Arab-Israeli War (1956)

Arab-Israeli War (1956)

The nationalization of the Suez Canal was the ostensible cause for the 1956 Arab-Israeli War. After the United States refused aid for building the Aswan Dam on July 26, the anniversary of the 1952 revolution, Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal to finance building of the dam, Nasser’s dream project.

Egypt managed to keep the canal running, much to the consternation of France and Britain. In announcing the canal’s nationalization, Nasser had carefully adhered to international law. The United States, especially the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, an expert in international law, opposed the use of force to retake the canal and instead proposed a diplomatic settlement.

The oil shipped through the canal was vital to the British and French economies, and it was apparent that the United States, then self-sufficient in oil, did not intend to supplement any possible oil losses to its European allies. Great Britain and France were determined to take back the canal by force.


The British prime minister, Anthony Eden, personally detested Nasser, and his conservative Tory government was reluctant to cede British imperial control. The French were angry over Nasser’s support for the Algerians in the ongoing war there. Israelis feared Nasser’s growing popularity in the Arab world and wanted him removed from power before he could unify the Arabs and possibly form a united front to attack them.

The Israelis secretly approached the French with a proposal for a joint military action against Egypt; the French then brought Great Britain into the plan. Although some British cabinet members opposed joining the alliance, Eden was determined to bring Nasser’s regime down, and the tripartite agreement of the French, British, and Israelis was concluded.

According to the plan Israel was to launch a tripronged attack across the Sinai Peninsula, quickly take the territory, and stop the offensive prior to reaching the canal. The British and French would bombard Egyptian airfields and parachute forces along the canal on the supposed excuse that they were there to stop the war between Egypt and Israel.

Operation Musketeer 1956

The Israelis launched the attack in October 1956, quickly cut through Egyptian defense lines, took the Sinai, but then stopped before reaching the banks of the canal. The British and French were late in launching their attack but ultimately took control of the canal.

The war was a clear-cut military victory for Israel, Britain, and France, but Nasser immediately accused the three nations of collusion. Although Eden and the French for years publicly denied any collusion, ultimately firsthand accounts by Israeli and other military and political leaders revealed the secret agreement.

With some justification, Nasser argued that the attack proved that Britain and France still had imperialist designs on the Arab world and that Israel was also a threat to its Arab neighbors. Nasser thus turned a military defeat into a political victory and became the most popular man in the Arab world. Contrary to Western and Israeli hopes, Nasser was not overthrown, and he consolidated power after the 1956 war.

The war placed the United States in the awkward position of having to condemn its closest allies in the United Nations. The Soviets gained popularity in the Arab world by supporting Egypt. The war also diverted world attention away from the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolt by Soviet forces.

In the face of international condemnation, Britain and France were forced to withdraw in December 1956, and the canal reverted to Egyptian control. Subsequently Eden, suffering from ill health in part brought on by the stress of the conflict, stepped down as prime minister. The Israelis were reluctant to withdraw from the strategic area of Sharm al-Sheikh in the south of Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

President Eisenhower intervened and threatened to cut off all United States economic aid if they did not return all the territories to Egypt. Israeli forces finally left in March 1957. However, Israel did gain a unilateral agreement from the United States that the Gulf of Aqaba up to the southern Israeli port of Elath was to be considered an international waterway.

Egypt and the Arab states never recognized the legality of Aqaba as an international waterway but for a decade did not challenge Israeli shipping through the gulf. Israel made it clear that any future closure of the waterway would be casus belli, or cause for war, and its threatened closure was one cause of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations

Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations

Five major wars and numerous peace negotiations have failed to resolve the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians over land and statehood. Israel declared its independence and won the first war against opposing Arab states and the Palestinians in 1948.

The 1949 armistice mediated by Ralph Bunche, a United States diplomat to the United Nations, ended the hostilities but did not result in an actual peace treaty, and technically a state of war still existed. Although the Arab states refused to recognize Israel, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt supported behind-the-scenes secret negotiations in the early 1950s, but when Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion demanded face-to-face negotiations, the diplomatic efforts failed.

After the 1956 war, the United Nations, with Egypt’s agreement, placed peacekeeping forces in the Sinai Peninsula (Egyptian territory) at strategic locations along the borders between Israel and Egypt. Their removal at Egypt’s request was the ostensible cause of the 1967 war in which Israel decisively defeated the surrounding Arab nations and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights (Syrian territory), and the Sinai Peninsula (Egyptian territory).


Following this major victory, Israel expected the Arabs to sue for peace and that some border modifications would be made. However, the Arabs refused to negotiate until Israel had withdrawn from all the territory occupied in the 1967 war and that some resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue and demands for self-determination had been achieved.

Following the 1967 war, the Palestinians concluded that only armed struggle against Israel would achieve their national aspirations, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) emerged as their sole political and military representative. Israel and its United States ally both considered the PLO a terrorist organization and refused to negotiate with it. Various diplomatic settlements were suggested but all failed to break the impasse.

Shuttle Diplomacy

To regain the Sinai and to bring the United States in as a mediator to the dispute, Anwar Sadat of Egypt launched a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying Sinai in 1973. Although Israel suffered some initial defeats, its military soon recovered and regained the offensive.

With United States and UN diplomacy, a cease-fire was declared, and both sides announced they had won the war. The United States secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, then embarked on shuttle diplomacy between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Israel in an attempt to reach a settlement to the conflict.

He envisioned a step-by-step process that the U.S. would control. As a result, various phased withdrawals of Israeli forces from the Sinai were agreed upon and were to be guaranteed by U.S. forces stationed in the peninsula, but the overall cause of the conflict, namely the conflicting claims of Israel and the Palestinians, remained unresolved.

