12. The Arab–Israeli Conflict

2019 ◽  
pp. 271-297
Author(s):  
Charles Smith
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Arab States ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
Yasser Arafat ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Peace Treaties ◽  
Oslo Agreement

This chapter discusses different aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict over time — military, political, and economic. The first two decades of the Arab–Israeli conflict, often marked by armed hostilities, were notable for Arab refusal to recognize Israel's existence. Since the 1967 war, Arab states, specifically Syria and Saudi Arabia, have displayed willingness to recognize Israel, and two, Egypt and Jordan, have signed peace treaties; Yasser Arafat recognized Israel's right to exist in the 1993 Oslo agreement. In this regard, most Arab states have adopted a realist approach to the Arab–Israeli conflict, seeking coexistence based in part on acceptance of Israel's military supremacy. In contrast, Israel appears to insist on security through regional domination, coupled with retention of the West Bank as Greater Israel.

Israel-UAE deal will expand existing security ties

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arab States ◽  
Regional Partnerships

Significance The US-brokered deal reflects Washington’s priorities in fostering regional partnerships against Iran and in upgrading Israel’s relationships in the Gulf (ostensibly as a step towards resolving the conflict with the Palestinians). Impacts There is speculation an accord could be signed as early as next month, but this may be delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Washington will seek to strong-arm other Arab states, notably Sudan, Bahrain and Oman, into following the UAE’s example. The agreement provides cover for Netanyahu to abort already troubled plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Netanyahu’s exclusion of coalition partners and security officials from talks has raised further public concern over his trustworthiness. In Israel, the deal remains overshadowed by preoccupations with the pandemic’s health and economic consequences.

scholarly journals Israel and the Occupied Territories

1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (S1) ◽  
pp. 79-81
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
The West ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
The People ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Arab States ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
East Jerusalem

In the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, the ICRC considers that the conditions for the application of the Fourth Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from settling its civilians in the occupied territory, destroying the homes of the people living there or expelling them from it, are fulfilled in all of the occupied territories (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Golan and East Jerusalem). The principles that the rights of persons who are in occupied territory are inviolable is expressed in Article 47 of the Fourth Convention.

SUSAN SLYOMOVICS, The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). Pp. 319. $19.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riad Bahhur
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Property Law ◽  
The West ◽  
Israeli Government ◽  
Arab States ◽  
The City

Susan Slyomovics's Object of Memory explores the ways in which Arabs and Jews (primarily Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews) narrate the Palestinian village, focusing on the pre-1948 Palestinian village of Ein Houd, located in the Carmel Mountains south of the city of Haifa. The Palestinian inhabitants of Ein Houd were displaced during the 1948 war and prevented by the Israeli government from returning to their homes there. Most of them became internal refugees, designated “present absentees” under Israeli law. Others became refugees in surrounding Arab states and in the part of Palestine that became known as the West Bank. Their properties were confiscated by Israel under the Absentee Property Law.

scholarly journals Military psychiatry – a Jordanian experience

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 386-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasser Shuriquie
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Middle Eastern Country ◽  
The West ◽  
North West ◽  
Eastern Country ◽  
Military Psychiatry ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy

Jordan is a Middle-Eastern country, located North West of Saudia Arabia. The total area is 93 300 sqkm. Jordan has borders with Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the West Bank. Regarding ethnic groups, about 98% of population are Arabs, 1% Circassian and 1% Armenian. Moslems make up around 94% of the population and the remaining 6% are Christians. Jordan is a constitutional Monarchy that became independent from British administration in 1946. The population of Jordan is 5 307 740 (July 2002 estimate), the capital is Amman and the language is Arabic.

Palestinians fear expanded Israeli settlements

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
West Bank ◽  
State Solution ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type

Significance Encouraged by a supportive US administration, Israel is pressing ahead with plans to expand existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and even to regularise outposts established without the government’s sanction. Palestinians complain that this policy is steadily eroding the prospects for a two-state solution. Impacts Rising despair and internal divisions could stoke a new round of violent Palestinian protest. The dispute over the legitimacy of settlements could assist right-wing efforts to limit the power of Israel's Supreme Court. Controversy over settlements may undermine US attempts to forge an alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran.

