seized.¹⁸ As a result, a large number of Jews were forced to emigrate from Arab lands, although many also emigrated for ideological reasons.¹⁹ Over 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1952, with approximately 285,000 of them from Arab countries.²⁰¹⁹ Overall, about 850,000 Jews had left the Arab World by the early 1970s (according to official Arab documentation), with many of them leaving their property behind.²¹ Today, these displaced Jews and their descendants represent 41% of the total population of Israel. For details, see Jewish exodus from Arab lands.

In 1956, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, in contravention of the Constantinople Convention of 1888. Many argued that this was also a violation of the 1949 Armistice Agreements.²²²³ On July 26, 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company, and closed the canal to Israeli shipping.²⁴

Israel responded on October 29, 1956, by invading the Sinai Peninsula with British and French support. During the Suez Canal Crisis, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. The United States and the United Nations soon pressured it into a ceasefire.²⁴²⁵ Israel agreed to withdraw from Egyptian territory. Egypt agreed to freedom of navigation in the region and the demilitarization of the Sinai. The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was created and deployed to oversee the demilitarization.²⁶ The UNEF was only deployed on the Egyptian side of the border, as Israel refused to allow them on its territory.²⁷

On May 19, 1967, Egypt expelled UNEF observers,²⁸ and deployed 100,000 soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.²⁹ It again closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping,³⁰³¹ returning the region to the way it was in 1956 when Israel was blockaded.

On May 30, 1967, Jordan entered into the mutual defense pact between Egypt and Syria. In response, on June 5 Israel sent almost all of its planes on a preemptive mission in Egypt. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed most of the Egyptian Air Force in a surprise attack, then turned east to destroy the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces.³² This strike was the crucial element in Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.²⁹³¹ At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.

1967-1973

In the summer of 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum in response to the war, to discuss the Arab position toward Israel. They reached consensus that there should be:

• No recognition of the State of Israel.
• No peace with Israel.
• No negotiations with Israel.³³

In 1969, Egypt initiated the War of Attrition, with the goal of exhausting Israel into surrendering the Sinai Peninsula.³⁴ The war ended following Nasser's death in 1970.

On October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt staged a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, overwhelming the Israeli military.³⁵³⁶ The Yom Kippur War accommodated indirect confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. When Israel had turned the tide of war, the USSR threatened military intervention. The United States, wary of nuclear war, secured a ceasefire on October 25.³⁵³⁶

1974-2000

Egypt

Following the Camp David Accords of the late 1970s, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in March, 1979. Under its terms, the Sinai Peninsula returned to Egyptian hands, and the Gaza Strip remained under Israeli control, to be included in a future Palestinian state.

Jordan

In October 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement, which stipulated mutual cooperation, an end of hostilities, and a resolution of other issues.

Iraq

See also: Iraq–Israel relations

In June 1981, Israel successfully attacked and destroyed newly built Iraqi nuclear facilities in Operation Opera.

During the Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 missiles into Israel, in the hopes of uniting the Arab world against the coalition which sought to liberate Kuwait. At the behest of the United States, Israel did not respond to this attack in order to prevent a greater outbreak of war.

Lebanon

See also: Lebanon-Israel relations

In 1970, following an extended civil war, King Hussein expelled the PLO from Jordan. The PLO resettled in Lebanon, whence it staged raids into Israel. In 1981, Syria, allied with the PLO, positioned missiles in Lebanon. In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Within two months the PLO agreed to withdraw thence.

