Conflict in the Arab World Essay

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Arab Israeli Conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict

The current Arab-Israeli conflict has a long standing history which goes back to the 1910s when the Ottoman Empire was still in place. During the WWI, the Germans sided with the Ottoman and the British sided with the Arabs in revolting against the Ottoman Empire. The British promised the Arabs self rule and to the Jews they promised them a homeland in Palestine (Kattan, et.al., 2009:Pp59). The Arabs took over the control of Syria and immediately after the war, the League of Nations gave the French the control over Syria and to the British they gave what are today Israel, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jordan. In 1921 the British divided their large mandate into two; the East of Jordan became the emirates of Transjordan under Abdullah and the West of Jordan became the mandate of the Palestine (the Promised Land to the Jews) though it remained under the British control. In the 1930s, the migration of the Jews perpetually increased, just before the WWII due to the increased persecution of the Jews by the Nazis and the Holocaust that followed. The local Arabs in Palestine wanted to limit the arrival of the Jews hence and ensuing clash between the Palestinians and the arriving Jewish immigrants (Bassiouni & Ben Ami, 2009:Pp21). The neighboring Arab states supported the Palestine push for controlling the Jewish arrivals. Following the rampant clashes, the British gave up their mandate over Palestine in 1947 and the UN took over. At this point, the UN suggested for there to be two states in Palestine: one Arab and one Jewish. This proposal was accepted by the Jewish but rejected by the Arabs. In flowing year, David Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of the state of Israel, an idea that was opposed by the surrounding Arab nations and Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon invaded the Jews but they were repulsed. By 1949, the Jews had significantly extended the region under the Israel nation significantly over the borders that had been proposed by the UN. Another historical and significant happening in the region was the joining of the Israel with the French and British army to invade the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, though later on the international pressure forced them to let go of Sinai Peninsula and they had to vacate their troops from Suez Canal. In 1964, probably the most significant development took place in line with the Arab-Israeli conflict and enmity, the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed with the whole idea of being the sole representatives of the Palestinians and geared towards reclaiming their land and completely destroying the state of Israel (Kattan, et.al., 2009:Pp62). This marked the turning point for the Arab-Israel conflict that still rages on to the current time with various interventions that have been attempted from various nations and organizations.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War

After the Suez War in 1952, this was the next significant war between the Arab world and Israel and the magnitude of the structural failures that went international in this case exposed the failures of the Eisenhower, Kennedy as well as Johnson as the presidents of the U.S. To prevent the renewed Arab-Israeli conflict. The tripartite agreement of the 1950 Declaration in the region that saw the United Kingdom, France and the U.S. pledged to ensure there is no aggression towards Israel by the Middle Eastern state and that there is no arms race within this region held ground until the early 1960s. The U.S. pressed for the withdrawal of the Israel from the Suez Canal, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. This withdrawal was in exchange for peace from the surrounding Arab states and this approach has persisted to the current times within the U.S. Middle East peacemaking efforts. The U.S. also rejected Israel request for defensive weapons except the limited quantities of defensive weapons. The Lyndon Johnson presidency reshaped the U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. By the time he took over the presidency, the policymakers had already reached a conclusion that this previous approach was no longer viable. This decision was informed by the Soviet selling of arms to the left-leaning Arab states; Egypt in particular, threatened to erode the military superiority of the state of Israel. The advisors to president Lyndon saw it that if the U.S. did not move in to offset the shift, there was a high risk of the Israeli launching a preventive war and may be develop nuclear weapons.

The USA never moved straight to supplying weapons to Israel but held talks with Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt as well as the Soviet leadership to control arms that were being sold to the region but none of the two was willing to cooperate.

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This informed the first sale of the M48A3 tanks to Israel by the U.S. In 1965 and later in 1966 sold them A-4 Skyhawk aircraft. The U.S. explained that the rationale for such a step, which evidently went against their policies hitherto, was to show that the inability of the Arab nations to have an upper hand in the arms race would serve to dampen the dispute between Arab and Israel. These efforts by the U.S.A. To keep the peace balance within the region were significantly undermined in 1967 when Gamal Nasser of Egypt, together with other Palestinian guerilla organizations began strategic attacks and provocative gestures towards Israel. Gamal made it clear that he does not need the presence of UN in the Suez Canal and the most telling action was the concentration of the Egypt military in the Suez zone. The Egyptians also put up a naval blockade that cut off the Gulf of Aqaba to the shipping of Israel. These were acts that were viewed to be extremely provocative to the Israel and they interpreted it that Egypt was preparing to launch and attack on their soil. Despite the various intervention efforts by the U.S. To avoid retaliation by Israel, there was a massive preemptive military campaign launched by Israel and was hugely successful. The air forces of Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt had suffered significant destruction and defeat by 5th of June. The 7th of June 1967 saw the destruction of the Egyptian tanks in the Sinai Desert with the Israeli army suppressing the Egypt army presence in the region to reach Suez Canal and clearing the west bank of the Jordan river of any opposing forces. This war, which was famously referred to as the "Six day war," was a huge disaster to the Arab world and a blow to the morale of the Arab world. The morale went low since there were four strongest Arab nations that were defeated by just a single nation. Even the Israeli must have been surprised too since it was a newly formed nation. However, of significant worry were the challenges that came with the capturing of Sinai, West Bank of Jordan River and the Golan Heights. These were areas of significant value to the Arab world and with more than 600,000 Arabs under the control of Israel administration, their fate led more youth to join the Palestinian Liberation Organization which Israel considered as a terror group. The domestic policies of Israeli grew more complex with the successful military campaign of 1967 (Khatchadourian, 2000:Pp29-30 ).

The October 1973 war

This war is probably one of the biggest and deadliest that the Arab-Israel conflict has ever escalated to. It is also known as the Yom Kippur War since it took place on the day of the holy celebrations by the Israel. The Arab forces knew that the Israeli guard would be lowered during this time hence they took the chance to strike as the Israeli celebrated. Earlier, the relations between the Arab and Israeli had been faced with a lot of challenges. In the previous month, Palestine guerillas had detained an Austrian train that had several Jews headed to Israel, probably for the holy day celebrations due the following month. There were subsequent deployments by Syria and Egypt and these were interpreted as defensive actions in anticipation of Israeli reprisals. Israeli postponed deployment of troops until on the morning of Yom Kippur (October 6) when they ordered a mobilization of reserves. Egypt forces crossed Suez Canal and pushed back the Israeli forces and Syria too pushed them back to the Golan Heights. In the ten days of fighting, Israeli forces pushed back the Egypt army across the Canal. The Israeli were too close to the main Cairo-Ismailia highway and at this point the Soviet Union threatened a direct military intervention, and that is when the UN imposed a ceasefire. This was the time that the American Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissenger got involved in running from one country to another, trying to broker peace, an act that has been known as shuttle diplomacy to date. This is also the event that brought the U.S. And the Soviet Union as the two superpowers very close to direct engagement that would result in the use….....

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