Conflict and Quest for Peace in the Middle East (1948-95)
War broke out between Israel and its neighbouring Arab countries in 1948 as a result of the declaration of independence o 14th May 1948. This angered the Arabs who invaded on the following day. The Arabs outnumbered the Israelis 80-1.
In September 1970 Colonel Abdul Nasser died of a heart attack. He was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat desperately wanted peace. However, the Israelis were unwilling to negotiate, they didn’t even take an Egyptian army seriously because they were so confident. In order to change the balance of power and make the Israelis negotiate, Sadat would have to launch an invasion. The Arabs were determined not to make the same mistakes as before, and so decided to co-ordinate their attacks. They prepared to go to war with the aim of achieving total surprise. Sadat ordered the 15,000 soviet technicians, who had been installing the latest SAM missile systems, to go home. Sadat wanted Jordan to join the invasion and so he went to King Hussein and told him that Israel was about to invade, however, he did not fall for this trick and so flew to Israel to warn the then prime minister, Golda Meir, she did not believe him. On 6th October the Egyptians and Syrians attacked. This was the most holy day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, and all the Israelis were worshiping. The conflict was going well to begin with, however, the Egyptians only advanced 12Km, as this was the range of their SAM umbrella, this meant that the Israelis could concentrate on the Syrian invasion in the North. The Syrians then forced the Egyptians to advance further, this left the Egyptians exposed, and 250 Egyptian tanks were destroyed in 3 hours. Ariel Sharon then came up with a plan to cross the Suez Canal between the 3rd and 4th Armies and encircle the third army. Eventually the Soviet Union declared that they would reinforce their Arab allies with Nuclear weapons if the Israelis did not give up immediately, and so eventually on 24th October a ceasefire was called.