Sadat attempted to revive the process by making a dramatic visit to Israel, where he spoke before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in 1977. Sadat was the first Arab leader publicly to visit Israel, and his gesture altered the psychological dimensions of the conflict and made it appear that peace between the Arabs and Israel was possible.

In 1978 the United States president Jimmy Carter brought Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Sadat together for 13 days of occasionally acrimonious negotiations at Camp David. These negotiations led to the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that was signed at a well-publicized ceremony hosted by Carter on the White House lawn in 1979. The treaty provided for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai and full diplomatic recognition between the two states.

Carter anticipated that further negotiations to resolve the differences between Israel and the Palestinians, the cessation of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, and the return of some land for an overall peace settlement would follow. The Arab states and the Palestinians rejected the treaty because it did not resolve most of the basic issues, and Israel continued to build settlements in the territories, further angering the Palestinians.

In 1981 Egyptian Islamists who opposed the treaty assassinated Sadat; however, his successor, Hosni Mubarak, maintained the treaty in what has been called a “cold peace” between Egypt and Israel. In 1984 a full peace treaty between Israel and Jordan under King Hussein was signed. Hussein and then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, both military officers, had a cordial relationship, and this treaty has also held.

During the 1970s the PLO also gained recognition from a number of nations around the world. In spite of Israel’s opposition, Yasir Arafat even addressed the UN General Assembly in New York City. Israel attempted to eliminate the PLO by attacking its power base in Lebanon in 1982.

The war seriously damaged the PLO infrastructure but did not destroy the organization that, with international assent, moved its base of operations to Tunisia. UN peace-keeping forces remained in southern Lebanon along the Israeli border, but a new indigenous Lebanese Islamist movement, Hizbollah, then began attacks on Israeli forces both in Lebanon and Israel.

As early as 1974 the PLO hinted at the acceptance of a two state solution, or the so-called Palestinian ministate comprising East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. The Arab governments also made gestures regarding acceptance of Israel; the Fahd Plan of 1982, sponsored by Saudi Arabia, called for all the states in the region to live in peace.

The Fez Plan of 1982 reiterated the Arab states’ willingness to consider trading land for peace as long as some form of Palestinian self-determination was achieved. These overtures were largely ignored by both Israel and its major ally, the United States, although the United States did have some secret contacts with the PLO.

After 1988, when the PLO and Arafat agreed to recognize Israel’s right to exist, to recognize UN Resolution 242, and to renounce terrorism, the United States agreed publicly to negotiate with it as the representative of the Palestinians.

The PLO and Arafat were further weakened by their support for Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War; in retaliation the Gulf States, especially Kuwait, halted financial support for the PLO, and Kuwait ousted tens of thousands of Palestinians who then generally took refugee in Jordan. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the PLO also lost a key ally.

With the end of the cold war, the United States became the major mediator in the long-running dispute. In 1991 U.S. Secretary of State James Baker succeeded in bringing all of the parties to the conflict—Jordanians, Syrians, Israelis, and Palestinians—together for the first time for direct negotiations.

The Palestinians were represented by a delegation from the Occupied Territories who unofficially represented the PLO. The Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir of Likud, the hard-line Right party, was a reluctant participant, and the negotiations dragged on without appreciable progress until 1993.

Direct Negotiations

At the same time, in 1993 the new Israeli Labor Party government under Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres agreed to direct negotiations with PLO representatives. These top secret talks were held in Norway, a respected neutral party, and resulted in the first Oslo Accords.

The accords included the Declaration of Principles (DOP) and letters of mutual recognition that were publicly signed in September 1993 on the White House lawn with President Bill Clinton as host. The occasion culminated with a famous handshake between the two old enemies, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat.

Under Oslo I, Israel agreed to withdraw from Jericho and most of the Gaza Strip, and a five-year process of negotiations for further withdrawals was to result in the creation of what the Palestinians believed would be an independent Palestinian state. The PLO was to maintain order in its territories and prevent attacks on Israelis.

The territories were then turned over to the Palestine Authority under the PLO. In 1994 a Jewish settler massacred Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron; and Hamas, the main Palestinian Islamist group, retaliated with a car bomb in Israel that killed Israeli civilians. Arafat condemned suicide attacks, but they continued. Meanwhile, the PA was also charged with corruption and inefficiency and lost much popular support among the Palestinians.

Under Oslo II in 1995, Israel began a phased withdrawal from Ramallah, Nablus, and Bethlehem on the West Bank. However, the issues of Israeli settlements, the final status of Jerusalem, and the refugees remained undecided. Militants on both sides opposed these agreements, and in 1995 an Israeli radical assassinated Rabin. Meanwhile, violence in the territories continued. None of these negotiations settled the dispute between Israel and Syria regarding the Golan Heights.

The Likud, under Binyamin Netanyahu, won the elections following Rabin’s death, and once again the negotiations stalled. Israel withdrew from Hebron in 1997, one year past the agreed upon time frame. In the Wye Memorandum of 1998 (named after the Wye Plantation in Maryland where the talks were held) the United States mediated further Israeli withdrawals, and Arafat pledged to combat terrorism and to take steps to ensure further Israeli security.

However, Netanyahu’s government collapsed owing to mounting opposition from within his own party, and the withdrawals were delayed. Thus the expected deadline of 1999 passed without the establishment of a viable independent Palestinian state on the 22 percent of historic Palestine proposed for it. In addition, new Jewish settlements continued to be built or enlarged within the territories still held by Israel.

In a popular move within Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in spring 2000. In the summer Barak met with President Clinton and Arafat at Camp David. At Camp David Barak presented an offer for a final settlement that involved the Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; Israeli control over the airspace, water aquifers and all of Jerusalem; the denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees; and the continuation of some of the settlements.

Although Clinton pressured Arafat to accept the proposal, Arafat knew he could not agree to give up the right of return and some Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, particularly the holy site of Haram al-Sharif, and survive politically. He rejected the offer but failed or refused to present a counter offer, and the talks failed.

Shortly thereafter a Palestinian uprising, the al-Aqsa Intifada, broke out. As the violence mounted, many Israelis lost confidence in the peace process and Barak. A last attempt to revive the process was made at Taba (in the Sinai Peninsula close to the Israeli border) in January 2001. Under the Taba proposals, Israeli would retain about 6 percent of the West Bank, reduce the number of settlements, and the Palestinians would receive a state.

But the two sides could not agree on the status of Jerusalem, the right of return, or the Israeli settlement near Jericho that effectively split the Palestinian West Bank into two parts. The Likud Party under Ariel Sharon won the ensuing Israeli elections, and Sharon became the new prime minister in 2001; he supported the crushing of the al-Aqsa uprising by military means.

The Arab states adopted the Saudi peace initiative whereby they would recognize Israeli in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories in 2002. In 2003 some former Israeli officials and leading PLO members proposed the Geneva Plan. Rather than adopting the step-by-step process that had not succeeded, this plan was a full comprehensive agreement, in which the end game was known.

The plan provided for a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip and Israeli control over three settlement blocs in the West Bank and around Jerusalem. Palestinians would control the Haram al-Sharif in East Jerusalem, and Jews would control the Wailing Wall.

The refugees would receive some compensation and the freedom to return to the Palestinian state. Provisions were made for mediation of disputes, and the Palestinians were to have a security force, not an army. Israel would keep two monitoring posts as an early warning system on the West Bank for no more than 15 years.

Sharon rejected the plan although it received some muted political support within Israel. Arafat did not give full assent for the plan but did not openly reject it. Nor did other states, especially the United States, adopt the plan, and it died for want of support.

Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, adopted a policy of unilateral disengagement whereby Israel made decisions without negotiations or discussions with the Palestinians. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and dismantled the settlements, but periodically launched military attacks into the territory and retained control over its borders, thereby cutting it off from trade and outside support.

The Bush administration’s support for Israel and Sharon lessened the credibility of the U.S. as a neutral mediator to the dispute among Palestinians and other Arabs. After Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006 negotiations broke down entirely.

Although Hamas suggested implementing a long-term cease-fire, it refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Israel considered Hamas, which continued suicide bomb attacks against Israelis within the territories and Israel proper, a terrorist organization and rejected all negotiations with it.

As the peace process dragged on, a generation of disillusioned and angry Palestinians grew up under Israeli military occupation. Conversely, many Israelis knew the Palestinians only as suicide bombers or violent opponents.

Arab-Israeli War (1967)

Arab-Israeli War (1967)

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War lasted six days and was a resounding military victory for Israel but failed to achieve a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1966 border incidents and incursions into Israel by Fatah Palestinian guerrilla fighters increased, and Israeli launched a major military raid into Jordan in the fall of 1966.

In spring 1967 the Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol—a dove by Israeli political standards—responded to demands for a stronger stance against Arab provocations by agreeing to the cultivation of demilitarized zones along the border with Syria.

Predictably Syria opened fire, and Israel retaliated by shooting down a number of Syrian jet fighters. The Syrians, presumably encouraged by their Soviet allies, believed they were about to be attacked by Israel and appealed to their ally Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt for help.


In an attempt to gain diplomatic support and to look like he was doing something for his Arab allies, on May 16 Nasser asked that the UN withdraw its peacekeeping troops from the frontier posts in the Sinai Peninsula. Nasser mistakenly believed that a protracted period of negotiations would follow; however, according to the UN Charter troops could only be placed in a territory at the invitation of the host country.

Consequently, the UN secretary-general U Thant promptly acceded to the Egyptian request and ordered the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force. Egyptian units occupied the posts including the vital Sharm al-Sheikh position along the Gulf of Aqaba, on May 21. Nasser then gave conflicting statements as to whether the waterway would be closed to shipping going to the southern Israeli port of Elath.

After the 1956 Arab-Israeli War, Israel had announced that it would view any closure of the waterway as casus belli, or cause for war. On May 23 United States president Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announced that the United States considered the waterway an international one, thereby supporting the Israeli position.

Israeli tank army

Eshkol advised caution in an attempt to avoid full-scale war, but military leaders and hawks in Israel favored immediate action. A flurry of diplomatic activity ensued, with Nasser seeing UN and United States representatives in Cairo and Abba Eban of Israel touring the Great Powers to secure their support in the event of war. The Soviets feared a full-scale war that might escalate into a confrontation between the superpowers and used the hotline to Washington to prevent either power from becoming directly involved.

After receiving notes from both Johnson and the Soviets urging calm, Eskhol convinced most of the Israeli cabinet ministers on May 28 that all diplomatic measures should be used before recourse to war. However, irresponsible rhetoric by Arab leaders inflamed fears among Israelis that they were about to be overrun by Arab forces and also convinced Arabs that their militaries would win any war with Israel.

Although the CIA and other experts predicted that Israel, with its military superiority, would quickly win any war with its Arab neighbors, the general public in the West, especially in the United States, was also convinced that Israel was in peril.

On May 30 Egypt and Jordan joined in a joint defense pact, and the PLO was allowed to open offices in Jordan. Iraq also joined the pact. Nasser was approached by both the Soviets and the United States urging a diplomatic settlement and apparently believed that Israel would not attack as long as diplomatic negotiations were in process.

On May 31 General Moshe Dayan, a noted hawk, became the Israeli defense minister, and war seemed likely. On June 5 the Israeli air force launched surprise attacks against Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. Within two hours over 400 Arab planes had been destroyed, almost all on the ground. In spite of the boasts by Arab leaders, their militaries had not been prepared for war.

With total air superiority Israel launched a threepronged attack (almost a repeat of the military action in the 1956 war) and easily cut through the Egyptian forces, taking the Gaza Strip (administered by Egypt) and also moved across Sinai to the east bank of the Suez Canal. On June 8 Israel and Egypt agreed to a ceasefire in the Sinai.

On June 5 Israeli forces also moved against Jordanian forces in the West Bank, taking all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by June 7. Over 100,000 more Palestinians became refugees as thousands fled across the Jordan River to escape the war. On June 27 the Knesset agreed to a proclamation that Jerusalem was one city.

On June 8 Israeli forces moved against Syria in the north while the UN was still negotiating a cease-fire. In a still unexplained attack, Israel, on the same day, torpedoed the USS Liberty, a spy ship deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. By June 9 Israel had taken the Golan Heights from Syria, and a cease-fire was agreed to on June 10.

Taking responsibility for the disastrous defeat, Nasser resigned on June 9 but was brought back to power by popular acclaim. In support of their Arab allies the Soviet bloc severed diplomatic relations with Israel in the following days. In the war, the Arabs suffered over 26,000 killed, wounded, captured, or missing and lost over 1,200 tanks. Israel lost 6,000 killed, wounded, captured, or missing; 100 tanks; and 40 airplanes.

UN Resolution 242 called for the return of territories taken in war but pointedly did not specify all of the territories; this would become a point of contention in future negotiations. The war had been a humiliating loss for the Arab states. Owing to its decisive victory, Israel expected a full settlement, but no Arab government could hope to survive if it accepted an agreement with Israel that did not provide for the return of the newly conquered territory and the recognition of some form of Palestinian state. The impacts of the war were far-reaching and continue to reverberate in the region to the present day.

After the war, Israel announced that it would only accept face-to-face negotiations with the Arabs. From June 14 to 16, Arab leaders met at Khartoum, Sudan, and forged a united front. They announced that there would be no negotiations with Israel until it withdrew from the Occupied Territories and that no separate peace would be made by any individual Arab state. This caused Egypt’s ostracism from the Arab world following Sadat’s unilateral peace treaty with Israel in 1979. As a consequence of the impasse, Israel continued to occupy all of the Sinai Peninsula (Egyptian territory), the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights (Syrian territory).

The Soviets rearmed Egypt and Syria and increased their presence in the region. From 1968 to 1970 Nasser waged a war of attrition along the canal, and the Israelis built what they believed to be an impregnable defense line on the east bank of the canal. The line was breached by an Egyptian offensive in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Initially Israel was probably willing to return most of the Occupied Territories in exchange for a full peace and recognition by the Arab states. The longer Israel held the territories and the more Israeli settlements were established, the less land it was willing to trade for peace.

As a result of the war Palestinians concluded that the Arab governments would not be able to achieve their goal of an independent Palestinian state and that they would have to rely on themselves. This directly contributed to the growth of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. It also set the stage for a cycle of violence between Palestinian and Israeli forces that continued into the 21st century.

Arab-Israeli War (1973)

Egyptian army crossing suez canal

The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (October 6–26), known as the Yom Kippur War in Israel and the Ramadan War among Arabs, was the fourth major military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel occupied Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian-Palestinian territories; despite international efforts by United States secretary of state William Rogers and UN special envoy Gunnar Jarring, no peace agreement was reached, and Israel continued to occupy the territories taken in 1967. Although in March 1972 Syrian president Hafez al-Assad publicly expressed his readiness to accept UN Resolution 242 recognizing Israel with the return of all of the Syrian Golan Heights, Israeli policy remained unchanged.

Syria and Egypt, with the support of Saudi Arabia, therefore decided to initiate a limited war in order to break the political stalemate. The Egyptian president, Anwar el-Sadat, was also anxious to relieve domestic discontent and to force the Soviet Union to supply Egypt with more advanced weaponry.

It appears that Sadat and al-Assad began the secret planning of a joint strategy in 1971 and by the end of the year had reached an agreement on a broad strategy of action. In August 1973 the Egyptian chief of staff, Lieutenant General Saad el-Shazly, and his Syrian counterpart, Yusuf Shakkur, formally agreed on two possible dates for the war: September 7–11 or October 5–10. Less than a week later Egypt and Syria agreed on October 6.


At the time, in spite of Arab military preparations, Israeli military intelligence did not believe that war was imminent. The possibility of Israel’s being taken by surprise was not seriously considered, nor was the thought accepted as valid that Arabs might launch a limited war to force serious political negotiations.

The Egyptian and Syrian attack on October 6 was therefore an unpleasant and shocking surprise for Israel. Hostilities began when the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights and the Egyptian army surprised Israel by crossing the Suez Canal on a pontoon bridge and by breaching the supposedly impregnable Israeli Bar Lev Defense Line in Sinai. Syrian armored and infantry divisions stormed the Golan plateau but were stopped several miles from the eastern shore of Lake Tiberias and the River Jordan.

On October 8 the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered the deployment of Israeli nuclear weapons, fearing that the “third temple” (the state of Israel) might be in danger. His fears proved premature; the Israeli army regained the initiative, and General Ariel Sharon launched a counteroffensive and established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Suez Canal, only 60 miles from Cairo. A cease-fire was agreed upon on October 24. The situation was similar in the north, where Syrian advances on the Golan were reversed, and the outskirts of Damascus came into range of Israeli artillery.

Three major factors enabled the Israeli forces to reverse their initial losses. First, once the superior Israeli military forces had been fully mobilized they retook initiatives on both fronts. Second, a crucial role was played by an enormous airlift of U.S. military supplies. The airlift, larger than the Berlin airlift, provided Israel with some 24,000 tons of arms, ammunition, tanks, missiles, and howitzers.

Destroyed israeli tank

A third and crucial factor was the differing political and strategic goals of Sadat and al-Assad. Sadat had started a limited war to shatter the status quo and pressure the United States to mediate the dispute in order to regain the Sinai Peninsula. Assad wanted to retake the entire Golan and put pressure on Israel to give up the occupied Palestinian territories.

After two days of successful advances, the Egyptian forces were ordered to adopt a defensive stance by Sadat, but, in reaction to Syrian setbacks in the north and the U.S. airlift, Egyptian forces reinitiated the attack against Israel on October 14. However, they failed to regain the initiative.

The Soviet Union was reluctant to become further involved, and U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s skillful diplomacy resulted in a political gain for the United States and the drawing closer together of the United States and Sadat.

On October 22 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338 calling on “all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity ... to start immediately after the cease-fire the implementation of the Security Council Resolution 242 in all of its parts aimed at establishing just and durable peace in the Middle East.” Sadat accepted the cease-fire, and Syria officially recognized it on October 23.

Israel continued its military action against Egypt, however, and on the evening of October 23 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sent a letter to U.S. president Richard Nixon proposing joint U.S.-Soviet intervention to ensure the cease-fire. He also threatened that if the United States did not take action, the Soviet Union would be faced with the urgent necessity to “consider taking appropriate steps unilaterally.” In response Kissinger put U.S. forces on full nuclear alert on October 24.

The Soviets did not intervene and over the next few days the cease-fire was implemented. Although Israel proved victorious in the end, the war had been a great shock to the state. For the Arabs, the war was a limited success and seemed to rehabilitate the Egyptian army after its disastrous defeat in the 1967 war.

In May 1974 Syria and Israel reached a disengagement agreement, and Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of the Golan and the town of Quneitra but continued to occupy the rest of the Golan. Assad’s achievements improved his image in Syria. The war also increased U.S. power and weakened Soviet influence in the region. The United States subsequently mediated negotiations between Egypt and Israel, leading toward the Camp David accords and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979.

Arab-Israeli War (1982)

Arab-Israeli War (1982)

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon in an attempt to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) once and for all. In 1970, following Black September, when Palestinian forces were defeated in Jordan, the PLO moved its base of operations to Lebanon. The presence of large numbers of Palestinians further disrupted the fragile Lebanese political system, which was based on a confessional system reflecting the many different religious communities in the country.

When the PLO launched attacks from southern Lebanon, Israel often retaliated by attacking Lebanon and demanding that Lebanon control the PLO. Some Lebanese, particularly the Maronite Christians who held the preponderance of political power, blamed the PLO for the problems with Israel and for Lebanon’s domestic instability. They also wanted the PLO out of the country.

After civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975 the central government ceased to be effective, and the PLO was able to establish a state within a state. Although the PLO was not the major cause for the civil war— internal political contradictions in Lebanon were—it was a contributing factor.


Initially the PLO attempted to remain neutral in the war, but as violence throughout the country escalated, it was drawn into the fighting on the side of the Sunni Muslims, who, unlike other groups in Lebanon, largely lacked their own military militias.

The PLO also provided social services and militarily trained some Shi’i in the south, who traditionally had been the poorest and least powerful group in the country. However, PLO fighters were often arrogant, and gradually Shi’i communities came to resent their presence.

Following increased attacks by the PLO, including terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in the north, Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 120 straight days in 1978. During this time Israel trained and financed a surrogate force, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), commanded by a former officer of the Lebanese army. It continued to operate as a pro-Israeli force in South Lebanon into the 1990s.

The Israeli attacks depopulated much of South Lebanon, as over 200,000 people, mostly Shi’i villagers, fled to South Beirut, where they settled in slum areas and refugee camps. During the Lebanese civil war Israel also established direct ties with Maronite Christian forces, the Phalange or Kataeb, led by Bashir Gemayel, who was intent on removing the Palestinians from Lebanon and establishing Maronite control over the government.

By 1982 the PLO feared a major Israeli attack in Lebanon and moderated its incursions across the border. But the hard-line Likud government, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, was determined to crush the PLO. In June 1982 the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal organization, whose leader had been condemned to death by Arafat and the PLO, attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador, Shlomo Argov, in London.

The Israelis retaliated with a full-scale invasion of Lebanon. Although the Israeli cabinet had approved an invasion 25 miles into Lebanon, the hawkish Israeli defense minister and war hero General Ariel Sharon ordered troops that had little difficulty securing the south to advance directly on to Beirut.

As the Israelis advanced, the PLO forces also moved north toward Beirut. Within a week Israeli forces had linked up with Bashir Gemayel’s militia in East Beirut and besieged West Beirut, home to about 1 million civilians and also the PLO headquarters. The Israeli air force and navy bombarded the city, and as the siege dragged on, the Israeli military attempted but failed to take the city.

