History Book: Wars and rumors of war

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. On October 7th, Hamas launched a surprise air, land, and sea attack against Israel. The escalating violence is the deadliest chapter in a 75-year history. WORLD’s executive producer Paul Butler has a review of a few milestones in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

EDUCATIONAL FILM: Amid the fabled hills of Judea in Southwest Asia stands Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, sacred to three of the world's great religions…

PAUL BUTLER: Near the end of World War I, Britain announces its support of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The US and other Allied nations embrace the so-called “Balfour Declaration” but many other nations do not. Audio here from a 1940s educational film.

EDUCATIONAL FILM: The Arabs are determined to keep Palestine an Arab country and to resist every move by Britain…and death threats are backed up by the League of Arab States and by armed and trained men ready to shatter the peace of the near east by a religious war.

During World War II, Britain greatly limits Jewish immigration to Palestine in return for the cooperation of Egypt and other Arab states. But after the war, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants who’d lost everything in the holocaust begin arriving from all over Europe…

NEWSREEL: Beyond the blue waters of the Mediterranean lies the low coastline to which millions of Jews from all over the world are turning as their dream of home…yet so great is the tragedy that even here, the wandering Jew can find no rest. For once peaceful Palestine is today a land of terror and bloodshed.

In 1947, Britain announces it’s pulling out of Palestine. As the last British forces leave, Jewish leadership declares the founding of the modern state of Israel.

NEWSREEL: Crowds gathered in the streets and greeted the birth of their state with traditional dances. The call for a holy war against the Jews went out from Cairo. Transfer of power in Palestine will bring bloodshed two states have been born. For the Holy Land, the immediate future would not bring peace…

Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq respond by launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan join in. After a year of fighting the parties agree to a ceasefire. Jordan annexes the West Bank while Egypt occupies the Gaza Strip. Both become hotbeds of resistance.

Eight years later, Egypt shuts down shipping lanes in the Suez Canal. Israel, Britain and France respond militarily:

1956 NEWSREEL: In six days the Israeli army overruns the entire Sinai Peninsula, taking possession of an area twice the size of Israel itself.

Many Western allies decry the operation. The United Nations calls for an immediate ceasefire. Israel eventually pulls out of the Sinai peninsula in 1957. Ten years later, Egypt once again blockades international shipping routes, this time in the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the start of the Six Day War:

1967 NEWSREEL: Today, Israeli armor is facing a group of Arab countries United by defense agreements, and in a far stronger position to sweep Israel into the sea.

But Israel is victorious and once again takes control of the Sinai, as well as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Then, 50 years ago this month, an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacks Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973.

NBC NEWS, 1973. TOM BROKAW: It is an all out war. The surprise attacks came early this morning in the air and on the ground. The Egyptians apparently have taken control of at least a portion of the East Bank of the Suez...

After three weeks of fighting Egypt offers to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel. It is the first step to peace between the two countries.

In 1978 U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration convinces Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to meet at Camp David.

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER MENACHEM BEGIN: Peace now celebrates a great victory for the nations of Egypt and Israel and from all mankind.

The meetings end with a framework for peace—including Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. It also lays the groundwork for Palestinian self government in the West Bank and Gaza. In exchange, Egypt acknowledges Israel's legitimacy as a nation.

But the situation on the ground proves much more complicated. In December, 1987, Palestinians begin the first intifada—or uprising against Israel. Over the next five years, many die in skirmishes on both sides.

In 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization meet at the White House to formally sign a peace treaty. But that soon sours as Palestinians begin a second and more deadly intifada—choosing suicide bombers as the weapon of choice.

In 2005 Israel agrees to withdraw troops from Gaza. Palestinians reject the PLO and elect Hamas to govern them instead. Palestinian militants become more brazen as Hamas foments unrest in Gaza. In 2021, Palestinians attack Israeli police officers on the Temple Mount. The attackers seek refuge in the al-Aqsa mosque.

SOUND: [RAID]

Israeli forces raid the mosque and arrest nearly 400 suspects. Hamas claims Israel desecrated their holy site and responds by firing thousands of rockets into Jerusalem. It starts an 11 day war.

Hamas largely goes back underground but terrorizes Israelis where they can.

NEWSCAST: The military wing of Hamas has claimed responsibility for the shooting attack in Ariel in the West Bank late last week in which a security guard was killed.

According to Middle East adviser and author Dan Senor, a century of conflict hasn’t weakened Israel, but unified it.

DAN SENOR: I always say Israel's a family. It's a family that argues a lot, but like any family, if you poke it from outside, the family quickly comes together.

October 7th’s coordinated attack on Israel, and Hamas’s targeting of women and children was a declaration of war. Senor is confident that in the coming days Israel will move Hamas out of Gaza, but that alone won’t result in a lasting peace.

DAN SENOR: Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not about Israel, it's about the Palestinians and the Palestinians…

Senor is the author of The Genius of Israel coming out next month. He says peace is only possible if the residents of Gaza select different leadership.

SENOR: It's not about territory. It's about the Jewish existence.

But Jewish existence, and opposition to it, is a far older reality than any leadership arrangement in the region the British once called Palestine.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

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