What Caused the 1973 Arab-Israeli War - Essay Example

? Causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict of the 1973 Introduction The Israeli-Arab war of 1973 is considered as one of the most recent fully-fledged war after the Second World War pitying more than one country. In this war, the Arabs acted as the antagonist after they organized a surprise attack against Israel resulting into an international conflict that was ended through the intervention of other superpowers (Bard, 2012). The war also christened the Yom Kippur war as it was started on the eve of the day of prayers and fasting. (Yom Kippur). Yom Kippur is a holy day according to the Jewish religion when special prayers are conducted in the presence of fasting. Israel, with Golda Meir as the prime minister was attacked by Egypt that was led by Anwar Sadat. This war was joined by other Arab nations fighting with the Egyptians and included the Syrians, Lebanon and Kuwait (Aruri, 1975). In October 1973, Egypt made real its threats and attacked the Israeli troops within the Suez Canal and beyond. The Syrians attacking the west bank and other regions bordering it followed this. With these surprise attacks, one the longest Middle East wars began, recording one of the highest fatalities ever recorded. This war attracted the interest of other superpowers like the United States and the Soviet Union, further escalating its course and impacts. The United States, though declining to participate actively in the war, sent military support and intelligence to Israel. The Soviet Union reacted by sending its troops and military support to both Egypt and Syria, a factor which prolonged the duration of the war (Aruri, 1975). In this paper, the Yom Kippur war of 1973 will be evaluated to provide an empirical analysis of the events that occurred prior to the war. The sole purpose of this evaluation is to highlight descriptively the events that led to the beginning and progression of the war. The paper will thus analyze each cause into detail providing practical examples, actions and reactions and how each eventually propagated the war. Conflicts over control of Palestine Palestine, an Arab nation that borders Israel and other Arab nation was created after the Palestine liberation organization movement in 1967. This movement created an Arabic peninsula that was meant to house the Arabic Palestine, a move that was resisted by Israel. Israel in the first place was created after the ratification of the United Nations agreement in 1945, thus creating a nation in areas that was inhabited by other Arabs (Bickerton, 2009). Palestine was therefore a major cause of the Arabic-Israel war of 1973 as the countries were fighting to regain control of Palestine from Israel. Israel gained control of Palestine following the six-day war of 1967 in which he fought his neighbouring Arabic nations to gain control over Palestine. Israel also captured the areas of the Golan Heights that was initially controlled by Syria before the 1967 war (Daigle, 2012). Apart from capturing these areas, Israel also captured the areas of the west bank and east Jerusalem that was initially administered by Jordan. Following the war and Israel control of the prime areas under the control of the Arabic nations, tension grew among the countries and war was visibly inevitable. In the same year, united nation made a resolution in an attempt to quell the rising tension between the Arabian countries and Israel to avoid the possibility of war. In the resolution, the united nation asked Israel to withdraw from the areas she had seized such as the Gaza strip, the Golan area, the west bank and other areas controlled by Jordon (Daigle, 2012). In exchange for this action, the Arabic nations were to accept and recognize the independence of Israel and to restrain from infringing into its territorial boundaries in a manner that could provoke conflict. These resolutions by the United Nations were ignored by both sides of the divide and cross border attacks continued further straining the more volatile relations (Aruri, 1975). The Israeli-Palestine conflict that is considered as major reason for the Arab-Israel conflict began immediately after the settlement of the Israeli and the declaration of their independence in 1946. Despite numerous conflicts on this account, the issue was not completely solved and this led to the emergence of the subsequent wars and conflicts. The Jewish settlements were distributed in a number of Arab dominated Palestine, a fact that the Palestine rejected with the support of the other Arab nations. The issues of boundaries and distribution of fertile land between the Arabs in Palestine and the Jewish bred the conflict, which escalated into different wars, with the final one being the conflict in 1967 (Aruri, 1975). The war of attrition Following Israeli continued occupation of the Gaza strip, the then president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a retaliatory campaign against Israel in an effort of regaining the control of the Suez Canal. This conflict escalated and recorded a large number