Israel is the most powerful state in middle-east and is surrounded
by enemies from all the sides. Its neighbor (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt)
not only have ideological difference but also have cultural and religious
difference with Israel. Jerusalem the holy place of Christianity, Jews and
Islam has always been in the centre of dispute. Many wars have been fought for
its control over the centuries. Its control has been passed over to many dynasties
from various religions.
But we will focus on
the modern period with birth and rise of Israel. It all started with the end of
First World War in which Jews open heartedly supported Germany against Russia.
After the end of the war British started encouraging Jews to establish their
own motherland. This was the ploy to remove a huge Jew population which had resided
in Europe.
Between 1919 and 1923, another 40,000 Jews arrived in
Palestine. Many of these immigrants became known as "pioneers"
experienced or trained in agriculture and capable of establishing
self-sustaining economies. The Hefer Plain marshes were drained and converted
to agricultural use. Land was bought by the Jewish National Fund, a
Zionist charity which collected money abroad for that purpose. Between 1924 and
1929, 82,000 more Jews arrived because the United States Immigration Act
of 1924 now kept Jews out. And slowly and steady their number swelled
to hundreds of thousands and Palestine’s were happy to sell their land and move
inwards towards Jerusalem and with the end of 2nd world war which ended
with a massacre of 20 million Jews mainly by Germans the remaining Jews started
moving towards the last Jews territory on the shores Mediterranean sea.
Soon Palestine started realising that their land has been captured by the Jews
who constitute nearly 20% of the total population. A massive civil war broke
out which ended with the creation of a new state for Jews in 1948 named Israel.
Immediately following the declaration of the new state, both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry S.
Truman and Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin, recognized the new state. The Arab League members Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon
and Iraq refused to accept the UN partition plan and proclaimed the right of
self-determination for the Arabs across the whole of Palestine. The Arab
states had heavy military equipment at their disposal and were initially on the
offensive. But among large numbers of Jewish immigrants are World War II
veterans and Holocaust survivors, and many joined the IDF(Israel Defense Forces) After an initial loss of territory by the Jewish
state and its occupation by the Arab armies, from July the tide gradually turned
in the Israelis' favor and they pushed the Arab armies out and conquered some
of the territory which had been included in the proposed Arab state. At the end
of November, tenuous local ceasefires were arranged between the Israelis,
Syrians and Lebanese. Following the ceasefire declaration, On May 11,
1949, Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations. Out of an Israeli
population of 650,000, some 6,000 men and women were killed in the fighting,
including 4,000 soldiers in the IDF.
Within three years (1948 to 1951), immigration doubled the Jewish
population of Israel Overall, 700,000 Jews settled in Israel during this
period. Between 1948 and 1958, the population of Israel rose from
800,000 to two million. In 1969 Golda Meir (The iron lady) became Prime Minister. Meir was
the first female
prime minister of Israel and
the first woman to have headed a Middle Eastern state in modern times. At
the 1972 Munich Olympics, eleven members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. A German rescue attempt led to them
all being killed,
along with five of the eight hijackers. The Israeli government responded with a bombing, an assassination campaign against the organizers of the massacre and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon. Later Mossad (Israel secret service) one
the fieriest agency in the world tracked down and eliminated all the perpetrators
of the terrorist attack for 20 years in all over the world.
In 1972 frequent invasion exercises by Egypt and Syria led to
Israeli complacency about the threat from these countries. In addition the
desire not to be held responsible for initiating conflict and an election campaign
highlighting security, led to an Israeli failure to mobilize, despite receiving
warnings of an impending attack. The October War began on October 6, 1973 (the
Jewish Day of Atonement), the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and a day when
adult Jews are required to fast. The Syrian and Egyptian armies launched a
well-planned surprise attack against the unprepared Israeli Defense Forces. For
the first few days there was a great deal of uncertainty about Israel's
capacity to repel the invaders. Both the Soviets and the Americans rushed arms to their allies. The Syrians were repulsed by the tiny remnant
of the Israeli tank force on
the Golan and, although the Egyptians captured a strip of territory in Sinai,
Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal, trapping the Egyptian Third Army in Sinai and were 100
kilometres from Cairo. The war cost Israel over 2,000 dead, resulted in a heavy
arms bill (for both sides) and made Israelis more aware of their vulnerability.
Following the war, both Israelis and Egyptians showed greater willingness to
negotiate. On January 18, 1974, extensive diplomacy by U.S led to a Disengagement
of Forces agreement with
the Egyptian government and on May 31 with the Syrian government.
