Theme III 1a Arab-Israeli Conflict (1948-1979)

Theme III 1a: Arab Israeli Conflict (1948-1979) 1 2 “We have to go along a road covered with blood. We have no other alternative. Fur us it is a matter of life or death, a matter of living or existing. We have to be ready to face the challenges that await us ” -Gamal Abdel Nassar, speech to Egypt’s National Assembly, Cairo (November 6, 1969) “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” -David Ben-Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel 1 https://en.majalla.com/node/301431/documents-memoirs/milestones-arab-israeli-conflict-over-years 2 https://magill.ie/world/academics-call-%E2%80%98one-state-solution%E2%80%99-israel-palestine-conflict

Key Concepts 1. Peace: The determining factor to evaluate the effectiveness of conflict management a. Absence of War b. Interest of different actors to be proactively catered to without the need of resorting to conflict 2. Cooperation a. State and non-state actors adjust their behaviour to the anticipated or actual preferences of others through policy coordination b. Exhibited by i. Participation in peace negotiations and processes ii. A few actors allying themselves over a common enemy 3. Conflict a. Actors have incompatible or competitive interests, hence they strive to reduce the gains available to other states or impeding their achievements b. Attributed to divergence in political, security, economic or ideological interests 4. Conflict Development a. How different actors influence the i. Outbreak ii. Protraction iii. End of conflict Causes (Outbreak of Conflict) 1. (Religion) Distinct identities and religious significance of the levant made Arabic and Israeli culture incompatible with each other. Consequently, while they compete over religious narrative of the land, the uncompromising claims on religious lines made coexistence impossible as they view each other as increasingly antagonistic. a. Arab viewed Jewish presence as a subversion of traditional family and communal life, regarding the Zionist as trespassers who come to subvert and corrupt the Arab culture. Jews viewed Arabs as a representation of fatalistic passivity, social and cultural stagnation, and political tyranny. The Jews sought to recreate their European culture in Palestine as they viewed themselves as cultural and moral emissaries b. To Israel, much of Palestinian Land was promised to them in the Book of Genesis as Abraham’s descendants. The entire narrative arc of the Torah is built around Palestine. To Arabs, Palestine was the territory blessed by Allah and where Prophets Ibrahim and Isaac were buried. Both expressed purported “special relations