of fatalities but did become a full-fledged war after the intervention of the United States in 1970. Volatile peace returned between the two countries but Israel continued to occupy the Gaza, much to the behest of the Egyptian. This continued to brew animosity between the two countries, which exploded in the 1973 war. The six-day Arab war of 1967, which gave Israel initial victory over the Arab countries continued to create tension among the countries (Dunstan, 2013). Despite the intervention of the United Nations and the United States, Israel declined to surrender the territories it had captured after the 1967 war. This heightened tension with the region that resulted into the emergence of the 1970 war considered as an attrition act. Despite the attempts made by the United Nations resolution of November 1967, the countries involved in this conflict hardened their stance with Israel declining to withdraw from the territories it had captured and the Arab nations declining to recognize Israeli independence. With the initial victory against a coalition of Arab nations, Israel became determined to maintain its status quo through continued control of the Arab territories it had captured. This continued to irritate the Egyptians, the Syrians and the other Arab countries involved in the conflict with Egypt attacking Israel during the attrition war. This wear acted as a precursor to the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973 in several was as shall be explained in sections that follow (Dunstan, 2013). Following the summit conference held in Khartoum in 1967 was the coalition of Arab nations to develop a common stand against Israel, a resolution on no recognition, no negotiations and no peace with Israel was developed. According to this resolution, the league of Arabic nations decided to wage a fully-fledged war against Israel in order to enable them regain their territories under her control. In this resolution, the decision to ignore the plea by the United Nations for full recognition of Israel as an independent state was also made. This resolution increased the resolve of the Arab nations to fight Israel at whatever cost but also strengthened Israelis decision to hold strongly to the territories it had captured. This provided ground for more tension and contributed to the Arab-Israel war of 1973 (Aruri, 1975). With the Arab nations viewing the Israeli superiority to be local and below par, Egypt made a resolution to elevate the war into an international affair by involving the involvement of other superpowers. As a result, Egypt sucked the Soviet Union into the conflict by making an agreement in which the Soviet Union was to participate in developing a political settlement. However, according to this deal, in any event that a political settlement failed to arise, the Soviet Union will have to help Egypt develop a strong military arsenal against Israel. These events elevated the Israeli-Arab conflict from being a Middle East affair into an international war by involving the Soviet Union (Ross, 2004). As expected, a political settlement failed thus forcing the soviet to union to act by providing material and military support to the Arab countries like Syria and Egypt. Egypt however failed to change the status quo the Israel was fighting to maintain after the attrition war, thus increasing frustration among the Arab nations. This however increased their resolve to initiate a new war against Israel, an event that actively led to the emergence of the Arab-Israel conflict of 1973 (Ross, 2004). Emergence of the Arab coalition Following the initial success of Israel during the five-day war of 1967 and the attrition war against Egypt in the 1970, Israel strengthened its hold on the territories it had conquered from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. This raised tension between her and other Arab countries who viewed Israel as an enemy that had to be dealt with through armed conflict. Despite the initial failures to tame Israel and recapture their territories, the Arabic nations decided to make a strong resolution that would guarantee them success against the common enemy (Ben-yehuda & Sandler, 2002). To achieve this, the only available option was to fight from a united front against an isolated Jewish state of Israel. This led to the emergence of the coalition of the Arab nation, a phrase that was coined after the Khartoum conference of august 1967. From this resolution, the united Arab countries made a commitment to engage Israel in a fully-fledged war until they recovered their territories. The coalition also decided to total reject and ignore the independence status of Israel in the war quest to punish her and regain the territories (Ben-yehuda & Sandler, 2002). Following this resolution, the Arab coalition engaged in provocative activities against Israel, periodically attacking its borders and killing its soldiers. These events continued to build tension between the countries as Israel would also engage in retaliatory attacks every time it was attacked by the Arab countries. The Arab coalition thus actively created a fertile ground for the beginning and the ultimate progression of the war. Prior to this war, the Arab nations had their own differences and had gone into war with each other at different times. However, the continued intransigence of Israel gave the Arab nations a reason to come together and form a war like coalition (Ross, 2004). Through this coalition, the Arabs developed a strong strategy to enable them recover their territories that was under the control of Israel. 