Introduction to Geopolitics

Partly as a result of these developments an Arab rebellion lasted from 1936–9 in
which 5,000 Arabs were killed, some as a result of aerial bombing by the Royal Air
Force. The initiation of World War II altered Britain’s geopolitical calculations. Britain
needed cooperation from the new Arab states and territories to secure the flow of oil
and, more importantly at this time, to maintain a continual territorial link with British
India. As a way of nurturing Arab support, the British decided to try and stop the flow
of Jewish immigration to Palestine to a trickle.
Unsurprisingly, Britain’s policy met with resistance from the Jewish migrants. The
policy was especially hard to justify in light of the Holocaust, Hitler’s persecution of
the Jews. At the end of World War II British policy was in tatters. Promises had been
made to wartime Arab allies to limit Jewish immigration, but the Holocaust had ener-
gized the moral argument of Jews for a state. The Zionist movement resorted to violence,
defined as terrorism, resistance, or national liberation, depending upon the political
vantage point. A turning point was the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem in
1946, the headquarters of the British administration, in which 91 people died. The inten-
sity of the campaign led Sir Alan Cunningham, senior British official in Palestine, to
admit the “inability of the army to protect even themselves.” The 100,000 British soldiers
in Palestine were unable to control the 600,000 Jews living there. The threat of violence
toward the soldiers was so great that the troops were ordered to stay within their com-
pounds, unless they left in groups of four with an armed escort. In a defining moment,
two British sergeants left their compound, were captured by terrorists of the Irgun group,
and killed with their bodies displayed for public viewing. The British government and
people had had enough and handed over the situation to the UN.
The UN drew up a partition plan in November 1947. Under the plan, a Jewish state
would control 56 percent of the existing Palestinian mandate, and an Arab state would
control 43 percent. The city of Jerusalem would be a UN-administered, international-
ized zone. The plan left no-one happy. The Zionists were upset as the Jewish state would
not cover the whole of Palestine, as per the Balfour Declaration. Arabs saw a grave
injustice with Israel receiving 56 percent of the territory, when Jews accounted for just
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one-third of the total population and owned just 7 percent of the land. Despite some
misgivings, the Zionists accepted the partition plan, which was a generous territorial
award and led to the recognition of the state of Israel.
In 1948, in the wake of the British withdrawal and the presentation of the partition
plan, war broke out as the contiguous Arab states, plus Iraq, invaded to negate the estab-
lishment of the state of Israel. The war was a victory for the Israeli’s: they ended up with
all of the area allotted to a Jewish state by the UN plan, plus half of that allotted to the
Arab state. Jordanian forces, with the help of Iraq, held the “West Bank” of the Jordan
river and Egyptian forces held the “Gaza Strip.” About 700,000 Arabs became refugees
in Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon, and approximately 700,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in
Israel over the following 12 months. Simply put, the war of 1948 created the “de facto”
boundaries of the state of Israel. East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordanian forces, but
Israel proclaimed it as its capital, a move that was not recognized internationally.
In the decades that followed, a series of wars demarcated and established Israel’s
boundary with its Arab neighbors. In 1956, Egypt “nationalized” the Suez Canal spark-
ing an invasion by British, French, and Israeli troops who feared that Arab control of
the canal would disrupt use by Western countries of this vital trade route. The occupa-
tion was short-lived however, as the troops were forced to withdraw under intense US
displeasure.
Two other wars followed that were more of a success for Israel and established the
continued military dominance of Israel in the region as well as Israel’s current bound-
ary. The Six Day War of 1967 began when Egypt moved its army up to the Israeli
boundary and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba. In response, Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan,
and Syria and easily captured the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan
Heights. After this violent re-demarcation of the Israeli boundary, the Arab states
responded with what is known as the Yom Kippur War of 1973 when Egypt and Syria
attacked Israel over the religious holiday. Despite initial successes given the element 
of surprise, the Syrian army was soon defeated and an Israeli counter-attack encircled
the Egyptian army.
The Yom Kippur War was a turning point in the conflict, though not a decisive one.
Defeat led the Arab countries to reconsider the benefits of the relationship they had
established with the Soviet Union, with the region being a strategic focus of the Cold
War. While the UN brokered a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula,
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt turned away from the Soviet Union and began to explore
peace with Israel; a very brave initiative for any Arab leader. The result was the 1978
“Camp David” peace agreement that ushered in massive and continuing US aid to Egypt
and Israel, but established the first peace agreement between Israel and a neighbor.
Of central significance to the conflict and hopes of peace are the UN resolutions 
242 and 338 passed after the 1967 and 1973 wars respectively. The key points of the
resolutions are:
■
Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, meaning the West Bank and Gaza;
■
recognition of the state of Israel and an end to the state of conflict;
■
the right of return for Palestinian refugees was left vague and open to competing
interpretations.
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These resolutions have been the basis for the Palestinians claims to the West Bank
and Gaza Strip; what they see as the necessary territorial foundation for a Palestinian
state. With, at least in theory, goals of their own nation-states living peacefully side-by-
side the Israeli state and the Palestinian people have attempted peace negotiations. These
negotiations have been sporadic. At times, expectations and hopes of peace have been
high, but at other times the situation has been confrontational. Israel, an independent
state with a large and sophisticated military has dominated the Palestinians in terms of
the ability to create “facts on the ground.” A codeword for putting its military and people
where they want to, despite their illegality under international law, diplomatic protest,
Palestinian stone-throwing, and civil disobedience in an