The War to end all Wars

“The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. [Robert Green Ingersall]

Israeli war of independence, 1948-1949: the First Arab-Israeli War. [“Between Arab and Jew”, by Yosef Olmert].

On May, 1948, David Ben-Gurion officially proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, thus resuming Jewish sovereignty and independence in Eretz Israel after 2,000 years. The same day, the United States, while imposing an arms embargo on the new state, granted Israel diplomatic recognition, and 3 days later the Soviet Union followed suit.

However, just 24 hours after Ben-Gurion’s announcement, the Arab armies of Syria, Egypt, Transjordan [commanded by British officers], Lebanon, and Iraq invaded Israel, threatening to destroy the one-day-old state, and declaring their aim to “drive the Jews into the sea.”

In the war that followed the Arab invasion, Israel achieved a series of military victories. It won control of the coastal plain, secured the upper Galilee, and drove the Egyptians from the Negev. Additionally, the Israelis invaded Sinai conquering large areas from which they withdrew subsequently only after an armistice was concluded between Egypt and Israel.

The only Arab army which had reason to take pride in its military performance was that of Transjordan, which conquered the Old City of Jerusalem and the Arab-populated areas west of the Jordan River [known as the West bank or Judea and Samaria].

Overall, the State of Israel had won a military victory, whose human cost was enormous: 6,000 dead out of a population of 650,000, only 3 years after the end of WW2 and the Holocaust.

The Jews of Palestine Accepted the Partition Resolution. The Arab World unanimously and unequivocally rejected it and called for war. Arab irregulars began pouring into Palestine immediately after the UN vote, seeking to prevent the Jewish state from coming into existence, and they were followed within in months by the regular armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon.

A Place among the Nations, Israel and the World’ by Benjamin Netanyahu.

By the time the Jewish state was officially declared on May 14, 1948, upon the departure of the British, the War of Independence against the invading Arabs was already under way. The common belief was that it was only a matter of time before the Jewish state, hardly in its infancy, would be terminated

During January, 1961, Professor Toynbee, according to the newspapers of Montreal, compared, from a moral standpoint, the attitude of Israel to the Arabs in 1947 and 1948 with the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. He said, further, that the Jews have no historical right to Israel.

A fierce opponent of a Jewish state, Toynbee was a spokesman for the Arab cause and often characterized Zionism as “demonic”. He called the “displacement” of the Arabs by Israel “an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis” and, in a Journal of Palestinian Studies interview in 1973, stated that the British had not appreciated the implications of the Balfour Declaration and that Balfour himself was a “wicked man.”

In brilliant and spectacular fashion, Herzog forced Toynbee to back off his principal allegations against the Jews and Israel. First, Herzog challenged him to explain how defensive actions by the nascent Jewish state against multiple Arab armies determined to inflict another Holocaust on the Jews of Eretz Yisrael could somehow be compared to the Nazis ‘ systematic genocide.

Herzog, citing fact after fact, forced Toynbee to acknowledge that contemporary Jews had not only become part of world history , but had also played a meaningful part in it. Herzog closed the debate by issuing a warm invitation to Toynbee to come to Israel, where he could personally witness Israel’s “defossilization.”

On November 10, 1975, Ambassador Chaim Herzog brilliantly answered the charge of the accusation that Israel was responsible for racism. Perhaps we can learn the reason for this unwarranted charge.

He makes the point that it is befitting that the ongoing debate conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism , should take place on the date 37 years previously named Kristallnacht,
the Night of the Crystals [broken glass]. An event which led to the crematoria and the gas chambers in Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald,Theresienstadt,and others.

Herzog added that it was befitting that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should 37 years later find itself on the way to becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year,listening to proceedings in the subject forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.

Herzog added that he did not come to the subject rostrum to defend the moral and historical values of the Jewish people. They speak for themselves. He had presented himself to denounce the 2 great evils which menace society in general and a society of nations in particular. These 2 evils are hatred and ignorance.

One has to read this lengthy presentation in the full to appreciate that the given resolution is based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, devoid of any moral or legal value. The given resolution was revoked 13 years later on 16 December, 1991.

During 1943, Churchill said, “I have always regarded [the White Paper] as a gross breach of faith committed by the Chamberlain Government—-Our position is that we have carried on for the time being in the exigencies of war the policy of our predecessors and have made no new pronouncement on the subject.—–It runs until it is superseded.

Days of Fire by Samuel Katz – Exodus 1947: Fifty-Five Days of Hell

Following from the White Paper of 1939, while 3 boatloads of Exodus passengers were sailing into the harbor at Port de Bouc, at dawn on July 29, the British hanged Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaacov Weiss in Acre Prison. Thirty hours later an Irgun communiqué announced the execution by hanging of two British sergeants who had been held as hostages.

Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz.

1967-Israel’s victory in the Six day War has been described in superlative terms. It has been the subject of a vast literature. The Arab states having recovered from the shock of the defeat they had brought on themselves, deliberately demonstrated a sharpened intransigence. The Arab states moved to adjust their policy to the new circumstances.

All their efforts had now to be concentrated on an essential 1st step: to get Israelis back to the old Armistice lines .Two months after the Six Day War, the leaders of the Arab States met in Khartoum. There they laid down 3 negative, unequivocal principles: no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no peace with Israel.

In September, 1970 Anwar Sadat who was more responsive to advice than his processor, was persuaded, that if the words “peace with Israel” could be inserted, it would be more palatable to Western nations. As such:

[1] He was prepared for peace with Israel.
[2] There can be no peace with Israel, or even negotiations with Israel, until she has withdrawn to the lines of June 4, 1967 [thereby erasing the consequences of her aggression].
[3] When that withdrawal is completed, there will remain the problem of the “Palestinian people, who will receive the support of the Arab states in fighting for the “restoration of their rights”—in the Israel of the Armistice lines.”

Between Arab and Jew: The Yom Kippur War and its Implications.

On October 6, 1973, when some 1,200 Egyptian and 1,400 Syrian tanks, backed by tens of thousands of soldiers, attacked Israel, only a small number of Israeli soldiers, supported by a handful of tanks, were on hand to defend the borders.

Despite the initial defeat of the Israeli army, caused by the surprise attack, the Israelis drove the Syrians out of the Golan Heights, crossed the Suez Canal and laid siege to the Egyptian 3rd Army along the southern section of the Canal. Israeli forces stood 100 kilometers from Cairo. It was only American pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire on October 24th that saved the Egyptian Army from total defeat.

A key Arab demand following the war was to recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs. This policy was adopted by the Rabat Arab Summit in October 1974.

On September 22, 2005, Sharon handed over Gaza to Hamas without gaining anything other than 5 wars. Why the wars?

INDIA TODAY – Israel’s battle for survival sees 3 of 5 war fronts scorching now.
In short
. Israel is fighting wars on 3 fronts against 3 Hs – Hamas Hezbollah, Houthis.
.The war that began on October 7 after Hamas’s land incursion has expanded now.
.Israel is still fighting Iran’s proxies, and there will be massive escalation if Iran joins in.

All 3 fronts with the 3 Hs – Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen are active and blazing. The opening of multiple fronts comes ahead of the 1st anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.

What began as a surprise attack on Israel by the Gaza-based “Palestinian” terror group has evolved into a broader and more volatile war, encompassing both state and non-state actors. For Israel, this war has been about more than just retaliation for the October attack – it has become a “war of survival”.