1970 and 1971 witnessed one of the greatest historical coalition and friendship between the Arab nations whose role had no political significance but was solely meant for waging a war against Israel. Syria and Egypt thus developed a relation, which was responsible for the strategic development of retaliatory plans against Israel (Dunstan, 2013). The death of Nasser and the emergence of Anwar Sadat as the president of Egypt also provided an opportunity for the development of friendship between the country and Saudi Arabia. Through this coalition, joint provocative activities against Israel were initiated and this heightened the tension between the Arab countries and Israel (Ross, 2004). Rejection of the 1971 peace proposal by Israel Following the decade long conflict between Egypt and Israel, the then president Anwar Sadat a peace process that sought to end the conflict through a political settlement. Through the proposal made by Sadat in 1971, the country was willing and ready to recognize Israel as an independent nation provided it surrendered all the territories under its control to the Arabs. Israel however did not respond favourably to Sadat proposal further deeming the possibility of finding a political solution to the conflict. Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister did not view Sadat proposal as genuine as he insisted that Egypt was not interest in peace. This followed initial remarks by Sadat that failure by Israel to accept a political solution will result into the country resolving to war. This, Israel viewed as a threat and thus rejected the proposal in totality (Bard, 2012). Following Israelis successful repulsion of the combined forces of the Arabs during the five day war of 1967, Israeli commanders and generals were convinced that they were safe from any attack by the Arabs. This success gave the Israelis an assurance that their military abilities were still beyond those of the Arabs combined. As a result of this position and belief, the Israelis developed a stand of non-negotiation for the territories they had captured. The Israeli defence strength or the perception that the generals had over this thus, contributed to the war as it became difficult for the Arab nations to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict (Dunstan, 2013). History scholar differ over their view on Golda after he failed to agree and accept a political solution with Egypt, with others blaming him while the rest insisting that the ground did not favour a political solution. Israel kept raising its demands for a political settlement to be reached during this period, further making it impossible to adequately achieve a political solution (Reyes, 1989). At a time when Egypt was viewed as willing to accept a political settlement and end this conflict, Golda expressed an act of immobilism through the change of his policies and demands whenever a solution was neigh. Golda Meir adopted a strategy in which she wanted to exhaust all the options that Egypt and her Arab friends had until the country accepted her terms. Despite her public pleas of peace, Meir had a silent policy of retaining the territories she had conquered from the Arabs (Dunstan, 2013). When Egypt and other Arab countries exhausted all the available options for peace settlement, they had to resort to war and this led to the Arab-Israel war. Israel thus insisted to hold onto the territories she had acquired, thus reducing the possibility of Egypt and other Arab countries from regaining their territories through political settlement. Having explored all the available options, Egypt and her Arab coalition friends had no option to pursue apart from armed conflict and this led to the emergence of the Arab-Israel war of 1973 (Reyes, 1989). Failure of the international resolutions to end the Israel-Arab conflict Despite much effort by the international community like the united states, the soviet union and the united nations to end the Arab-Israel tension, all the resolutions passed were significantly rejected by the two warring faction. This led to the exhaustion of all the available channels for peaceful and political resolution to the conflict thus creating room for the development of the 1973 war (Dunstan, 2013). The succession of Gamal Abdel Nasser by Anwar Sadat in 1970 resulted into significant change of policies in Egypt, with country shifting from being a military activist to a country with political leadership. Sadat was willing to leverage and adopt a stand, which could have resulted into the end of war; a step was actively frustrated by immobile policies of Golda Meir. In February 1971, the two factions were at the verge to forge a peaceful resolution that could have ended the decade old war, but this did not succeed (Gawrych, 2000). The failure of these efforts is attributed to Israelis failure to accept the United Nations resolution 242 of June 1967. As discussed earlier, the intransigency of Israel resulted into the failure of the resolutions made by the international community and the United Nations to develop a peace plan. In early 1971, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who was committed to the identification of a political and peaceful solution proposed a temporary settlement of the conflict. In this proposal, Sadat urged Israel to partially withdraw its soldiers and allow ships to move freely within the Suez Canal. When Israel rejected this noble proposal totally, Egypt was left with no option but to marshal its troops and allies for a war with Israel resulting into the 1973 war (Gawrych, 2000). United States and the Soviet Union foreign policies Despite being inactively involved in the Arab-Israel conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union also partly contributed to the emergence of the 1973 war. Scholars attribute the contribution of the two superpowers to the animosity and mistrust that existed between them. Israel had a policy of maintaining untenable status quo despite the compromise made by other Arab nations especially Egypt. They occupied the Gaza strip, west bank and other territories that they had conquered despite the progresses that were being made in finding a political and peaceful solution (Reyes, 1989). Surprisingly, the United States supported this unpopular stand by the Israeli further making it tough for the Arab nations to develop a peaceful agreement. This decision by the United States was viewed as a political decision filled with the desire to keep the Soviet Union out of the conflict. President Richard Nixon and his secretary Henry Kissinger adopted a global perspective and approach in which they intended to block the Soviet Union from entering the war. Despite the sincere efforts of the Arab nations to establish a peaceful settlement, the United States association with Israel resulted into the development of the hard line stance by the country (Reyes, 1989). The US viewed Israel as an important asset for the stability and peace of the Middle East region thus supporting their decisions. As a country that provided economic and military support to Israel, the United States was in a position to put pressure on Israel to return to the pre-1967 lines, which had the potential of providing a solution to the conflict (Bard, 2012). Their failure to do this makes it accurate to attribute their actions or lack of it to the growth and emergence of the 1972 conflict. Viewed as a reaction to Egypt’s relations with the Soviet Union, the United States rejected all the advances made by Egypt towards establishing peaceful solutions to the conflict. This prompted Egypt to expel the soviet advisers as a way of pleasing the US to make them convince Israel to soften their pro status quo stand. The lack of action by the United States prompted Egypt and Syria to resort to armed confrontation at least as a way for gaining control over their territories (Gawrych, 2000). The Soviet Union on the other hand had a contradictory and inconsistent approach towards the conflict, continually shifting goal post as the solution for the conflict was being sought. The Soviet Union had a detente policy towards the United States, which is attributed to their cautious approach to the war. Despite posting adviser to Egypt to help Sadat develop an amicable approach to the conflict, Moscow declined to provide military assistance to Egypt during the beginning of the war, which prompted Cairo to expel the Russians (Ross, 2004). Though viewed as an approach of pleasing the United States, the Egyptian government felt that Moscow had no plans for providing a long lasting solution to the problem. Despite denying the Egyptians military support, the Soviet Union supplied other Arab countries like Syria with military arsenal. This was happening at a time when the Soviet Union was urging the Arabs to seek a peaceful settlement to the conflict, a stand that was conflicting with their actions. These events by both the united states and the soviet union failed to reduce the tension between the two countries, instead increasing the need for armed conflict resulting into the Israel-Arab conflict of 1973 (Reyes, 1989). Sadat’s double speak Despite his aggressive approach towards establishing a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel, Anwar Sadat adopted a double speak approach. He explored the options of peace with a hidden objective of hoodwinking the Israeli into accepting a truce. Anwar Sadat adopted diplomatic approach to establishing a solution to the conflict while preparing for war at the same time (Dunstan, 2007). With this information at hand, Israel rejected all the proposals by Egypt, an approach that some analyst blame on Israel’s policy. However, Egypt had a surprise