Syrian army

The war resulted in a heavy loss of civilian life, and the international community, appalled by the carnage, demanded a cease-fire. Negotiations led to the withdrawal of PLO leaders, including Yasir Arafat and many fighters, to Tunis on August 16. International forces, including French, United States, and Italian, moved in to protect the civilian population in West Beirut, but within two weeks president Ronald Reagan declared the war over and removed United States troops.

On August 23 Bashir Gemayel was elected president of Lebanon, but to the dismay of Sharon, he refused to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Several days later Gemayel was killed in his headquarters, and his brother ultimately became the new Lebanese president.

In retaliation for the killing—which they blamed on the Palestinians—Lebanese militias, under the observation of Israeli troops, entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, and from September 16 to 18 massacred several thousand people, mostly Palestinian women and children. In Israel major demonstrations against the government erupted for having allowed such attacks.

Although Sharon was held accountable for the massacre and forced to resign, he returned to politics and in 2001 became the Israeli prime minister. In the aftermath of the massacre international forces, including U.S. Marines, returned to Lebanon. They, too, were drawn into the Lebanese civil war and became targets for suicide bombers. Thus, even without the presence of the PLO, the war continued.

In 1983 suicide bombers killed 17 Americans and 40 others at the U.S. embassy, 58 French soldiers in a car bomb, and 241 U.S. Marines in a truck bombing at the supposedly safe Beirut airport. When more attacks and kidnappings followed, the international forces withdrew. Israeli forces also gradually withdrew from Beirut but remained in South Lebanon.

Lebanon descended into greater anarchy until the civil war ended under the 1989 Taif Agreement, brokered by Saudi Arabia and supported by other Arab states. The 1982 war was a military defeat for the PLO and damaged much of its social and welfare infrastructure in Lebanon, but it did not destroy the organization. Tunisia remained the PLO headquarters until the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, when it moved to Gaza and Jericho in the West Bank.

Initially the Shi’i in South Lebanon welcomed the Israelis but gradually they turned against them when the troops remained. Hizbollah (Party of God), which formed as a result of the 1982 war, became the major Shi’i group to fight against the Israeli occupation. Israel was to sustain more deaths and casualties from the struggle with Hizbollah in Lebanon than from the PLO.

In May 2000 Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon except for Shaba Farms claimed by Syria and as Lebanese territory by Hizbollah. However, confrontations between Israeli and Hizbollah forces continued over the disputed area and in 2006 Israel again bombarded and invaded Lebanon, this time in an attempt to destroy Hizbollah.

Yasir Arafat

Yasir Arafat

Yasir Arafat (full name, Muhammad Abdul Rauf Arafat al-Qudwa) was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo in 1929, although he claimed Jerusalem as his birthplace. Educated in Egypt, Arafat earned an engineering degree in 1956. While a student he met other Palestinians, especially Salah Khalaf (1932–91) and Khalil al-Wazir (1935–88), who would become leaders in the nationalist movement.

Although it is not certain that Arafat ever became a full-fledged member, he had contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, and some of his associates did join the brotherhood. Arafat served as president of the Union of Palestinian Students and, later, the larger General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) from 1952 to 1956.

After graduation Arafat, along with several other key allies, moved to Kuwait, where in 1957 he cofounded, with Khalaf and al-Wazir, Fatah (Harakat Tahrir Filastin, or Palestine National Liberation Movement). In Arabic the acronym meant victory. Al-Asifah was its military arm.


Wazir’s wife, Intissar, also took an active role in the group. Fatah’s first operation against Israel was an attack on a water pump station in 1965. Along with many other nationalist leaders in the mid-20th century, Arafat and Fatah members were influenced by the Algerian War.

On the basis of that struggle they concluded that an independent Palestinian state could only be established through armed struggle with Israel. Arafat’s stated goal was the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine. He took the name Abu Ammar as his nom de guerre; al-Wazir became Abu Jihad; and Khalaf became Abu Iyad. The three leaders were known among Arabs as the abus, or fathers.

The Battle of Karameh in 1968 was a major turning point for Arafat and Fatah. In an attempt to crush Fatah, Israeli forces moved into Jordan and attacked the Fatah base at Karameh. Surprised when Fatah fighters fought back, the Israelis withdrew somewhat hastily. Young Palestinians and others who had been dispirited after the major defeats in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War then flocked to join Fatah in the struggle against Israel.

As a result Fatah became the largest and most powerful of the Palestinian factions and in 1969 Arafat became chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization for a number of diverse Palestinian groups. He served in that capacity until 2004. Under Arafat’s leadership the PLO accommodated political factions on the Left and Right and refused to be aligned with any one Arab government.

The mounting power of the PLO posed an open challenge to the Jordanian monarchy. Consequently in September 1970 King Hussein’s forces attacked the PLO forces and Palestinian refugee camps, driving the PLO and Arafat out of Jordan. Black September, the group that subsequently attacked and assassinated Jordanian officials and Israelis, took its name from the war in Jordan. Although Israel and others alleged that Black September and other organizations that engaged in terror attacks were controlled by Arafat, he denied the charges.

By 1974 Arafat ordered that PLO attacks be concentrated only in Israel and the Occupied Territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In 1974 Arafat achieved international recognition and spoke before the General Assembly of the United Nations. In subsequent years Arab states and most other countries, with the notable exceptions of Israel and the United States, recognized the PLO as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians.”

After being ousted from Jordan, Arafat and the PLO moved the headquarters of their military, political, and social welfare activities to Lebanon. As the central Lebanese government imploded in the course of the civil war in the mid-1970s, the PLO became a state within a state.

