A History of the Never Ending War

Authored and Researched By Levi Zakye Editing and Formatting By Cheryl E

Introduction:

On Oct 7th, 2023, the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, a US designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), launched surprise attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip firing over 7,000 rockets within 7 hours and breaching the Gaza-Israel border into Israeli territory.

More than 1200 Israelis and foreign nationals including 35 U.S Citizens in Israel were massacred. Hundreds were taken hostage, numerous women subjected to rape, numerous homes burnt and Israelis incinerated alive in their homes with the perpetrators recording these atrocities on camera.

There has been a global obsession with Israel and the Palestine question for more than seven decades. The October 7th attack was a symptom of this puzzle that dates back so many centuries, if not millennia. To understand it, we first need to look at the history of Israel - the most controversial piece of land in history.

A Bit of History:

Jews have had an unbroken presence in the land of Israel for over 3000yrs. In 70 AD Roman General Titus under Emperor Vespasian besieged and captured Jerusalem and destroyed the City and second Jewish Temple to crush the Jewish rebellion. In 135 AD Roman Emperor Hadrian again crushed Jewish revolts and exiled many Jews out of the Judean Province and city of Jerusalem. Emperor Hadrian also renamed the whole region ‘Palestina’ (a latin word) in place of the original name - Eretz Israel - to erase the memory of Jews in the land. The Roman Empire was succeeded by the Byzantine Empire in 313 AD.

Arab Invaders from the Hijaz invaded the Byzantine Empire and conquered it between 636 – 640 AD after the death of their prophet Mohammed. Jews lived under Arab rule here as dhimmis (lower class citizens) subject to jizya tax or subject to forced conversion. Jews not expelled into the diaspora continued to live through the different conquests like the Crusaders, the Mamluks, and the Ottoman Empire (1516- 1918).

By the mid-1800’s, Jews in the diaspora were beginning to flee different persecutions and pogroms in Europe and returning into Palestine under the Ottoman Empire, particularly more by 1881 with Jews fleeing pogroms from Czarist Russia.

Birth of the Zionist Movement:

The Zionist Movement began to grow in Europe to find a solution to the Jewish problem and end their homelessness and the persecutions and massacres and expulsions in Europe. The First Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, on August 29th 1897 led by Theodor Herzl gathering hundreds of Jews from around the world.

As the Zionist movement grew, the Arab Nationalist movement in the Ottoman Empire was also growing. In 1903 at the 6th Zionist Congress, the British colonial secretary proposed Uganda for the Jews fleeing these persecutions in Europe as the homeland which was rejected as the Jews’ aspiration was to form their state again in their ancient homeland in the region now called Palestine.

By the end of WW1 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France were faced with the question of how to solve aspirations of the Zionist movement and the Arab Nationalist movement in the former Ottoman ruled region.

As the Ottoman Empire neared its final fall on 31st Oct 1917, the British War Cabinet under new Prime Minister David Lloyd and Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour met to put the final wording on what came to be known as the Balfour Declaration.

This was followed by the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the San Remo Conference 1920 all with Arab leaders and Zionist leaders represented with the Agreement that the British Mandate for Palestine was to be for the re-constitution of the Jewish National home, and the French Mandate was to be for Syria and Lebanon and with the other British Mandates for Mesopotamia (later renamed Iraq).

However Colonial Secretary Winston Churchhill following the Cairo Peace conference of 1921 was under pressure from the Hashemite Emir Faisal and brother Abdallah and further partitioned Palestine creating another exclusively Arab state (Jordan) in 77% of Mandatory Palestine. And this was adopted by the council of the League of Nations in 1922.

The Council of the League of Nations met between July 19th – 24th 1922 and approved the British and French Mandates over these territories of the fallen Ottoman Empire. Britain, under the mandate, commiTed to encourage further diaspora Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine and to support the Jews until they were ready for self-determination and settlement over the land.

Thus the San Remo Conference and the Council of the League of Nations of 1922 with the power of disposition had therefore passed legal title to the Jews over Mandatory Palestine, and for the Arabs over what would become Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq (Mesopotamia). However with more economic success by the Jews in the land came further Arab migrations into the land from surrounding Arab states seeking jobs in the now flourishing Jewish agricultural economy.

The Arabs soon abandoned the agreements of the mandates and appointed the radical Amin Al Husseni as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem as appeasement for Arabs in 1921 to restore calm after Arab uprisings and the Jewish massacres of 1920. A pattern had been set that would haunt the rest of British rule over Palestine. The Hebron massacres of Jews followed in 1929.

