A GUIDE TO THE Arab-Israeli Conflict

1 A GUIDE TO THEArab- israeli ConflictBy Mitchell G. BardAmerican- israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE)2810 Blaine Chase, MD 20815 American israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) Inc., 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of AICE, : 1537152726 ISBN 13: 9781537152721 Printed in the United States of AmericaAmerican israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE)2810 Blaine Chase, MD 20815 Tel. : 301- 565- 3918 Fax: 301- 587- 9056E- mail: studies available from AICE (all are now available on our website): Israel Studies: An Anthology Partners for Change: How Israel Cooperation Can Benefit America Learning Together: israeli Innovations in Education That Could Benefit Americans Breakthrough Dividend: israeli Innovations in Biotechnology That Could BenefitAmericans Experience Counts: Innovative Programs for the Elderly in Israel That Can BenefitAmericans Building Bridges: Lessons for America from Novel israeli Approaches to PromoteCoexistence Good Medicine: israeli Innovations in Health Care That Could Benefit Americans Rewriting History in Textbooks On One Foot: A Middle East GUIDE for the Perplexed or How to Respond on YourWay to Class, When Your Best Friend Joins an Anti- Israel Protest Tenured or Tenuous.

2 Defining the Role of Faculty in Supporting Israel on CampusProduction, new cover art by CreateSpace Original book logo design, cover concept, typography, map illustration: Danakama / Nick Moscovitz / NYC. Additional maps by North Market Street Graphics and the media and public affairs division in the israeli Ministry of Foreign ..v1 Israel s Roots ..12 The British Mandate Partition .. 274 The War of 1948 ..355 The 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Six- Day War ..436 The War of Attrition (1967 1970) and the 1973 Yom Kippur War ..607 Borders and Boundaries ..698 Israel and Lebanon ..889 Terrorism ..102 10 The United Nations ..132 11 Refugees ..141 12 Human Rights ..171 13 Jerusalem ..207 14 US Middle East Policy ..225 15 The Peace Process ..245 16 Settlements .. 290 17 The Nuclear Issue .. 299 18 The Media ..323 19 The Campaign to Delegitimize of Myths ..365 Alphabetical Index.

3 373 Suggested Reading .. 388 About the American- israeli Cooperative Enterprise ..391 About the Author ..392 TABLES1 Jewish Immigrants to Palestine .. 162 Palestinian Refugees in UNRWA Camps (January 2016) ..1623 Jerusalem s Population .. 2084 Foreign Military Financing (FMF) Orders by State ..2365 Consensus Settlements ..295 MAPS1 Great Britain s Division of the Mandated Area, 1921 1923 ..142 The Balfour Declaration Britain s Promise to the Jews .. 173 The Partition Plan 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 ..284 Peel Commission Partition Plan, July 1937 .. 315 The arab Invasion, May 15, 1948 ..366 Armistice Lines, Terrorist Attacks, 1951 1956 ..448 The Sinai Campaign, 1956 ..449 The Golan Heights Prior to the 1967 War: Distances and Elevations ..4810 Israel before June 1967 ..5011 Events Leading to the Six-Day War, May 25 30, The Egyptian Front, June 5 8, 1967.

4 5513 The Battle for Jerusalem, June 5 7, 1967 .. 5714 Israel after the Six-Day War, June 10, 1967 ..6115 Egyptian and Syrian Attacks, Oct. 6, 1973 ..6516 Peace with Egypt .. 7017 The Golan Heights Ridge Line ..7218 Relative Size of the Golan 7419 Range of Fire from Judea & Samaria (West Bank) ..7720 Israel PLO Interim Agreements since 1993 .. 7821 Flying Times to Israel ..8022 2nd Lebanon War ..9223 Israel s Border with Lebanon (in 2000) ..9424 Range of Fire from Lebanon ..9625 Jewish Refugees from arab States, 1948 Divided Jerusalem, 1948 Distances between israeli Population Centers and Pre- 1967 Armistice Lines ..25028 Range of Fire from Gaza ..25229 The Palestinian Authority s Map of Palestine ..26130 Water Resources ..26731 The Future Borders of Israel and Palestine? ..29732 Israel: Size and ContentsPrefaceThe great enemy of truth is very often not the lie deliberate, contrived and dishonest but the myth persistent, persua-sive and repeated.

5 President John F. Kennedy* Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan The israeli - Palestinian Conflict has several dimensions national,political, territorial, cultural and religious, israeli journalist Yossi Mel-man observed. In the worst case scenarios drawn by israeli analysts, the most feared and dangerous one is that the religious aspect will take over and dominate the Conflict , thus turning it into a religious war, which might draw the billions of Muslims around the globe a g a i n s t I sr a el. Melman has proved prophetic. While there has always been a reli-gious component to the Conflict in the Middle East, the Conflict was primarily between Israel and the arab states for at least thirty years, hence the subtitle of this book. Today, however, the arab - israeli con-flict no longer exists.

