The Roots of the Middle East Crisis

Part 2 - 1967 to 1980

The aftermath of the Six-Day War in June 1967 set the stage for subsequent events in the Middle East. No peace treaty was ever signed; the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem all remained under Israeli occupation, and almost half a million more Palestinians were made refugees. The Israelis stepped up their violence against the Palestinian people and began an aggressive campaign of expropriating land and building settlements throughout the occupied territories. In violation of international law, they annexed East Jerusalem began to move thousands of Jewish Israeli citizens and new immigrants into settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Establishing a military administration to govern the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis denied the Palestinians many basic rights. Resistance to the occupation was criminalized as a threat to Israeli security and displaying Palestinian colours was made a punishable offence. The Israelis engaged in extensive use of collective punishment, such as imposing curfews, demolishing homes and public buildings and invoking closures to prevent Palestinians from moving freely. Hundreds of people were deported or imprisoned without charge, and torture of prisoners was widespread.

Following its initial November 1967 resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, the United Nations (UN) continued to pass resolutions condemning Israeli actions and recognizing the rights of the Palestinian people. A General Assembly resolution in 1969 specifically recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and drew the attention of the Security Council to "the grave situation resulting from Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories and Israel's refusal to implement…[United Nations] resolutions". It called on the Security Council to take effective measures to ensure implementation of these resolutions, but the Council did nothing.

The UN and various international commissions of inquiry regularly continued to pass similar resolutions, all of which were almost unanimous in condemning Israeli actions. For example, in March 1972 the UN Commission on Human Rights called Israeli violations "grave breaches of the fourth Geneva Convention which constitute war crimes and an affront to humanity". For its part, Israel, with U.S. backing, continued to ignore the international community. It justified its violation of the Geneva Convention and other international laws regarding the military occupation of foreign territory by insisting that the West Bank and Gaza were not occupied because they were never part of the sovereign territory of any state. The international community rejected that argument, but has done little to enforce international law or hold Israel accountable for its actions. This was the backdrop for the next Israeli war with its neighbours.

In late 1970 Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt. He indicated his willingness to reach a peace agreement with Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Israel and the U.S ignored his overtures. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria moved to break the political stalemate and regain control of their territory which was still under Israeli occupation. They launched a surprise attack, catching Israel off-guard and achieving some early military victories in both Sinai and the Golan Heights. This prompted the U.S. to both increase its military aid to Israel and to intervene politically. While still giving unequivocal support to Israel, it started to take on the role it continues to play of "mediator" in the conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger launched a diplomatic strategy of securing limited bilateral agreements to secure partial Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, while totally ignoring negotiation on the more contentious issues, including the fate of the West Bank and Gaza. His so-called "shuttle diplomacy" continued until late 1975, by which time it was clear that there would be no comprehensive settlement. Yet again war had ended in a "no war, no peace" stalemate.

Meanwhile in November 1974, against the wishes of the U.S. and Israel, Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had been invited to address the United Nations. On November 22, 1974, a few days after Arafat's speech, the General Assembly passed a resolution yet again reaffirming the "inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination" including the right to national independence and sovereignty, free of external interference. The resolution emphasized that realization of these rights was indispensable for bringing about a solution to the question of Palestine and that the Palestinian people were "a principal party in the establishment of a just and durable peace in the Middle East". At the same time the PLO was given observer status at the United Nations.

In 1977, President Sadat again made overtures to Israel. He visited Jerusalem, becoming the first Arab leader to set foot on Israeli soil. In September the following year U.S. President Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David. They worked out two agreements. One was a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt; the other was a general framework for resolution of the Middle East crisis. The first formed the basis for the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

The second agreement proposed the granting of autonomy to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and the installation a local administration for a five-year interim period. At the end of that time the final status of the territories would be negotiated. The Palestinians and other Arab states rejected this proposal, because it did not guarantee full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories or the establishment of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Israel was continuing to confiscate Palestinian land and build more new settlements, in violation of the commitments Prime Minister Begin had made to President Carter at Camp David.

As the 1980s opened the crisis was about to shift from the occupied territories to Lebanon.