In March 1983, Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire agreement. However, Syria pressured President Amin Gemayel into nullifying the truce in March 1984. By 1985, Israeli forces withdrew to a 15 km wide southern strip of Lebanon, until its complete withdrawal in May 2000, seen by Arab Muslims as the result of painful blows suffered at the hands of Hezbollah. They claim that they had won the war and had forced Israel out.³⁷

Palestinians

In December 1987, the First Intifada began. The PLO was excluded from peace negotiations until it recognized Israel and renounced terrorism the following year. In mid-1993, Israeli and Palestinian representatives engaged in secret peace talks in Oslo, Norway. As a result, in September 1993, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, known as the Declaration of Principles or Oslo I; in side letters, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people while the PLO recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist and renounced terrorism, violence and its desire for the destruction of Israel.. The Oslo II agreement was signed in 1995 and detailed the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C. Area A was land under full Palestinian civilian control. In Area A, Palestinians were also responsible for internal security. The Oslo agreements remain important documents in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

2000-present

As an attempt to halt the al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel raided facilities in major urban centers in the West Bank in 2002. This included re-taking many parts of land in Area A. Violence again swept through the region. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began a policy of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2003. This policy was fully implemented in August 2005.³⁸

In July 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel, attacked and killed eight Israeli soldiers, and abducted two others as hostages, setting off the 2006 Lebanon War which caused much destruction in Lebanon.³⁹ A UN-sponsored ceasefire went into effect on August 14, 2006, officially ending the conflict.⁴⁰

On September 6, 2007, in Operation Orchard, Israel bombed an eastern Syrian complex which was allegedly a nuclear reactor being built with assistance from North Korea.⁴¹ Israel had also bombed Syria in 2003.

In April 2008, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad told a Qatari newspaper that Syria and Israel had been discussing a peace treaty for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. This was confirmed in May 2008 by a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. As well as a peace treaty, the future of the Golan Heights is being discussed. President Assad was quoted in the The Guardian as telling the Qatari paper:

...there would be no direct negotiations with Israel until a new US president takes office. The US was the only party qualified to sponsor any direct talks, President Assad told the paper, but added that the Bush administration "does not have the vision or will for the peace process. It does not have anything." ⁴²

Speaking in Jerusalem on August 26, 2008, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Israel's increased settlement construction in the West Bank as detrimental to the peace process. Rice's comments came amid reports that Israeli construction in the occupied territory had increased by a factor of 1.8 over 2007 levels.⁴³

On December 27th 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead - a massive aerial assualt, and subsequent land invasion - against Hamas, beginning a major battle in Gaza.

References

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Further reading

• Associated Press, comp. (1996). Lightning Out of Israel: [The Six-Day War in the Middle East]: The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Commemorative Ed. Western Printing and Lithographing Company for the Associated Press. ASIN B000BGT89M.
• Bard, Mitchell (1999). Middle East Conflict. Indianapolis: Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-863261-3.
• Barzilai, Gad. (1996). Wars, Internal Conflicts and Political Order: A Jewish Democracy in the Middle East. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN0-7914-2944-X
• Carter, Jimmy (2006). Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-8502-6. Note: Critical analyses such as [1] have pointed to numerous factual errors and misrepresentions in this book.
• Casper, Lionel L. (2003). Rape of Palestine and the Struggle for Jerusalem. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-297-4.
• Citron, Sabina (2006). The Indictment: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Historical Perspective. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-373-3.
• Cramer, Richard Ben (2004). How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5028-1. 
• Dershowitz, Alan (2004). The Case for Israel. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-67952-6.
• Falk, Avner (2004). Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Madison: U of Wisconsin P. ISBN 0-299-20250-X
• Gelvin, James L. (2005). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: 100 Years of War. New York & Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-61804-5. 
• Gold, Dore (2004). Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. New York: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5475-3. 
• Goldenberg, Doron (2003). State of Siege. Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-310-5.
• Hamidullah, Muhammad (January 1986). "Relations of Muslims with non-Muslims". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 7 (1): 9. doi:10.1080/13602008608715960. 
• Howell, Mark (2007). What Did We Do to Deserve This? Palestinian Life under Occupation in the West Bank, Garnet Publishing. ISBN 1859641954
• Israeli, Raphael (2002). Dangers of a Palestinian State. New York & Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-303-2.
• Katz, Shmuel (1973). Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine. Shapolsky Pub. ISBN 0-933503-03-2.
• Khouri, Fred J. (1985). The Arab-Israeli dilemma (3rd ed.). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-2339-9. 
• Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. ISBN 0-691-05419-3. 
• Lesch, David (2007). The Arab-Israeli Conflict A History. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0195172302. 
• –––. (September 1990). "The Roots of Muslim Rage." The Atlantic Monthly.
• Maoz, Zeev (2006). Defending the Holy Land. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. ISBN 0-472-11540-5

• Morris, Benny (1999). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-679-42120-3. 
• Rogan, Eugene L., ed., and Avi Shlaim, ed. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.
• Segev, Tom (1999). One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under British Mandate. New York: Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-6587-3.