When Britain turned its back on the Jews:

By the mid 1930’s Palestine had become almost ungovernable. By this time Hitler was in power in Germany and the persecution of Jews in Germany had began.

In order to appease the Mufti and his followers in case they sided with the Nazis (which they ended up doing anyway), the British Government began to introduce measures to severely reduce Jewish immigration into Palestine. The end result was the infamous Mcdonald White Paper of 1939 that would have disastrous consequences at a time when the Jews were fleeing from the Nazis in Europe, and virtually no country would take them. The White paper restricted the number of Jews that would be allowed to settle in Palestine to a total of just 75,000 over the next 5years. This was a monumental betrayal by Britain of its sacred trust of the mandate without the support or approval of the council of the League of Nations and of the Permanent Mandate Commission which was overseeing the operations in Palestine. Britain also purported to prohibit the transfer of further land to any Jewish Institutions contrary to article 6 of the Mandate which was illegal.

The 1939 white Paper literally wheeled hundreds of thousands of Jews that would have escaped to Palestine into the concentration camps and gas chambers.

Thousands of holocaust survivors also drowned as they tried to reach their ancestral home in Palestine in every way possible, mostly in small unseaworthy vessels. Many others also drowned while trying to run the British naval blockade of their promised homeland, blocked by the very nation that had been mandated to re-create the National home for the Jewish people and encourage their immigration.

In 1947, the refugee ship, the Exodus, exposed the plight of these homeless refugees and Britain’s betrayal. The British government sent back its 4,500 holocaust survivors back to Europe to be imprisoned again in displaced persons camps in the very country they were fleeing from - Germany. Many nations around the world and especially the United States called for the end of Britain’s trusteeship of the Mandate.

It just so happened that the members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine were present at Haifa port when the Exodus arrived. What they witnessed was the catalyst that brought about the UN General Assembly resolution 181 on the 29th November 1947, a recommendation for the further partition of Palestine into a Jewish State and another Arab state. Britain abstained from this Vote.

The Arabs not only rejected this resolution, but the very same day resorted to armed conflict and civil war against the Palestinian Jews to thwart any possible emergence of a Jewish state and to make resolution 181 null and void.

The War of Independence:

The surrounding Arab countries swore that they would invade and destroy an independent Jewish state as soon as it was declared. Instead of helping the Jewish community of Palestine to defend itself, Britain had imposed an arms embargo on the Jewish fighting forces while at the same time arming and training the armies of Egypt and Jordan. The governments of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq declared they were to launch, in their words, a ‘Jihad’ war against a declared Jewish state.

On the 14th of May 1948, Britain withdrew its forces from Palestine thus ending its administration as a Mandatory power. Later that same day, David Ben Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel. And so the Jewish state was reborn in the homeland from which it had been expelled nearly 19 centuries earlier.

And as was threatened, the very next day after David Ben Gurion’s declaration of independence, five Arab nations (Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon) invaded the Jewish state and attempted to annihilate it. That attempt failed. However by 28th May, pillars of smoke marked the surrender of the Jewish inhabitants of the old city of Jerusalem to the British trained Arab legion of the Jordanian army. Jordan therefore occupied Judea and Samaria. In the years that followed, dozens of synagogues were completely destroyed, and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. The Jewish people were ethnically cleansed from their ancient capital city of Jerusalem which falsely became known as East Jerusalem.

The War of independence continued until March 1949 when armistice lines were signed between Israel and her enemies. The 1949 Armistice lines left Egypt occupying Gaza and Jordan occupying Judea and Samaria (renamed the “West bank” by the Jordanian government in 1950).

The Arab Invasion of Israel in 1948 and the run up to it had another serious consequence which is a political hot potato today 75yrs later – the refugee problem. While many Arabs left of their own volition as result of the war, many also left following the Arab Higher Committee calls to leave so that the invading Arab armies would wipe out the Jews and new state of Israel and then they would return.

While it’s also true that the Israelis also expelled some Arabs, they were a small percentage of the displaced Arabs and mainly those that were in the frontline areas and were known to be collaborating with the enemy.

The Six Day War:

On June 5th 1967, the Middle East erupted into full scale war once again. After threatening to annihilate Israel for several weeks, Abdul Nasser, the President of Egypt, closed the straits of Tiran in the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal, itself an act of war, and ordered the UN peace keeping force to leave the Sinai Peninsula.

Israel responded with a pre-emptive strike destroying almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. Israel was now at war with both Egypt in the Sinai Desert and with Syria which was bombarding the Galilee with shell fire from the Golan Heights.