attack approach that was clouded by a deceptive desire to pursue peace while at the same time preparing for war. When the peace options all failed, Egypt waste no time in attacking Israel, an illustration of their preparedness for the war despite the peace pursuit (Reyes, 1989). Egyptian and Syrian attack of Israel Following the failure of the peaceful political approaches to end the rising tension of between the Arabs and the Israel, armed conflict was inevitable. Israel maintained its hard stance and declined to surrender the territories under its control leaving Egypt with no option apart from war. Despite all the tense situations and the lack of political and peaceful solutions, the actual cause of the war that was fought for over three years was the decision of Cairo and Damascus to attack Israel (Dunstan, 2007). In an operation dubbed the ‘operation Badr’, Egypt attacked Israel when they were celebrating a national holy day through prayer and fasting (Ross, 2004). The Egyptians attacked the Suez Canal, which was occupied by the Israeli forces. The Syrians who fought from the west bank, enabling them to achieve short-lived victory, joined the Egyptians. These aggressive actions by the two Arab states and the decision of other Arab countries like Iraq and Jordan to join the war led to the outbreak of the Israel-Arab war of 1973. This war would have needed with Israel surrendering the territories under its control to Egypt, Syria and other Arab nations. This not however happen due to the reactions of the United States and the Soviet Union who propelled the war beyond the anticipation of the Egyptians and the Syrian forces (Ross, 2004). With initial attacks against Israel succeeding significantly, Israel recorded a large number of fatalities, which allowed the Egyptians and the Syrians to invade other regions in the country further. In response, the United States, a country who had taken a proactive yet reservist approach, responded by sending military support to Israel. In response to this, Russia provided technical and military assistance to both Syria and Egypt further gravitating the initial attacks into a fully-fledged war (Gawrych, 2000). Inactivity of the United Nations Despite the role that the United Nations played in the establishment of the Israeli independence, the body did not actively participate in the development of peaceful solution to the conflict. Both the parties to the conflict making them untenable rejected the resolutions that the body developed. As a body that was established to ensure the establishment of peaceful solutions to differences between countries, the united nation failed to come up with an all-inclusive resolution to enable the achievement of lasting peace (Reyes, 1989). Conclusions The Arab-Israeli conflict has one of the longest histories, punctuated with armed conflicts, peaceful resolutions and economic sabotage. However, the 1967-armed conflict arose due to the inability of the involved parties to agree to a political and peaceful solution. Other factors also actively prevented the adoption of political solution to the conflict including suspicion and the Palestine factor. The United States and the Soviet Union rivalry also prevented them from intervening and preventing the eventual blood bath that was witnessed in the country. Israeli prime minister and cabinet adopted a hard stance policy that prevented the adoption of the united nation resolution of 1967. This provided ground for conflict as the Arab nations were unwilling to accept the independence of Israel and Israel unwilling to forfeit the territories under its control (Ross, 2004). This war produced significant fatalities, destruction of properties and increased animosity and suspicion among the superpowers. References Aruri, N. (1975). Middle East Crucible: Studies on the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973. Wilmette, IL: Medina University Press International. Bard, M. (2012). Myths and facts: A guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Washington: American Israeli cooperative enterprise Inc. Ben-yehuda, H., & Sandler, S. (2002). The Arab-Israeli conflict transformed: Fifty years of interstate and ethnic crises. Albany, NY: Sunny Press. Bickerton, I. J. (2009). The Arab-Israeli conflict: A history. London: Reaktion Book. Daigle, C. (2012). The limits of Detente: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, 1969-1973. Connecticut: Yale University Press. Dunstan, S. (2007). The Yom Kippur war: The Arab-Israeli war of 1973. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Dunstan, S. (2013). The Yom Kippur war 1973 (1): The Golan Heights. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Gawrych, G. W. (2000). The albatross of decisive victory: War and policy between Egypt and Israel in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Reyes, W. G. and Fernandez, M.T. (1989). The role of the US and the USSR in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ross, S. (2004). Causes and consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict. London: Evans Brothers. Read More