The PLO infrastructure of schools, hospitals, businesses, and cultural institutions grew. Fearing major Israeli attacks into Lebanon, Arafat attempted to moderate PLO invasions into Israel along Lebanon’s southern borders, but as the PLO’s political and diplomatic efforts became more effective, Israel was determined to eliminate the dangers the PLO posed.

In June 1982 Israel launched a full-scale invasion into Lebanon with the purpose of destroying the PLO. Arafat and the PLO were quickly besieged in Beirut, where they held out against massive Israeli bombardments from the sea, land, and air. Negotiations by the international community resulted in the withdrawal of Arafat and the PLO leadership from Lebanon and their relocation to Tunis.

Israel attacked PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985, but Arafat escaped; he also was almost killed in a plane crash in 1992. He and the PLO remained headquartered in Tunisia until 1993. Late in life Arafat married Suha Tawil, from a notable Palestinian Christian family, with whom he had one daughter. His brother Fatih Arafat, a medical doctor, headed the Palestinian Red Crescent for many years.

Arafat was a master at maneuvering among the Arab leaders, with whom he often had difficult relations, as well as among conflicting Palestinian factions, often playing one against the other. In 1988 the Palestine National Council (the equivalent of the Palestinian parliament) declared a Palestinian state with Arafat as the president.

By this time Arafat supported the so-called ministate solution, whereby the Palestinian state would include the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, all territory taken by Israel in the 1967 war and occupied by its military forces since that time.

Following secret talks between Israeli and PLO representatives in Norway, Arafat agreed to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which provided for the phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the Occupied Territories and PLO recognition of Israel. The accords were signed by Arafat and Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in a much-publicized ceremony in Washington, D.C. Arafat shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Peres.

Israel withdrew from portions of the Gaza Strip and Jericho, and Arafat returned to what Palestinians hoped would be the gradual creation of a fully independent state. Arafat was elected president of the new Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1993 and held the position until his death. Although he personally lived a simple life, Arafat was accused of allowing corruption among high-level Palestinian officials in the PNA and within Fatah. He retained a patriarchal hold on power.

As negotiations faltered, Arafat became increasingly isolated. At the 2000 Camp David negotiations Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak offered to return much of the Occupied Territories in return for an end to conflict, with no terms for the resettlement of the refugees.

Arafat rejected the offer but failed to make a counteroffer. Negotiations broke down completely, and many young Palestinians turned to the Islamic nationalist organization Hamas, which launched attacks—including suicide missions—within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

In 2000 and 2001 a new intifada (the al-Aqsa Intifada), or Palestinian uprising, broke out. Israel retaliated by reoccupying territory it had previously vacated. Israeli forces surrounded Arafat in his compound in Ramallah, and for the last two years of his life, he remained under what amounted to house arrest.

After some time of failing health he was moved to a hospital in Paris, where he died of uncertain causes in 2004. After Israel rejected Arafat’s wish to be buried in Jerusalem, his body was brought back to Ramallah for burial amid massive scenes of mourning among Palestinians. Although Arafat had failed to achieve an independent Palestinian state, he remained the leader who had made the existence of the Palestinian people and their quest for self-determination a matter of international concern.

Independence of Cyprus

flag of cyprus

On June 4, 1878, Britain concluded a treaty with the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II, officially known as a Convention of Defensive Alliance. In this treaty Abdul Hamid agreed to the loan of Cyprus to Britain, while retaining Ottoman sovereignty over the island and the right to collect a tax known as the tribute.

Britain won de facto control of the island and the right to make laws and international agreements in the name of Cyprus. Within weeks of the signing of this treaty, the Union Jack flag was hoisted over Nicosia, and shortly afterward a contingent of Indian army troops arrived from Malta to safeguard British colonial rule, which lasted 82 years. For Britain, Cyprus became a vital staging area for its Middle East interests.

The island was formally taken over by the British in 1914, when the Ottoman Empire aligned itself with Germany and the other Central Powers during World War I. Under the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Turkey and Greece agreed that Cyprus would remain under British sovereignty, and in 1925 Cyprus was declared a crown colony.


Both the Greeks and the Turks of Cyprus considered British control a welcome relief from Turkish taxation; many Greek Cypriots also felt that the departure of the Ottoman administration brought the island closer to the Greek dream of enosis, or union, with Greece.

Thus, in effect, began the efforts of the Greek Cypriots to link the island’s destiny with that of Greece. The British government continued to state formally that no change in the status of the island was contemplated. Such an attitude further embittered the Greek Cypriots, although it was of some comfort to the Turkish Cypriots.

On April 1, 1955, a secret organization calling itself the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters—known by its Greek initials as EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston)—declared a struggle until death to free the island from British rule and to link it with the Greek mainland. The war for the future of Cyprus began as colonial empires were crumbling around the globe. The British felt there was no question of a union with Greece or of full independence for Cyprus.

Considering its commitments in the Middle East and its still important role on the southeastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Britain regarded Cyprus as a crucial military base on the traditional crossroads of big-power competition for influence in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkish Cypriot reactions were predictable. The Turks felt that, if successful, the Greek struggle for enosis against British colonial rule meant that the Turkishspeaking minority on the island would lose the protection of the British.

Fear of a Greek victory prompted the creation of a Turkish Cypriot counter organization known as VULCAN; the Turkish Cypriot minority also cooperated with the British police and military in tracking down suspected EOKA fighters.