External links

Government and official sources

• Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Arab League Online
• Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• US State Department Mideast Peace information
• United Nations on the Question of Palestine, and *Israel's UN mission's responses
• Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000

Regional media

Israeli

• Israel News - Yedioth Aharonoth Israel's largest newspaper, centrist (Hebrew)
• IsraelInsider Israel's Daily Online News Magazine (see also Israelinsider)
• Jerusalem Post, Israel's oldest English newspaper, conservative
• Ha'aretz Israeli newspaper, liberal
• Jerusalem Newswire Christian-run Jerusalem-based news website, conservative

Arab

• Lebanon Daily Star, largest English-circulation newspaper in the Arab world
• Al Jazeera, pan-Arab news station (see also Al Jazeera)
• Al Ahram, Egypt's largest newspaper (see also Al Ahram)
• Palestine Chronicle, weekly electronic paper

Think tanks and strategic analysis

• Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
• Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, influential centrist Israeli think tank specializing in military and strategic analysis
• Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), Palestinian research organization
• Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information Joint Israeli-Palestinian think tank
• Middle East Research and Information Project (see also Middle East Research and Information Project)
• Saban Center for Middle East Policy (see also Saban Center for Middle East Policy)
• Washington Institute for Near East Policy (see also Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
• Original analysis of current developments in the peace-process, from Middle East Media Research Institute
• The Ariel Center for Policy Research
• A Regional Perspective on the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Jay Shapiro

Peace proposals

See main article: List of Middle East peace proposals

• Defensible Borders for a Lasting Peace
• An historical summary of Middle East Peace Plans and Proposals
• The Novel Catalyst for the Jerusalem Solution A website explaining why one school for the children of the Israeli and Palestinian governments might be the missing piece needed to achieve a lasting solution
• "Geneva Accord" Alternative Version

Maps

• MideastWeb Middle East Map Collection
• FactsOfIsrael.com Maps, history, statistics, victims
• University of Texas Map Collection

General sources

• Crisis Guide: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from the Council on Foreign Relations
• Resources >Modern Period>20th Cent.>History of Israel>State of Israel The Jewish History Resource Center, Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• ProCon's solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Daily digest of commentary about the Arab-Israeli conflict from around the world
• Israel and the Palestinians
• Palestine Facts
• Encarta Encyclopedia on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
• Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, includes links to historical sources, as well as sources representing the Arab and Israeli sides of the conflict.
• The Guardian (UK) A Brief History of Arab-Israeli Conflict (flash)
• Mideast: Land of Conflict from CNN
• Open Directory Project - Israel-Palestine Conflict
• University of Texas Center for Mideast Studies extensive collection of updated links
• Diplomacy Monitor - Middle East
• The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict as viewed by Jews for Justice in the Middle East
• Information (articles, reports, maps, books, links, ...) on the israeli palestinian conflict (middle east conflict)
• Holy Land, Unholy War Independent coverage of the Middle East conflicts by the news agency Inter Press Service

See also

• Binational solution
• Arab-Israeli conflict facts, figures, and statistics
• International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict
• Arab League and the Arab-Israeli conflict
• History of the Arab-Israeli conflict
• Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict and Russia and the Arab-Israeli conflict
• Foreign relations of Israel
• Accession of Israel to the European Union
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline
• Israel-Lebanon conflict
• Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt
• Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan
• Policide
• Political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
• Jewish-Islamic conflict in the days of Muhammad
• Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator