We explain what are the causes of the confrontation between Arabs and Jews for the creation of the State of Israel. In addition, the UN role.
What is the Arab-Israeli conflict?
It is known as the Arab-Israeli conflict to the confrontation between the Jewish nation of the state of Israel and the neighboring Arab nations. The conflict has its origins in the dispute over the territory of Palestine that formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire and then, to the British mandate of Palestine. Among the main war clashes of the conflict is the first Arab-Israeli war (1948-1949), the Six Day War (1967) and the Second Arab-Israeli War (1973).
During the second half of the twentieth century, the conflict between Jews and Arabs affected the political relations of the entire Middle East. The origin of the conflict is linked to the appearance of political Zionism preached by Theodor Herlz at the end of the 19th century, the growth of Jewish nationalism and Arab nationalism, the emigration of the Jewish population from different parts of the world towards Palestine, the foreign intervention of the United Kingdom and influence of the United Nations Organization.
Background of the Arab-Israeli conflict
Origin of political Zionism
Towards the end of the 19th century, an Austro-Hungarian writer of Jewish origin named Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) began to preach The idea that the population of Jewish origin dispersed in Europe should return to Israel country that is considered the Jewish ancestral homeland.
In the second century d. C., after a series of rebellions, Israel was defeated by the Roman Empire and lost its independence as an autonomous kingdom. Since then, the Jewish population dispersed through different territories. The exile of the Jews of Israel is known as “the diaspora.”
Given the discrimination and persecution that some Jewish communities suffered in Europe at the end of the 19th century, Herlz argued that the Jewish population had to immigrate to the land of Israel, which by then was part of the Palestine region in the Ottoman Empire. This region was inhabited for centuries by populations of Arab origin of Christian and Muslim faith. There was also a small Jewish community in the city of Jerusalem.
In 1897, Herlz founded the World Zionist Organization (OSM) whose objective was to achieve the right of Jews to live in Israel. To do this, the OSM sought to strengthen Jewish nationalist feeling lay the foundations for the Jewish settlement of the region through peaceful immigration and achieve international recognition of the law of the Jewish nation over those lands. This movement is known as “political Zionism.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, communities of European Jews began to emigrate to the Palestine region. During this first stage, migration was peaceful and gradual.
The Sykes-Picot agreement
During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire allied with the German Empire and the Austrohungal Empire (“The central powers”), against France, the United Kingdom and Italy (“The Allies”). In 1916, the allies signed the Sykes-Picot agreement, through which the distribution of Ottoman possessions was agreed in case of winning the war.
However, the future of the Middle East became even more complex because the allies made promises to the Arabs in exchange for their uprising against the Turkish empire, promises that were in turn contradictory with what was offered to the Jews in the Balfour statement.
At the end of the war, at the Paris Conference (1919) the Allied powers They opted for Distribute the territories between British and French and implement a political organization of “mandates” . In this way, the old region of Palestine officially became the British mandate of Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration
In the context of war, different British agents encouraged internal rebellions within the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of destabilizing the internal policy of the State and weakening its power on the battle fronts. The British government sought to generate alliances with the local population discontent to benefit in the course of the war.
In 1917, British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour declared that The United Kingdom supported the conformation of “a national home” for the Jewish people in the Palestine region . This statement was an important milestone for the Zionist movement, since a power legitimized its ideological and political claims internationally.
The British Palestine Mandate
At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire dissolved and the Allied powers defined the creation of the British Palestine mandate. During the 1920s, the Jewish population in the territories of the Palestine mandate doubled.
The OSM promoted immigration and achieved important concessions of the British government. For example, through the Jewish agency for Palestine (a new local organization), the Jewish community obtained certain prerogatives of self -government that were fundamental for the growth of their settlements (such as the construction of streets, the installation of services, the creation of schools and hospitals).
Initially, the Jewish settlers and the local Arab population lived in peace . However, the British government had made contradictory promises for both groups during the war. The nationalism of the Arab population and its claim for promised independence grew in parallel to the increase in the Jewish population.
During the 1930s, The tension between both peoples began to become a direct confrontation . Between 1936 and 1939, the nationalist revolts of both sides intensified. The repression of the British authorities led to exile to most Palestinian Arab leaders.
The creation of the state of Israel
In the early 1940s, Conflicts between the Arab population, the Jewish population and the British authorities were generalized . The United Kingdom was unable to fulfill its contradictory promises of independence for Arabs and Jews and resolved in 1947 to renounce its mandate in Palestine and deliver it to the United Nations Organization (created in 1945). He recommended the creation of two separate states with the agreement of both nations.
This situation of political instability led to the increase in riots and violence. After several months, on November 29, 1947, The UN resolved a Palestine partition plan. This project divided the territory into three parts: the Jewish state, the Arab State and the city of Jerusalem (which would be under control of the UN).
However, this division was conflictive: the state of Israel would include 55 % of the territory with a population of 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Palestinian Arabs. On the other hand, the Palestine state would include 44 % of the territory, with a population of more than 800,000 Palestinian Arabs and a small minority of 10,000 Jews. The Arab League (which grouped the main Arab states) rejected the proposal.
David Ben-Gurion (one of the main Zionist leaders) proclaimed the declaration of the Independence of Israel, on May 14, 1948, a day before the withdrawal of the British Palestine troops.
On May 15, a coalition of Arab armies from the neighboring countries of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attacked the newly created state of Israel . In this way, the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 began, the first of the wars that marked the extensive Arab-Israeli conflict.
The First Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949)
On May 14, 1948, Jewish leader David Ben Gurion proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel in the territories awarded by the UN. The Arab reaction was immediate: when the British left Palestine on May 15, Egyptian, transjordan, Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqis troops attacked the newly created state of Israel.
Despite numerical inequality, The First Arab-Israeli War (from May 1948 to July 1949) concluded with an Israeli victory . The new Jewish state went on to occupy 78 % of the former Palestine, instead of 55 % assigned by the UN cast.
The Arab territories that were out of their control were annexed by the neighboring Arab states: the Gaza Strip passed to Egypt, and both the West Bank and the ancient city of Jerusalem were held by the Kingdom of Transjordan.
The Palestinian population was mass expelled from the Israeli territories and had to take refuge in neighboring countries . On the other hand, the state of Israel was consolidated with the continuous arrival of Jewish immigrants and the consolidation of Israel's defense forces, which were modernized during the following years.
Suez's crisis (1956)
When Gamal Abdel Nasser arrived at the presidency of Egypt in 1954, promoted a nationalist policy that led in 1956 to nationalize the Suez Canal Company (which controlled traffic between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea), previously in the hands of British and French shareholders. This episode caused an international crisis, and the British and French governments obtained the support of the State of Israel to invade the Sinai Peninsula.
The US government condemned the invasion of the Sinai and the invading troops withdrew, while a UN Pacification Corps occupied the Peninsula to avoid future conflicts between Egyptians and Israelis. The figure of Nasser grew in popularity in the Arab world, since the withdrawal of the allies was perceived as an Egyptian diplomatic victory.
After the Suez crisis, The Egyptian government and other Arab countries reinforced its ties with the Soviet Union (USSR), while Israel became the strategic ally of the United States In the region. The political dynamics of the Middle East became part of the global confrontation of the Cold War.
See more in: Suez channel crisis
The Six Day War (1967)
After the diplomatic success of 1956, and with Soviet military support, Nasser multiplied his threatening actions against Israel. In May 1967, Egyptian ships blocked the Gulf of Áqaba, southeast of the Sinai Peninsula which prevented the traffic of the Israeli port of Eilat with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
The Israeli military response was, on June 5, 1967, a simultaneous attack against the Arab countries that surrounded the state of Israel, which He triggered the six -day war. In six days, the Israeli army occupied the Golán highs in Syria, the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the old city of Jerusalem in the Palestinian territories.
Allied with the United States, which feared the Alliance of Egypt and Syria with the Soviet Union, Israel refused this time to return the occupied territories . He also unilaterally proclaimed Jerusalem's reunification, by annexing East Jerusalem. All this caused a new wave of Palestinians to take refuge in neighboring countries.
The Palestine Liberation Organization
In created in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created. After the Arabic defeat of 1967, the OP became, under the direction of Yasser Arafat, in the main organization of the Palestinian people who lived under the Israeli occupation or in the refugee fields of neighboring countries. Nasser's objective to achieve a conventional military victory over the Israeli state, the OLP began a guerrilla war against Israel .
From Jordan, Fatah's guerrillas (Conquest), Organization led by Arafat and majority at the PLO, they undertook attacks against Israel. The Israeli army responded with harsh reprisals. At the same time, within Jordan, the growing power of the Palestinian organizations threatened the stability of the Jordanian monarchy, so King Hussein used his army to expel, in September 1970, a large part of the refugees and the PLO guerrillas, who fled towards the Lebanon.
