Conflicts in the Middle East

OBJECTIVES:
•Describe the History (from 19thCentury) that ultimately led to the Conflict.
•List the outbreaks of war between Israel and Arab states.(1948 & 1967)
•Describe the Palestinian struggle for independence.
•United States And Israel-Palestine (till now 2018)
 A Modern Conflict rooted in Ancient History
• According to Jews, their claim goes back 3,000 years
when Jewish (Hebrew) kings first ruled from Jerusalem.
• According to Palestinians (both Muslim & Christian),
the land has belonged to them since the Jews were
driven out by the Romans in 135 A.D.
• According to Arabs, the land has belonged to them since
the conquest of the area in the 7th century(636–637) by
Rashidun Caliphate

Map at right: Current nation of Israel and the Palestinian territories

it occupies: the Gaza Strip and West Bank
POPULATION
MUSLIMS 87%
CHRISTIANS 10%
JEWISH 3%
Living Peacefully
 1894

Teodor Herzl
leads Zionist
movement -
a movement
dedicated to
creating a
Jewish State
in Palestine.

• Arabs were concerned

about the increased immigration 1896-
of Jews to Palestine. Zionists
• Jews were making requests for begin
a homeland to be carved out of settling in
Middle East on the Eve of World War I
the region when the war ended. Palestine.

1914
WWI begins.

T. Loessin; Akins H.S.

 The U.N. (1945) recommends
the partition of Palestine
into one Palestinian state
and one Jewish state;
sympathy for Jews
after the Holocaust
helped generate increased Zionist support.

An independent
state of Israel
is created. 1948

The next day

after Israel announced its independence,
six Arab states –
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon,
UNITED NATIONS
Saudi Arabia, and Syria –
invaded Israel.
Outbreak of full-scale Arab-Israeli war.

Israel would depend on strong American

support in this war and future
wars with its Arab neighbors.
Jordan Control West Bank & Jerusalem.
Egypt Controlled Gaza Strip.
 “The 1967 Six-Day War”.

Nasser and the other Arab allies

remained angry after the 1956 War
and by 1967 were equipped
with Soviet tanks and aircraft and
began to mobilize for a retaliation on Israel.

Arab forces with Soviet support began mobilizing

and closed off the Gulf of Aqaba.

Israel stages a pre-emptive strike

and the 1967 Six-Day War begins.

Heavy Arab losses;

Israel annexes Jerusalem,

the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula,
and the Golan Heights.

T. Loessin; Akins H.S.

 BEFORE

Jordan
Egypt

AFRER

Jordan
Egypt
 October 6, 1973 was
“Yom Kippur”- the holiest
day in the
Jewish calendar –
Egypt and Syria opened a
coordinated surprise
attack against Israel.
The equivalent of the total
forces of NATO in Europe
Egypt’s President was mobilizing on Israel's borders.
Anwar Sadat
The whole world watched anxiously to see
what steps would be taken by
Israel’s Prime Minister, Golda Meir.

Joint Arab attack on holiest Jewish holiday.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War begins.

Israel counter-attacked. Signed an uneasy truce.

Through Russian Soviet Union interference in War.
boundaries of Egypt Restored.
T. Loessin; Akins H.S.
 Egyptian President Sadat offers peace to Israel.
President Carter sets meeting in U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Sadat

sign the Camp David Accords in 1978.

• Egypt becomes first Arab nation to officially

recognize Israel’s statehood.
• Israel agrees to return Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
Israel
Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat shocked
the world when he
became the first leader Egypt’s new President Hosni Mubarak
kept Sadat’s policy
of the Arab-world and maintained
to offer peace to Israel. peace with Israel.
“We used to reject you,” Palestinians could no
longer rely on Egypt in
he told the Israeli their conflict with Israel.
Parliament, “yet, today,
we agree to live with
Two years later, you in permanent
Sadat is assassinated by angry Muslim extremists.
peace and justice.”
In the same manner that Sadat had
been assassinated in 1981 by Muslim
extremists on his side who were angry
about his willingness to make peace
with Israel…
Following the assassination of Egypt’s
President Sadat in 1981, Israeli Prime
Minister Rabin paid
a respectful visit to his memorial.

…Israel’s Prime Minister

Rabin was also assassinated in
1995 by a right-wing Jewish
extremist for Rabin's peace
initiative.
Memorial to Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv, Israel
 Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas,
United States President George W. Bush,
and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
after reading statement to the press during the
closing moments
of the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba,
Jordan, June 4, 2003.
The United Nations established the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinian Refugees in the Near East to help care for those
Palestinians. More than 3.7 million Palestinians are registered with the
agency in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli leaders have held the position that the right of return
is nonnegotiable saying that it would
create a demographic problem for Israel,
making it unable to continue as a Jewish state.
 Main Issues that define Israel-
Palestine relations today
• SETTLEMENT:
– The Palestinians want a freeze on all settlement building during the talks
• JERUSALEM
– Israel captured Arab east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it. It considers the city its
"eternal and indivisible" capital.
– The Palestinian Authority wants to make east Jerusalem, home to some 260,000 Palestinians
and more than 200,000 Israelis, the capital of its future state.
• REFUGEES
– The Palestinians want Israel to recognize the "right of return" of the Palestinians who fled or
were expelled when the Jewish state was created in 1948. With their descendants, they
number 4.7 million refugees. Israel rejects the demand.
• WATER
– Israel controls 80% of underground water resources in the West Bank. The Palestinians want
a more equitable share.
• 'JEWISH CHARACTER' OF ISRAEL:
– Mr. Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to accept Israel as "the state of the Jewish people". The
Palestinians reject this, saying it implies an implicit renunciation of the right of return for
refugees.
Source: The Telegraph