Arab-Israeli Relations Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This example Arab-Israeli Relations Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

The relationship between Arabs and Israel has been hostile not only since the birth of the Jewish state in 1948, but from the foundation of political Zionism in the 1890s.This resulted from a fundamental conflict over Palestine, where the Zionist movement aspired to establish Israel. Palestine had long been Arab territory, and Arabs saw their existence there threatened.

The United Nations plan for the partitioning of Palestine in 1947 led to civil war between the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine. When the British completed their withdrawal from Palestine in May 1948, Jewish forces already occupied part of the proposed Arab state, and about two hundred thousand Arabs had become refugees. Upon the declaration of the state of Israel, Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria sent troops into Palestine, purportedly to protect the Arab Palestinians. This First Arab-Israeli War (1948–1949) turned into a disaster for the Arabs, leaving Israeli forces in control of 78 percent of Palestine and, due to the flight or expulsion of many Arab Palestinians, only a small Arab minority.

Although Israel and the adjoining Arab states concluded armistice agreements in 1949, violence continued. Further wars followed in 1956 (the Sinai War), 1967 (the Six-Day War), 1973 (the October War), and 1982 (the Lebanon War). Though not directly involving Arab states, Arab-Israeli warfare has been endemic in Lebanon since the 1970s. Guerrilla attacks by Hezbollah forced Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. An air and land war by the Israelis against Hezbollah in 2006 met fierce resistance and, some say, produced Israel’s first military failure. In addition, Palestinian uprisings began in 1987 and, after subsiding in the mid-1990s, resumed more bloodily in 2000.

The 1967 War was a major turning point. Following an intense crisis, Israel quickly defeated its neighbors and occupied parts of Egypt (Sinai), the rest of mandatory Palestine (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem), and southwestern Syria (the Golan Heights). Following this, Israel announced that it had no territorial aspirations, and the Arab states accepted the idea of peace in return for withdrawal. However, Israelis began to establish new Jewish settlements and then rejected calls for full withdrawal.

Arab Governments And The Conflict

The role of Arab governments has always been complicated. With the Arab public opposing Israel, governments sought legitimacy by seeming to support this cause and by using the issue as a weapon against each other. They were rarely serious about confronting Israel, however. In 1948, what looked like an attempt to prevent Israel’s emergence had more to do with Egyptian-Transjordanian rivalry. Transjordan had a secret arrangement with the Israelis to divide up the area of the proposed Arab state and, except in the Old City of Jerusalem, avoided combat with its apparent enemy. In 1967, popular sentiment forced King Husayn to go to war with his tacit ally and to lose part of his kingdom in order to save the rest. While publicly rejecting peace, Egypt responded favorably to mediation attempts during the 1950s.To dispel accusations of softness, Egypt allowed itself to be pulled into a crisis in 1967 by letting Israel attack. This is a prime example of what scholar Michael Barnett (1988) calls “impression management” and “symbolic entrapment,” where one entity preempts a peaceful solution (that may make it appear weak) rather than an attack. While using the issue as a legitimacy resource, Arab regimes have not been willing to subordinate their own interests for the sake of the Palestinian cause. While Egypt and Syria went to war in 1973, this was to jump-start a peace settlement that would hopefully get their own territories back, not to liberate Palestine.

Significant changes in Arab-Israeli relationships have occurred in recent years. Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 to obtain full Israeli withdrawal from its territory. The Oslo Accords of 1994 led to the establishment of a Palestinian Authority and the hope of a two-state solution to the Palestine problem. Although the process broke down six years later, it provided King Husayn an opportunity to conclude formal peace with Israel. Under American pressure, Mauritania also established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999. An Israeli trade office was set up in Qatar in 1996. Israeli offices established in Morocco, Oman, and Tunisia were closed in 2000.The Arab boycott of Israel, declared by the Arab League in 1945, has withered over time.

With militantly anti-Israel Islamist forces growing and non-Arab Iran taking the lead in opposing Israel, unstable Arab regimes have become desperate for a settlement in order to appease popular passions. Consequently, a Saudi initiative of 2002, adopted unanimously by an Arab League summit but rejected by Israel, articulates the willingness of all Arab states to establish normal diplomatic ties with Israel in return for full withdrawal and a Palestinian state. Many Israelis fear that continuing to rule Palestinians eventually will doom them as a Jewish state, and yet they want to keep much of the West Bank and to impose limits on the independence of any Arab Palestinian state. They are also unwilling to consider the return of a substantial number of Palestinian refugees to Israel.

Bibliography:

Barnett, Michael N. Dialogues in Arab Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Hudson, Michael C. Arab Politics:The Search for Legitimacy. New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1979.
Kazziha,Walid. “The Impact of Palestine on Arab Politics.” In The Arab State, edited by Giacomo Luciani, 306–309. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Kurtulus, Ersun. “The Notion of a ‘Pre-emptive War:’The Six Day War Revisited.” Middle East Journal 61 (Spring 2007): 220–239. Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001. New York:Vintage, 2001.
Novo, Joseph. King Abdallah and Palestine: A Territorial Ambition. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
Rubin, Barry. The Arab States and Palestine. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1981.
Shlaim, Avi. Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1988.
The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, 2nd ed. Norton, 2001. Smith, Charles D. (2004).
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents, 5th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.