Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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The Israeli army has fought three major wars with its Arab neighbors.
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The first came in 1948, when Arab armies attacked in support of Palestinians driven out of their homes and cities by Zionist militias prosecuting the Nakba. The 1948 war ended in Arab and Palestinian defeat, and with it the initial consolidation of the Israeli state project.
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Perhaps best-known of the wars is 1967, when, true to its alternative name as the Six Day War, the Israelis defeated a half-dozen Arab armies in under one week. In so doing, they claimed much of the land where the occupation regime still pursues its project of land grabs and settlement building. Its enduring significance derives from its revision of the prewar boundaries — which international law demands Israel withdraw back behind to create a viable Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
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1973 saw Arab militaries seize the element of surprise by assembling during Ramadan, which overlapped that year with the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur. After two-and-a-half weeks of fighting, the Israeli state survived the conflict. But a new set of facts on the ground had presented itself. It is this set of parameters that, half a century later, still defines US, Egyptian, and Israeli relations in particular.
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Egypt was able to play a deft diplomatic hand between the Soviet Union and the United States, making particularly good use of Soviet tanks for the Sinai offensive. In that offensive, the potential strength of the Egyptian military became apparent; it was understood that Sinai would probably have to be returned by the Israelis, and Egyptians would buy into the Western fold or else drift closer toward the USSR.
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Five years after the fighting finished, in a historic 1978 peace agreement, Israel and Egypt normalized relations, unlocking the first US military aid to Anwar Sadat’s administration in Cairo. This payment, to the annual tune of $1.2 billion, still flows from US taxpayers to Egypt. Sadat was understandably hated by Egyptians for making an unwanted peace with the Israeli project, and though Sinai was formally restored to Egypt in 1980, Sadat himself was assassinated for his betrayal of the Palestinian cause and Egyptian pride.
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while not all Arab states sent significant troop deployments in 1973, a broad solidarity with the Palestinian cause prevailed, particularly among the oil-producing Gulf states and members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The OPEC oil embargo against Israeli allies, including the United States, represented a decisive, nonviolent intervention by the wealthiest quarters of the Arab world in support of Palestine, transforming global energy markets and emphasizing the vulnerability of Western oil dependency.
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1973 clarified that Gulf partnerships needed to be managed carefully, but that the Israelis should be backed fully as a bulwark against Arab relations with the USSR.
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US spending on the Israelis was on its way toward the $3.8 billion a year it sits at now. Successive Egyptian government were bought off as they remain today, and OPEC and the Gulf have been gradually depoliticized and pacified. While Oman — dubbed a sort of Gulf Switzerland — continues to try and tread a middling line in regional diplomacy, and Qatar has left OPEC but continues to hold a pro-Palestinian bent in its foreign policy, the oil crisis of 1973 remains something of a high-water mark for meaningful Gulf solidarity — military and economic — in trying to achieve justice for Palestine.