Radical US Israeli-Palestinian peace plan will fail

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
Authority Control ◽  
Principal Author

Significance This partly reflected fears that the Trump administration’s promised “ultimate deal” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include neither element. US envoy and principal author Jason Greenblatt said on September 13 that work on the secret plan had entered the “pre-launch phase”, despite Palestinian opposition. Impacts Unilateral Israeli annexation of large parts of the West Bank is becoming increasingly plausible as right-wing discourse changes. Tel Aviv will resist a return to Palestinian Authority control in Gaza, with many politicians preferring the existing split with Hamas. Despite half-promises to Trump, Saudi Arabia cannot afford to abandon the Palestinian cause. Russia may partly move into the abandoned US mediation role but lacks the commitment and leverage to force a solution.

Trump’s peace plan is an existential threat to Jordan

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
East Jerusalem

Significance Popular anger in Jordan over the settlements has increased since the publication of US President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on January 28, which no longer allows Israeli rule in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to be understood as temporary. Despite its deep financial and military dependence on Washington, Amman was forced to follow the Palestinians in immediately rebuffing the proposal. Impacts Jordan’s traditional role as custodian of Jerusalem’s holy sites could be threatened, possibly in favour of Saudi Arabia. Any undermining of the royal family’s religious authority would weaken its domestic legitimacy. The plan’s demand that Jordan enable the deal by policing transit into and out of the West Bank would further stretch scarce resources.

scholarly journals Military psychiatry – a Jordanian experience

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 386-388
Author(s):  
Nasser Shuriquie
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Middle Eastern Country ◽  
The West ◽  
North West ◽  
Eastern Country ◽  
Military Psychiatry ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy

Jordan is a Middle-Eastern country, located North West of Saudia Arabia. The total area is 93 300 sqkm. Jordan has borders with Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the West Bank. Regarding ethnic groups, about 98% of population are Arabs, 1% Circassian and 1% Armenian. Moslems make up around 94% of the population and the remaining 6% are Christians. Jordan is a constitutional Monarchy that became independent from British administration in 1946. The population of Jordan is 5 307 740 (July 2002 estimate), the capital is Amman and the language is Arabic.

From War to War, 1956–67

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Jerome Slater
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
Arab States ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Peace Settlements

Despite the Israeli myths, the 1967 war was not “a war of no choice.” Before the war, Israeli political and military hawks hoped to use another war to seize the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Israel deliberately provoked Syria into war. Egypt was forced by its alliance with Syria to come to its assistance, but did not intend to start a war with Israel. U.S and Israeli intelligence knew this and anticipated that Israel would easily defeat Egypt, even if the Egyptians attacked first. Though strongly pro-Israel, Lyndon Johnson did not want the U.S. to be drawn into the war. Therefore, the Israeli military attack on Egypt in June 1967 was not forced on Israel. During the war Israel seized the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. After the war Israel decided to keep its conquests and to ignore signals from the Arab states for compromise peace settlements.

The Palestinian Military: Two Militaries, Not One

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillel Frisch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The United States ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
The West ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
External Threat ◽  
Yasser Arafat ◽  
The One ◽  
Security Structure

The considerable variation in the way national security agencies are structured is a function of two basic factors: the state’s political and social heterogeneity and the possibility of allying with a strong external state, usually the United States. The problem, however, with fragmenting the military and security forces to achieve “coup-proofing” is that a tradeoff exists between fragmentation and assuring internal security on the one hand, and ensuring offensive capabilities to ward off external enemies, on the other. According to this model, centralized homogenous entities enjoying U.S. protection will tend to fragment their security systems most. States that duplicate their security forces least are plural societies that cannot command U.S. interest and commitment to meet their external security threats. The Palestinian Authority (PA) under Yasser Arafat was emblematic of political entities that were homogenous and enjoyed the protection of the United States and Israel, and it could therefore fragment its security forces into 12 or more security agencies compared to Eritrea, which achieved independence a year before the establishment of the PA, and maintained a very unified security apparatus to meet the threat of a vastly larger enemy—Ethiopia. As long as Israel (and the United States and its allies) supported the PA, Arafat made do with a fragmented inefficient security structure that was nevertheless efficient enough, with Israeli security backing, to meet the major external threat—Hamas and the Jihad al-Islami in both the West Bank/Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Israel’s decision to withdraw from Gaza in December 2003 and to complete its withdrawal from Gaza by September 2005 forced the fragmented PA to face these enemies alone, leading to the loss of Gaza to Hamas. By contrast, in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, the more fragmented PA security structure prevailed as a result of considerable security cooperation with Israel. Hamas, bereft of a close external ally, challenges a superior Israeli military and therefore has a unified security structure much like Eritrea in the 1990s.

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