6 Israel still has peace treaties with only two arab states, Egypt and Jordan; however, none of the other states considers themselves at war with Israel. The Gulf States were never a major fac-tor in the Conflict , and for a brief period following the Oslo agree-ment, ties became more formal. Today, those relations are less overt but still exist. Israel s two major arab antagonists had been Saddam Hussein and the Assad family. Hussein, of course, is gone, and Iraq is too preoccupied with internal issues and threats from its neighbors to pose a threat to Israel. Bashar Assad, meanwhile, is fighting for his regime, and probably his life, in the Syrian civil war. Even before the dissolution of Syria began, Assad and his father, since being routed in the 1973 war, effectively kept the border with Israel quiet. The one border nation that remains a threat to Israel is Lebanon, but danger comes from the Hezbollah terrorists radical Muslims determined to *President John F.

7 Kennedy, Commencement Address at Yale University ( June 11,1962). Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Steven R. Weisman, Ed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: APortrait in Letters of an American Visionary (PublicAffairs, October 12, 2010), 2. Yossi Melman, A Price Tag for Jewish Terror, Jerusalem Report (May 6, 2013), the Jews who dominate the country rather than the virtu-ally nonexistent government and passive is now threatened almost exclusively by radical Muslims from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and, especially, Iran. These Muslims, as opposed to most living in the Middle East, are not interested in a politi-cal agreement; they seek the elimination of the Jewish , Israel s detractors outside the region are engaged in a global campaign to delegitimize Israel with their anti- Semitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign. Though often portrayed as a human rights movement to help the Palestinians, it actually shares the radical Muslim objective of destroying the Palestinian- israeli dispute, which has typically been re-ferred to as a fight between two peoples over one land, has become a primarily religious Conflict .

8 The popularity of Hamas influenced the Islamization of the Conflict with the Palestinians. Hamas cast itself as the defender of Muslim land and the group that could liberate Pal-estine from the Zionist usurpers. Not to be outdone, the supposedly secular PLO leaders now use Islamic themes and rhetoric to inspire and incite the Palestinian all Muslims hold extreme views; however, enough believe that a Jewish state cannot exist in the Muslim heartland, and that Jews should never rule over Muslims, to ensure the religious Conflict con-tinues whether or not negotiations achieve political often ask me to name the most prevalent myth about the Middle East. The answer is the suggestion, in one form or another, that Israelis do not want one craves peace more desperately than Israelis, who have lived through seven wars and an ongoing campaign of terror for more than six decades.

9 Each time a new peace initiative is launched, our hopes are raised that we will not need to publish another edition of Myths and Facts, which was first printed more than fifty years ago. In the meantime, old myths continue to be recycled and new calumnies in-vented. These must not be allowed to go unanswered if we are to progress toward do not pretend that Israel is perfect. Myths and Facts pulls no punches when it comes to addressing Israel s responsibility for events and policies that tarnish its image. We have no desire to whitewash the truth, but context is needed to understand complex policies and events. When friends criticize Israel, it is because they want the coun-try to improve; by contrast, Israel s detractors are only interested in delegitimizing the country, placing a wedge between Israel and its allies, and working toward its book should be treated as an introduction to the issues.

10 We encourage you to study different perspectives to reach your own con-clusions. You can find the complete text of this book and much more vi PrefacePreface viiinformation in the Jewish Virtual Library ( Libr ar y .or g). We continually update the online edition of Myths, ar-chive older facts, and post material we could not fit in the anticipate offering translations online as well. For now, previ-ous editions are available in Mandarin, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, French, Polish, Swedish, and Hebrew. In addition, we have a listserv for weekly myths/facts and other periodic updates. To sign up, visit the would like to acknowledge the contributions of the distinguished group of past editors: Sheila Segal, Wolf Blitzer, Alan Tigay, Moshe Decter, M. J. Rosenberg, Jeff Rubin, Eric Rozenman, Lenny Davis, and Joel Himelfarb. I would also like to thank Rafi Danziger, Rebecca Weiner, Isaac Wolf, David Shyovitz, Alden Oreck, Elihai Braun, Sarah Szymkowicz, Avi Hein, Joanna Sloame, Stephanie Persin, Ariel Scheib, David Krusch, Jonathan Lord, Allison Krant, Yariv Nornberg, Jennifer Feinberg, Elie Berman, Sybil Ottenstein, Stephanie Kogan, Zachary Scheinerman, Brett Boren, and Jason Levine for their invaluable as-sistance in the AICE is especially grateful to the sponsors of this edition: Evelyn and Dr.