During the War Hitler turned the Germans against all the Jews. Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews caused the whole Nation to suffer. Hitler Killed over 5million Jews also attacking them and persecuting them. This was the Holocaust.
Although Britain had to provide them with a homeland they also had to refuse some Jews, as the Arabs weren’t happy about all of the immigrants.
The Arabs then rebelled, as they didn’t wasn’t to be ruled by the British. Also the Stern Gang committed acts of terrorism to assassinate the British High Commissioner in Palestine.
The rise in the number of Jewish immigrants, oil and terrorism were only a few reasons that Britain left Palestine in 1947.
Britain was in debt because of the war. The welfare state and the NHS needed money. They were also in indebted to the USA.
Britain needed to continue to remain a ‘super power’ this meant they needed to keep the armed forces strong. However the troops were scattered all over the world! This proved to be a hard task.
This is when Britain pulled out of rule in Palestine and the United Nations decided to divide the land.
b- Why is 1947 a turning point in the Arab- Israeli Dispute?
Britain decided to stop ruling over Palestine in 1947. They pulled out of the agreement and the United Nations took over. In 1947 the state of Israel was created by the United Nations. The Arabs refused to recognise that the Israeli nation finally has its own state and decided to end it before it began. They attacked the Israelis in the War of Liberation in 1948.
This is a turning point because it’s in 1947 that things start to change for the Israelis and the Arabs, the direction in which the events are going seem to change and go from bad to worse.
3) Why were there 4 wars in the first 25years of Israel’s existence?
In the first twenty-five years, after the United Nations started to rule Palestine and the state of Israel was created the Arabs and the Israelis had four wars.
There are four long-term causes for all of these wars:
- Both the Arabs and the Israelis want to be the only rulers of Palestine
- Both parties believe that they are the rightful owners of Palestine
- Neither of them are willing to share the land
- They have no common ground, this means that any civil compromise would be impossible.
All of these factors helped to make resolving the issue of fighting an impossible task.
The first war, being the War Of Liberation took place in 1948 just after the United Nations had tried to part the land so both the Israelis and the Arabs would be happy.
By giving the Israelis more land (even though the Arabs outnumbered the Jews) and by giving them a ‘state’ the Arabs became furious and as the Jews weren’t happy either (they wouldn’t get the Holy City of Jerusalem) they both resorted to war. In June of 1948 the United Nations created a truce, of which both sides had signed. However the Israelis didn’t fully agree with the truce and as they were waiting for the consequences of the Stern Gang killing Bernodotte (who was going to allow the Arab refugees to enter Palestine) they continued to fight in October.
They captured Galilee and pushed the Arab forces (from Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt) back into the Sinai desert.
The Arabs were defeated and the Israelis gained land. Most of the Palestinian refugees fled from Palestine, going towards the West Bank.
There was one main reason that the Arabs fled that being, the Arab propaganda led them to believe that if they stayed then they’d be in danger. Some of these Palestinian refugees wanted their revenge and by being encouraged by Gamal Abdul Nasser (the president of Egypt) they attempted to get it!
The second war took place in 1956 this was the Sinai War. This took place because the Palestinian Arabs in the Refugee camps wanted revenge because Israel had won the last war.
During this war the Arab-Israeli dispute was drawn into the Cold War by the super powers. The USSR provided the Arabs with bombers and fighters, this was a problem as the Egyptians wanted to build the Suez Canal but needed money. The USA was going to lend them some except the Egyptians were supporting the Arabs and the USA were enemies of the USSR in the Cold War.
The British, French and Israelis invaded Egypt trying to get the support of Egypt and stop the Arabs attacking them. However, the USA advised them to exit this area, as it would give the USSR an excuse to get more involved with the Sinai War. They pulled out of Egypt and the Israelis stopped the fighters.
Over the next 11 years the tension grew between the Israelis and the Arabs as terrorists and guerrillas disrupted the peace. They both knew this would resort to more fighting and it did, The Six Day War. The Arabs got their supplies from the USSR and the Israelis from Britain, France, USA and West Germany.
By 1967 Nasser thought that the Arabs were ready and could attack and defeat the Israelis. However, the Israelis attacked the Arabs first on the 5th June. By attacking first the Israelis defeated the Arabs yet again in only six days. They captured Sinai, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the eastern part of Jerusalem. They felt that they were now in complete control.
Nasser now needed revenge.
The United Nations then created Resolution 242. This ordered that
- The Israelis should withdraw from the land that isn’t rightfully theirs/that had been given to them by the United Nations. (e.g. the land that they’d captured during the Six Day War, the Sinai War and the War of Liberation.)
- All countries should recognise that others have the right to exist.
- There should be an end to the refugee problem. (By the end of the Six Day War there were over 1.5million Palestinian Arab refugees.)
The Israelis ignored Resolution 242 and continued to build Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in Sinai. This didn’t impress the Arabs as they felt that the Israeli’s were surrounding them and their camps.
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation, formed in 1964 and claimed that the creation of Israel had been an injustice and that Palestine rightfully belonged to the Arabs, started to hijack the Israeli planes and kidnapping the high ranking officials of the world. Even though these acts were small the Egyptian army were getting stronger and got military aid from the USSR and they were planning to attack the Israelis during the religious festival of Yom Kippur.
In 1973 on October 9th the Yom Kippur War began as the Arabs, Egyptians and Syrians captured land in the Golan Heights and in the Sinai desert.
By the 12th although the Arab forces had advanced technology (SAMS Missiles) the Golan Heights had been re-captured by the Israelis and then went to capture Cairo, the Egyptian capital.
The Arabs then tried to win the War by using oil as a weapon as it was one of the main distributors. It raised the prices to try and disrupt the economies of Europe and the USA and cause them to persuade the Israelis to surrender.
There was ceasefire on the 24th. The Israeli’s had not been beaten and the Arabs had regained some of their lost pride.
It was then that they both realised that sacrifices had to be made if the fighting were to stop. In 1974 the United Nations intervened and tried to create peace.
4) In what ways are the Arab and Israeli attitudes today similar and dissimilar to attitudes in the past?
I think that most of the attitudes of the Arabs and the Israelis are very similar to attitudes in the past.
In the past, peace has always been the answer, as it is today. In 1974 there were talks with the United Nations about peace this shows that the Arabs have wanted peace, the also cooperated in 1995 when their leader, Arafat, signed a peace accord along with the Israeli leader Rabin. And again in 2002 when there were peace talks in London. This shows that the Arabs are willing to cooperate at certain times now and they have done in the past.
However they’re attitude still hasn’t changed towards terrorism. In 1972, 1973 and 1978 there were many terrorist attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. This shows that the Arabs also think that violence is another way to settle the conflict and these same views have been displayed when, in the 1990s there were terrorist attacks and also in September 2001 some fundamentalists attacked New York (some fundamentalists refuse to accept peace with Israel causing them to act on their feelings).
I think that Israeli’s attitude towards peace has changed slightly because in 1974 they refused to take part in the peace talks with the United Nations and by 1979 they’d made peace with Egypt in the Camp David Agreement, in 1994 they made peace with Jordan, in 1995 they signed a peace accord and in 2000 they tried to end the Palestinian refugee problem by letting them return to Palestine.
Through the years the Israeli’s have tried to make peace however they also prevent it. They did this in 1982 by invading Lebanon and again in 1997 because Netanyahu, the Israeli leader lets the Israeli settlements to be placed on the West Bank therefore breaking the Resolution 242. The Israeli’s also prevent peace in 2002 and 2003 by making security attacks on the Palestinians.
Anwar Sadat , the Egyptian president, his attitude has changed. Although he decided to attack in the Yom Kippur War he recognised Israel as a state later on and this led to a peace treaty with Israel. Israeli extremists then assassinated him.
Menachem Begin was a terrorist commander he led attacks on Palestinian villages. He was in a Guerrilla group called Irgun that he changed to the Herut political party. He went on to become the prime minister of Israel and signed the Peace Accord at Camp David.
In conclusion, I think that the overall attitudes of the Arabs and Israelis haven’t changed. Only certain individuals have changed their views on this dispute, usually for the better, and made a significant difference within the dispute.
5) ‘Violence over the last three years in the Arab-Israeli Dispute is the result of events that happened in the past’
Use support material and your knowledge to explain whether you agree or disagree with this statement.
I do agree with this statement to an extent because they’ve never made peace or agreed to share the land and this has caused hostility between the two sides ever since. I also agree with the statement because of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. When it was set up they committed various acts of terrorism such as
-
On the 5th of September in 1972 they kidnapped some Israeli athletes that were in the Olympics they then killed two of them and demanded that 200 Palestinian prisoners should be released. The Israelis tried to rescue the athletes and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation killed another 9.
- Hijacking planes
- Bombings
I think that the terrorist attacks that have happened over the past three years have been a continuation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as the terrorists have bombed places such as
- September 2001 when the suicide bombers attacked the Twin Towers in New York
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March 6th 2003 there was another suicide bomber that killed 15 students in a bus
In the last three years the Israelis killed a Hamas leader because of the attacks on Gaza. A similar situation can be found in the history of the Arab-Israeli dispute where the Jews rose to rebellion against the Romans so this shows that the trend of violence has been carried on.
I also think that the 2nd Intifada happened because the first encouraged it to.
Also the Israelis bulldozed the old house of Baha Said, a man the killed some Israelis 2years before, where an innocent old lady lived and got killed. Baha Said had died previously this shows that violence in the past leads to violence now.
However, violence in the past has lead to more peace talks and this shows that not all violence is associated with that of the past. President Bush declared was on all ‘terrorism’ this means that the attacks of terrorism that could be made today don’t necessarily be because of the attacks made in the past.