From Lebanon, the PLO continued its attacks against Israel . The massive arrival of Palestinians also broke the balance that existed between Christians, Shiite and Muslim Muslims Sunnites, which began in 1975 a civil war. Subsequently, the Israeli and Syrian armed forces were also involved.
Israel occupied the south of Lebanon in 1978 and bombed Beirut (capital of Lebanon) in 1982 and this originated the war of Lebanon (1982-1985). During this conflict the Chiíta Hezbollah Islamic organization was born, also influenced by the Islamic revolution in Iran of 1979. Finally, the Israeli army got the PLU guerrillas to abandon Lebanon. However, the civil war continued until 1990 and ended with a country ruined under the hegemony of Syria.
The Second Arab-Israeli War (1973)
After the death of Nasser in 1970, it happened in the presidency of Egypt Anuar El-Sadat, who began preparing with Syria a new war to recover the territories lost by the Arab countries in the six-day war.
On October 6, 1973, Egyptian and Syrian troops took advantage of the fact that Yom Kippur's Jewish religious festival was being held and Israel attacked by surprise in the Sinai Peninsula and the Highs of the Golán. Thus began the Second Arab-Israeli War (also known as Yom Kipur War or Ramadan War), in which the first Arab advances were later counteracted by the Israeli Armed Forces.
After 16 days of combat, the two superpowers of the Cold War, who had armed their respective allies (United States to Israel, and the Soviet Union to Egypt and Syria), sought a solution to the conflict. On October 25, 1973, hostilities ceased.
The Yom Kippur war had repercussions on the world economy, since the OPEC Arab countries (organization of oil export countries) oil exports to Western countries restricted between 1973 and 1974 that had supported Israel, which caused an increase in the price of oil and reduced the economic activity of industrial nations (this phenomenon was known as “Oil crisis”).
The “1973” crisis “
An important consequence of the Arab-Israeli conflict internationally was the economic crisis that was triggered in 1973, after the Second Arab-Israeli War, known as the “oil crisis.” That year, the organization of Petroleum Exporting Arab countries (OPEC) decided not to export oil to the countries that had supported the State of Israel during the Second Arab-Israeli War.
This decision deeply affected the most industrialized western countries since it generated an increase in the price of oil, which led to an increase in inflation and the reduction of its economic activity. In turn, this deeply destabilized the international economy and generated that these countries face permanent long -term policies to depend less and less on Arab oil.
La Paz between Egypt and Israel (1979)
One of the consequences of the Yom Kippur War was the opening of a peace process between Anuar El-Sadat (president of Egypt) and Menájem Beguín (President of Israel), mediated by the United States government, which was completed with the signing of The Camp David (1978) agreements and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt (1979).
The peace treaty established diplomatic relations between the two countries and returned control of Sinai to Egypt. The Palestinian territories continued under Israeli occupation. These agreements caused the Egyptian government to be questioned by the other Arab and Muslim countries, and then suspended from the Arab League until 1989.
In 1981, Sadat, who in addition to signing the peace treaty with Israel had broken the Egyptian alliance with the Soviet Union and had approached the United States, He was killed by the Egyptian Islamic Yihad group, opposite to the agreements with Israel.
On the other hand, Palestinian groups of the Gaza and the West Bank Strip began in 1987 the first Intifada (an uprising against Israel due to the growing occupation of Lanks of the West Bank by Jewish settlers).
In 1993 the Peace Agreements of Oslo were signed between the state of Israel and the OLP which meant recognizing the legitimacy of the National Palestinian Authority (ANP) as the government of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (since 2013 the ANP adopted the name of the State of Palestine). Anyway, The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued in the following years with episodes such as the second Intifada or the conflicts between the state of Israel and the government of the Gaza Strip that became the Hamás Islamic group.
The Declaration of Israeli Independence
The main cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the declaration of independence of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948. This statement was made by the forces of the Israeli population the day before the British troops retired from Palestine. The objective was for the international community to recognize the territory of Palestine as the property of the Jewish people. With this statement the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948 began. The text of the declaration illustrates the ideological justification that the Jewish people gives for the occupation of the Palestinian lands.
Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel
May 14, 1948
“Eretz-Israel (Land of Israel) was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here is their spiritual, religious and political identity. Here they obtained for the first time a state, created cultural values of national and universal importance and contributed to the world the book of books.
After the forced exile of their land, the people maintained their faith through their dispersion and did not cease to pray and wait for their return to their land and the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Pushed by these historical and traditional ties, the Jews struggled through generations to establish themselves again in their old land. In recent decades they returned in mass. Pioneers “Mapilim” (immigrants who go to Eretz-Israel challenging restartive legislation) and defenders made the desert flourish, re lived the Hebrew language, built towns and cities, and created a prosperous controlling community of their own economy and culture, lover of peace but knowing how to defend themselves, contributing the goods of progress to the inhabitants of all countries, and aspiring to an independent nation.
In 5657 (1897), in the requirement of the spiritual father of the Jewish state Theodor Herzl, the first Zionist Congress agreed and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to their national rebirth in their own country
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, and reaffirmed in the mandate of the League of Nations that specifically sanctioned the historical connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Lsrael and the right of the Jewish people to rebuild their national house.
The catastrophe that recently suffered the Jewish people-the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe-was another clear demonstration of the urgency of the resolution of this problem of lack of home through the restoration of Eretz-Lsrael as a Jewish state, which would widely open the doors of their land to each Jew and give the Jewish people the status of full recognition with a member of the community of nations.
The Nazi Holocaust survivors in Europe, as well as the Jews from other parts of the world, continued to emigrate to Erezt-Lsrael overcoming the difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to affirm their right to a dignified, free and honest life in their national land. During World War II, the Jewish community of this country fully participated in the struggle between the nations that defended freedom, peace and love against the evil of the Nazis forces, and with the blood of their soldiers and their military effort won the right to appear among the founding peoples of the United Nations.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution proclaiming the establishment of the Jewish State in Erezt-Israel; The General Assembly requested adoption by the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel of all necessary measures for the execution of this resolution. The recognition of the right of the Jewish people to establish themselves in their state, made by the United Nations, is irrevocable.
Law is the natural law of the Jewish people of being owned by their own destiny, like all nations, in their own sovereign state.
In accordance, we members of the Council of the People, representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz-Israel and the Zionist movement are gathered here at the end of the British mandate on Eretz-Israel and, under our natural and historical law and the legal force of the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations by the present we declare the establishment of the Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, which will be known as the State of Israel.
We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the mandate that will be tonight, Vespers of the Sabat, the 6 Iyas 5708 (May 15, 1948), before the establishment of the authorities of the State regularly elected in accordance with the Constitution that must be adopted by the Constituent Assembly chosen not later than October 1, 1948, the Council of the People will act as provisional council of the State, and its executive body, and its executive body, and its executive body, and its executive organ, The provisional government of the Jewish State, called Israel.
The State of Israel will be open to Jewish immigration and the collection of exiles, will encourage the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants, will be based on freedom, justice and peace as the prophets of Israel foresee it, ensure the total equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, without consideration of religion, race or sex; It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture, will protect the sacred places of all religions and will be faithful to the principles of the United Nations Charter.
The State of Israel is willing to cooperate with the agencies and representations of the United Nations to execute the resolution of the General Assembly of November 29, 1947, and will take all the necessary measures for the Economic Union of all Eretz-Israel
We appeal to the United Nations to help the Jewish people in the construction of their state and to receive the State of Israel in the Nations Committee.
We appeal in the midst of the attack undertaken against us for months to the Arab inhabitants of the people of Israel to retain peace and participate in the construction of the State, in the bases of full and equal citizenship and corresponding representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their people and offer peace and good relations, and appeal to them for the establishment of cooperation and mutual help with the Jewish people established in their own land. The state of Israel is willing to do everything possible in a common effort for the progress of the Middle East.
We appeal to all the Jewish people of the diaspora to collaborate together with the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the work of immigration and construction and so that they are attached to them in the great struggle for the realization of the dream of the time the redemption of Israel.
Putting our trust in the Almighty we signed this statement in this session of the Provisional State Council in the land of our home, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on the eve of the Sabat on the 5th of Iyar, 5708 (May 14, 1948). “
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References
- Black, I. (2017). Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Atlantic Monthly Press.
- State of Israel (1948). Declaration of Independence of Israel. Available at:
https://embassies.gov.il/ - Palmowski, J. (2000). “Balfour Declaration”, “Israel” and “Palestine”. In To Dictionary of Twentieth-Century World History. Oxford University Press.
- Van Dijk, R., Gray, WG, Savranskaya, S., Suri, J., & Zhai, Q. (eds.). (2013). “Israel”. Encyclopedia of the Cold War. Routledge.
- Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2022). Arab-Israeli Wars. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Dergoussian, K. (2017). Everything you need to know about the conflict in the Middle East. Paidós.
- UN (SF). History of the Palestine question. United Nations. The Palestinian issue. https://www.un.org/
