Israel and the Arab World: History, Conflict, and UAE Relations

Introduction

The history of modern Israel and the Arab world is a history of tension and violence that has persisted for decades. It is characterized by numerous wars, accusations of genocide, threats of annihilation, and bitter hostilities punctuated intermittently by peace agreements — such as the Camp David Accords, signed during the Carter Administration to ease tensions between Israel and Egypt. This paper describes the history of Israel, the nature of the hostilities between Israel and the Arab world, and the evolving relationship between the UAE and Israel.

History of Israel

Following World War I, England took control of Palestine, known then as the British Mandate. Prior to the war, the Ottoman Empire had controlled the region. The Zionist Movement, seeking a homeland for the Jewish people, had sought protection from the Ottoman Empire, which promised nothing of the sort. The English Lord Balfour, in the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917, filled the gap the Ottomans had left open by assuring Lord Rothschild — a leader within the Zionist Federation — that should the British win the war, there would be "a national home for the Jews" (Balfour Declaration, 1917). In the same declaration, however, Balfour also stipulated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" (Balfour Declaration, 1917). This was an important qualification: like many others, Balfour had intimated the potential for tension and conflict to arise between the citizens of a Jewish state in a land long held by Arabs and the various peoples of the Arab world — both Islamic and Christian.

Jewish immigrants and Zionists began to settle in British Mandated Palestine in increasing numbers. During the 1930s, Hitler and German Zionists arranged the Transfer Agreement to resettle Jews from Germany in British Mandated Palestine (Yisraeli, 1971). However, some within the Zionist Movement were particularly hostile toward the British, especially during and after World War II. A Jewish militia known as the Haganah, along with the Jewish Resistance Movement, opposed the British through acts of terror, sabotage, and violence (Hoffman, 2011). In 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where the British maintained their military headquarters (Hoffman, 2020). Thereafter, the British government sought to cede the Palestine issue to the newly established United Nations.

It would not be until after World War II that Israeli statehood would come to be recognized in the West. To settle the matter of establishing a home for the Jewish people, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was proposed, recommending a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. The plan was adopted in 1947 by the UN General Assembly as Resolution 181, which established clear borders for Israel and Palestine. However, Israel would not respect those borders, instead pursuing a policy of expansionism over the ensuing decades — a policy that further exacerbated relations between Israel, Palestine (which Israel has refused to accept as a legitimate state), and the broader Arab world.

The first Arab-Israeli War commenced immediately after Israel declared statehood, which was recognized by both the Soviet Union and the United States in 1948. To increase its Jewish population, Israel passed the Law of Return in 1950, granting all Jews and people of Jewish ancestry the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship. Over the following decade, the population of Israel more than doubled. Israel also began secret nuclear development at Dimona, which created tension between US President Kennedy — who sought to establish better relations with the Arab world — and Israel (Gazit, 2000). Kennedy's assassination effectively brought that particular tension to an end.

Since that time, Israel has cultivated close ties with the West, particularly the United States, which provides funding to the Israeli state every year. Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II, having received nearly $150 billion from the US over that period (Congressional Research Service, 2019). Annually, it receives a grant of approximately $3 billion from the US.