The Israeli PM Levi Eshkol sent a message to King Hussein of Jordan asking him to stay out of the War. The Jordanians responded by bombarding Jerusalem. Israel was now in a defensive war with Jordan as well.

After 2 days of fighting on 3 fronts, on the 7th of June the IDF liberated the old city of Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation. The Jewish people were now back in their historic capital city, the walled old city of Jerusalem from which they had been ethnically cleansed 19 years earlier.

The 6 Day war of 1967 left Israel in control of 3 times as much territory as she had before the war including all of the territory that the San Remo resolution intended for the Jewish homeland that lay west of the Jordan River, the Sinai Peninsula and the Egypt occupied Gaza strip and Golan Heights.

In Sept 1967, the defeated Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan, and vowed that they would not negotiate, not recognize and would not make peace with the ‘Zionist enemy’ - Israel.

From 1968-1970 with support, training and arming by the Soviet Union, all of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Cuba and the PLO, (The Palestinian Liberation movement which with the Soviets’ support had been created in 1964 as a new front against Israel) were involved in the war of attrition along the Suez canal against Israel in the now Israel controlled Sinai Peninsula. Hostilities continued and ended with a ceasefire on August 7th 1970.

The Yom Kippur War:

The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on oct 6th 1973, found Israel close to near defeat with an attack from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. With the cold War heating up, the Egyptians and Syrians received new Soviet tanks, planes and highly advanced shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles… weapons they didn’t have in 1967. The stance of the Arab nations was clear again- ‘wipe it off the map’. With complacency after the 1967 victory, Israel was caught off guard.

Unprepared, outnumbered , overwhelmed and nearing total defeat and threatening to turn to desperate measures, only then did the US, fearing the worst, launch ‘Operation Nickel Grass’ and by Oct 14th with supplies of tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets was Israel able to push back the Egyptian and Syrian armies.

By the the 22nd of Oct, with the Egyptian army surrounded and Israel threatening Cairo and Damascus, the UN was calling for a ceasefire and the Soviets were threatening to send in their own troops to defend the encircled Egyptian army, and Syrian capital. US Secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that if the Soviets sent in their troops to the Middle East, the United States would as well.

This was the closest the Soviets and Americans had come to direct military confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. So the Soviets backed down and Moscow asked Washington to make sure the Israelis eased up on the Egyptian army so as not to humiliate Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. So on Oct. 28th, the fighting officially ended.

The end of the war however, paved way for peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt, resulting in the most enduring and strongest peace treaties in an unstable region like the Middle East to date - The Camp David Israel-Egypt Peace treaty of 1979.

Since then, Israel has withdrawn from well over 95% of the territory taken in 1967, in particular the Sinai Peninsula, parts of the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank.

Rise of the PLO:

After the Egypt-Israel Camp David Peace treaty, Egypt was expelled from the Arab league and labelled as a traitor to the ‘Arab and Palestinian cause’… In Yasser Arafat’s words, “I want to tell Carter and Begin that when the Arabs set off their volcano , there will be only Arabs in this part of the world.. Our people will continue to fuel the torch of the revolution with rivers of blood until the whole of the occupied homeland is liberated, not just part of it”.

From 1979, the Arab-Israeli conflict took on a different form - the problem of the refugees arising from these wars, the status of the territories formerly occupied by Jordan and Egypt now re-claimed/liberated by Israel.

What was the role of the UN in solving this refugee crisis and how has the UN handled this problem?

What has the role of the now Arab proxy PLO been in the years that followed in this conflict?

The 1948 Arab Israeli war resulted in the expulsion of 850,000 Jews living in surrounding Arab states, 650,000 of whom came into Israel, with 200,000 fleeing as refugees mostly to the United States, and some even back to Europe. These Jews have since been resettled both in Israel and US/Europe and are no longer refugees.

Also an estimated 700,000 Arab refugees fled from the Arab Israeli war of 1948 into surrounding Arab states of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Approximately 160,000 Arabs that chose to stay in Israel in 1948 are today Israeli citizens numbering 2,100,000 (21% of the Israeli population) with equal rights and representation in Israeli society and institutions.

In the 19 years (between 1948-1967) that Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, and the Jews in Gaza were cleansed out, and Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria (later renamed the West Bank) and East Jerusalem (where Jews were also ethnically cleansed in this time and synagogues destroyed) also saw the creation with support and training of the Soviets in 1964 of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The PLO, which from its 1964 charter does not recognize Israel and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and all Israel land and all former mandatory Palestine to be part of one Arab Muslim Nation and calling for return of all Arabs that left to these lands, has since been associated with terrorism several acts of terror.

In 1969, Palestinian terrorists hijacked their first “Zionist” plane and landed it in Algeria where its 32 Jewish passengers were held hostage for five weeks. During the next two years, various Palestinian terrorists took credit for hijacking 13 Israeli and western passenger planes and for blowing up a SwissAir plane inflight, killing 47 passengers and crew members.

In 1970, Yasser Arafat led an attempt to overthrow the Jordanian regime and assassinate King Hussein when the PLO fought a Civil war against the Jordanians who successfully resisted the PLO and kicked them out of Jordan, but not before the PLO had assassinated the Jordanian Prime Minister.

In 1972, PLO terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

On March 4th 1973, US Intelligence thwarted an assassination attempt on Israeli PM Golda Meir by the PLO who had planted bombs in three locations in New York during Golda Meir’s U.S Visit.

Palestinian Militants ousted from Jordan in 1970 moved into Lebanon and instigated the Lebanese Civil war, tearing the country apart and launching attacks against Israel from Lebanon.

On March 6, 1975, 8 terrorrists from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah from Lebanon got into Israel armed with bombs and automatic weapons, and sprayed bullets on passers-by until they barricaded themselves in the three-story Savoy hotel. 7 of the terrorists were killed and the 8th was captured alive but after detonating the planted explosives in the hotel. Wikileaks would later confirm Arafat’s direct involvement and responsibility. The 8 terrorists are still remembered as Martyrs and heroes in Palestinian society.

On Sunday June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 that had taken off from Tel Aviv with a total of 248 passengers, 105 of whom were Jews and Israelis was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists who flew it to Entebbe Airport. The terrorists separated the Jewish and Israeli hostages from the rest of the captives. What followed was the Israeli raid on Entebbe to rescue the hostages.

The Rise of Hamas:

The years 1948-1967 when Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip leading to the entry and setting up of roots, and creating of lasting ties, by the Egyptian based Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip. It’s from the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot the Mujama Al Islamiya (credited with the building of mosques and schools and the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine for decades) that the Islamic Resistance Movement - HAMAS arose.

In its 1988 charter, Hamas declared that “there is no solution to the Palestine question except through Jihad” and that their struggle was against Jews and for the destruction of the state of Israel and establishment of an Arab Muslim state. It stated “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.

In June 1987 Islamic Jihad assassinated an Israeli Military Police officer and in turn the Israeli security agency killed the six jihadists involved. A few months later a terrorist on a glider succeeded in killing 6 Israeli soldiers in Galilee.

Then the event that allegedly sparked the first Intifada happened on Dec 8th 1987 when an Israeli truck driver crashed into cars containing Palestinian workers at a checkpoint in Gaza. Rumors that this accident had been intentional sparked demonstrations and violent protests of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

It’s during the first Intifada (Dec 8, 1987- Sep 13, 1993) that Hamas rose. Hamas’ first official terrorist attack happened in early 1989 when it kidnapped and killed two IDF soldiers and soon after called for “Jihad against the Zionist enemy everywhere”.

Throughout the 90’s, Hamas carried out suicide bombings all over Israel and landed itself on the U.S. State Department’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO’s) on Oct 8th 1997.

In Sept 1993, in a historic and controversial move, Israel recognized the PLO, which had committed numerous atrocities, as the official representative of the Palestinian Arabs. This resulted in the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, and the first Intifada finally came to an end, opening the path to Peace negotiations. The PLO committed to reject violence and terrorism, a pledge it did not honor in the coming years. Hamas on the other hand condemned these 1993 Oslo accords and believed the PLO had signed away the rights of the Palestinian people by agreeing to work with Israel. Oslo 2 Accords of 1995 granted administrative autonomy to the Palestinian Authority in designated Areas in the West Bank.

With Iran interested in promoting a more hardline alternative to the PLO, it began to financially support Hamas and supply them with weapons from the early 1990’s (including $30million annually to Hamas) and granted military training for thousands of Hamas’ militia at IRGC bases located inside Iran and Lebanon.

In the Year 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton met with then Israeli PM Ehud Barack and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David with the aim of bringing about a negotiated final status agreement under Oslo. Central to the Oslo accords was the complete denunciation of terrorism by the PLO and the amending of their founding charter which calls for the liquidation of the state of Israel.

In the words of President Bill Clinton - “I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state. Arafat was here for 14 days and said no to everything. Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being… in a just and lasting peace. I had a deal they turned down that would give them all of Gaza, between 96 and 97% of the West Bank”. Arafat simply refused to negotiate and said no to everything.

After walking out of the 2000 Camp David Peace negotiations, Arafat went home only to start the second Intifada (Sep 2000 – Feb 2005). Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad joined forces in the second Intifada bombing and suicide bombing and blowing up Israeli civilians on school buses, cafes, restaurants, pizzerias, stabbing attacks within the state of Israel. By the end of the second intifada, 1,137 Israeli civilians were dead and thousands more injured. Along with the IDF’s operations to quell the attacks, the Israeli government also embarked on construction of a security barrier to prevent terrorists from entering Israeli areas which proved successful in diminishing suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel.

In 2005, in a controversial decision within Israeli society, the Israeli government under PM Ariel Sharon made yet again another ‘land for peace’ decision and unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip and forcefully pushed out over 9,000 Jews and handed over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. The PA’s control over Gaza was however short-lived.

In the 2006 general elections in Gaza, Hamas stunned the world when they won the majority of the seats. Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh became the Prime Minister of Gaza declaring they would never recognize Israel, and what followed was a period of chaos with Hamas executing its Fatah opposition members with many thrown off buildings.

Egypt and Israel revoked thousands of work permits for Gazan citizens and imposed a blockade because from their perspective it was now a violent extremist organization on their borders.

However in December 2006, the Hamas PM visited Iran and secured a pledge of $250m in aid and additional military training. Hamas then embarked on launching thousands of rocket attacks into Israel. Hamas then received about $100m annually from Iran and diverted billions of dollars of International aid all to finance building rockets, drones and a 500km long web of underground tunnels to hide and operate in and Hamas leaders became billionaires.

Under Hamas, children have been radicalized and indoctrinated and trained in schools and Hamas summer camps on Hamas’s doctrine for the murder of Jews and hatred and liquidation of the Jewish state. Since its foundation, Hamas has stored its weapons in homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals, infamously using Gazans as human shields for their terrorism to this day.

Instead of developing this territory for the good of its citizens, Hamas turned Gaza into a terrorist base from which they have fired tens of thousands of rockets into Israel.

In 2008, Israel tried land for peace yet again. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went even further than even Ehud Barack had, offering all of Gaza, 94% of the West bank, East Jerusalem as capital, and additional land for a Palestinian state. Like his predecessor, the new Palestinian Leader Mahmood Abbas turned the deal down.

In 2011 Hamas released Kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after five years in captivity in a deal that released 1,027 convicted Palestinian terrorists from Israel, among whom was Yahya Sinwar, known as “the butcher of Khan Yunis”, who returned to Gaza and eventually became Hamas’ new official leader.

In 2014, Hamas members kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenage boys launching nearly a 2 month long war during which Hamas fired 4,500 rockets into Israel. The IDF destroyed 32 Hamas tunnels and Hamas violated several official ceasefires before the end of the war.

In 2018, Hamas launched “the Great March of Return” and incited weekly riots at the security fence between Gaza and Israel in attempts to breach it and invade Israel en-masse, foreshadowing what was to come in 2023. In Yahya Sinwar’s words “We will take down the border (with Israel) and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies”. During this time Hamas also came up with new ways to terrorize Israel: they tied explosives to balloons and kites to float into Israel, scorching and destroying thousands of acres of land across southern Israel. These violent riots and arson attacks lasted almost two years, picking up in May 2019 when the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem.

The next major escalation came in May 2021 when Hamas launched barrages of rockets towards Jerusalem. Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired nearly as many rockets into Israel in just 12 days as they had over the span of two months in 2014.

Two years later, Hamas carried out the attack that would become the deadliest day for the Jews since the holocaust. On Oct 7th 2023, over a thousand Hamas terrorists together with thousands of Gazan civilians broke through the border and invaded Israel, massacring over 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, while simultaneously firing thousands of rockets all across Israel. Hamas took hostage about 240 children, women, men elderly civilians and foreign nationals with Hamas leaders vowing that Oct 7th was the first and there would be many more to come.

Since October 7th, Israel and Hamas have been at war with Hamas hiding behind the civilians of Gaza at every opportunity by operating inside hospitals, wearing civilian clothing while actively fighting, and physically preventing Gazan civilians from evacuating war zones.

The IDF has since the start of the war declared two goals: to bring the hostages home and to completely eliminate Hamas.

About the Author and Researcher:

Levi Zakye is a public affairs commentator, historical analyst, and an expert on the history of the Israel- Palestine Middle East Conflict.