To the slogan of enosis, Turkish Cypriots answered with their own solution, that of takism, or partition, of Cyprus. Georgios Grivas, who had previously served as a colonel in the Greek army, led the EOKA. Grivas arrived on the island from Greece in 1954 and set out to prepare what amounted to an well-organized uprising.

In Nicosia, early in 1955, rumors of landings of saboteurs, of infiltration by agents dispatched from Greece, and of organized resistance began sweeping the narrow streets, and soon Cyprus became an armed camp.

An estimated 28,000 British troops were deployed throughout the island, manning roadblocks, searching passersby, pursuing elusive terrorist suspects, and uncovering arms caches and hideouts in some of the most improbable places. Cyprus had become a dangerous weak spot in the NATO alliance.

What needed to be done was to work out a system of ethnic power-sharing that would satisfy Greece and Turkey, as both nations worked to protect their Cypriot ethnic compatriots as well as their own interests. Talks between the two countries continued throughout January 1959.

On February 5, Greek prime minister Constantine Karamanlis and Adnan Menderes of Turkey met in Zurich, where they prepared, after negotiations and consultation with the leaders of the two Cypriot communities, an outline for a solution to the Cyprus situation. With that document in hand, they traveled to London, where they were joined by Archbishop Mikhalis Khristodoulou Makarios III and Dr. Fazil Kuchuk, the political leader of the Turkish Cypriot community.

The new Cypriot constitution, based on the Zurich-London agreements, was issued in April 1960 and paved the way for the proclamation of the independent Republic of Cyprus. The president of the republic was a Greek Cypriot while the vice president was a Turkish Cypriot, both being elected by their representative communities. Both had veto powers over foreign affairs, defense, fiscal matters, and security.

Three Treaties

On the same day the constitution was finalized it was accompanied by three treaties: the Treaty of Guarantee, the Treaty of Alliance, and the Treaty of Establishment. The Treaty of Guarantee was signed by Turkey, Britain, Greece, and Cyprus. It stated that the four countries agreed not to undertake activity aimed at promoting, directly or indirectly, a union of Cyprus with any other state, or a partition of the island.

The Treaty of Alliance involved Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. It established a tripartite headquarter on the island and permitted the two latter states to deploy, respectively, 950 and 650 persons in Cyprus to protect the island.

The Treaty of Establishment was signed between Britain and Cyprus and granted Britain sovereignty over a territory on the island’s southern coast for two military bases, Akrotiri and Dhekelia. The constitutional agreement was reached at the price of some 500 killed during the EOKA struggle with the British, but it also allowed Britain’s colonial disengagement from Cyprus.

The flag under which the two communities of Cyprus were to unite was displayed to the public on August 16, 1960. The Union Jack was replaced with a white flag bearing an orange map of Cyprus with small green branches underneath.

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

On July 19, 1974, Turkish warships and landing craft moved toward the northern coast of Cyprus. The invasion—or intervention, to the Turks—was Turkey’s answer to the military coup of 15 July that toppled Archbishop Mikhalis Khristodoulou Makarios III, president of Cyprus, at the behest of the military junta in power in Athens, Greece.

Turkish officials justified the military action by citing the terms of Article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee, noting the impossibility of joint action with Greece and the reluctance of Britain to use military force to restore the state of affairs established by the constitution of 1960.

The Turkish military offensive began on July 20, and although the Greek National Guard tried to defend the beachfront of northern Cyprus, it was defeated by the far stronger Turkish armed forces.


The Greek National Guard was poorly armed, while the Turks used new equipment and weapons recently purchased from the United States. Britain evacuated an estimated 12,000 British and other foreign nationals, as well as a number of Cypriots, to the Akrotiri military base and from there to England.

By July 22, the United Nations succeeded in obtaining a cease-fire. At this stage of the operation, named Attila II, the Turks controlled only a strip of the northern coastline about 10 miles long, including Kyrenia and a few villages.

Under pressure of the events in Cyprus, the Athens junta finally collapsed after more than seven years in power. Former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile in Paris to form a new cabinet.

Turkish troop

At the same time, Nicos Sampson renounced his seven-dayold presidency of Cyprus, leaving the shattered country to Glafcos Clerides, who had previously been the president of the House of Representatives. During the early days of the post-invasion period, the Greek National Guard attacked Turkish Cypriots, thereby worsening inter-communal relations.

A conference of the guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey, and Britain), as well as Cyprus, was organized in Geneva on July 25 and resulted in a declaration calling for an exchange of prisoners and protection by the UN forces of the Turkish Cypriot enclaves.

As scheduled, the second part of the conference convened on August 9 with Clerides and a large team of advisers and experts representing Cyprus. Meanwhile, the small area of Cyprus held by the Turkish army was further occupied by some 30,000 troops with accompanying tanks, and artillery.


On August 13 the Turkish foreign minister Turan Günes¸ shocked international opinion by refusing a request for a 36-to-48-hour delay made by Clerides in order to consider proposals to resolve the crisis. At dawn on the following day, armor-backed Turkish columns fanned out east and west of Nicosia.

By this action Turkey was in violation of the many Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire and troop withdrawal, as well as agreements that were signed in Geneva. After three more days of fighting, Turkey called a cease-fire, but not before 37 percent of Cyprus had come under Turkish military occupation. Approximately 10,000 Turkish Cypriot refugees from enclaves in the south were flown to northern Cyprus from British bases by way of Turkey.

The events of 1974 dramatically altered the internal balance of power between the two Cypriot communities and coupled their prevailing political and institutional separation with a stark physical and geographical separation. Until the present day, the island remains divided between the Greek-speaking south, now a member of the EU, and the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey.