What you need to know about the crisis in Gaza

The current flare up of violence in Gaza is simply the most recent confrontation in a long history of battles between the Israelis and the Arab occupants of the Gaza Strip, a tiny area on the Mediterranean Sea between Israel and Egypt that is about the size of Montgomery, Ala. and is home to 1.8 million Palestinian Arabs. To fully understand the current situation, one must look back almost 50 years to 1967 and the Six Day War.

In antiquity, Gaza was ruled by a number of empires including the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Israelites, the Romans, and the Ottomans. The home of the ancient Philistines, it was also the location of Samson’s imprisonment in the Old Testament. After World War I, control passed from the Ottoman Empire to the British. After Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, an event referred to by Palestinians as “al Nakba” (the catastrophe), Gaza was occupied by Egypt even though the United Nations partition plan for Palestine had set aside the area to be an Arab state. Gaza was ostensibly governed by the All Palestine government during this time until 1959 when Egyptian President Nasser assumed overt control.

In 1967, an Arab alliance consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq with the backing of the Soviet Union attempted to launch a surprise attack against Israel. The Israelis learned of the Arab intentions and, after Arab forces had illegally blockaded Israeli ships from the Straits of Tiran, launched a preemptive attack on June 5. The attack was a stunning success, destroying most of the Egyptian air force on the ground. As a result of this initial success, Israel captured the territories of Gaza, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Golan Heights from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria respectively.

Israel governed Gaza from the end of the Six Day War until 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The agreement established limited self-government for the Palestinians living Israeli-occupied territories. Yasir Arafat, a terrorist and founder of al Fatah and the PLO, was elected president of the Palestinian National Authority, a post that he held until shortly before his death in 2004.

In 2005, Israeli President Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza. Although Israel did build some Jewish settlements in Gaza during its occupation, the goal of occupying Gaza in 1967 may have been to trade land for peace or an end to the blockade of the Straits of Tiran. In any event, Israel ended up occupying the Gaza Strip for almost 40 years until the 2005 disengagement.

Under Arafat’s rule, as well as that of his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian National Authority became known for corruption and links to terror. Public infrastructure crumbled and the people became destitute. In 2006, after more than a decade of PLO rule, the people of Gaza voted for change in the form of a government by Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist group. The election ushered in a period of fighting between supporters of the PLO and Hamas known as the Palestinian Civil War. Today, the Palestinian National Authority is still split between the two groups with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah, the PLO, in control of the West Bank.

In 2006, Hamas terrorists launched a raid into Israel that captured a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Galid Shalit. The kidnapping, combined with increasing numbers of rocket attacks using more sophisticated and longer range rockets, drove Israel to launch an aerial campaign against Hamas targets in Gaza in 2006. Shalit was ultimately exchanged for 1,027 imprisoned Palestinian terrorists after five years of captivity, but rocket attacks continued.

In 2008, the rockets prompted Israel to launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Known as the Gaza War, the campaign was a military success for Israel and the resulting damage to Hamas caused a lull in the rocket attacks. Before withdrawing, the IDF also destroyed many of the tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

Since the end of the Gaza War, the Gaza Strip has been effectively sealed off by both Israel and Egypt. The border crossings with Israel are frequently closed. The border crossing in Rafah, which leads into Egypt, the only border crossing with a country other than Israel, is almost always closed by the Egyptians as well.

The recent upheaval in the Gaza Strip comes in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers in June. The murders were celebrated by Palestinian Arabs and sparked Israeli air attacks on Hamas in the West Bank as well as a possible revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by three Jewish Israelis. In turn, Hamas has increased rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

Joel Rosenberg reports that 520 rockets have hit Israel so far. Many of the rockets that threatened population centers have been shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. There are also indications that Iran is supplying longer range rockets than were previously available to Hamas. The M-302 rockets from Iran have a 115 mile range, which means that they can be fired from Gaza to Israel’s capitol of Tel Aviv.

It is unclear at this point what the next step in the current conflict will be. Many observers expect another Israeli incursion into Gaza. In the past, Egypt has often mediated ceasefires, but the chaotic situation in Egypt makes that unlikely.

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Arabs and Israelis IV: The First Lebanon War

Throughout the latter half of the 1970s, Lebanon had been embroiled in a civil war. Beginning in 1974, Lebanon's Muslim population, supported by the PLO, had been fighting Lebanon's Christians for control of the country. In June 1976, Lebanon's president requested Syrian intervention. Syrian troops occupied much of the country. When the Syrian presence failed to stop the fighting, the Syrians began arming the Christian militias. In October 1976, the Syrians accepted an Arab League mandate to keep 40,000 peacekeeping troops in the country.


While the fighting among sects continued, the PLO launched terror attacks into Israel, prompting Israeli retaliatory attacks on several occasions. At one point, Israel occupied Lebanon south of the Litani River. When Israel withdrew to a southern Lebanon security zone twelve miles wide, the UN deployed a force (UNIFIL) to keep peace in the area.


In August 1981, Prime Minister Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon began to discuss a plan for an invasion of Lebanon. The objectives would be to attack PLO targets as well as to assist Bashir Gemayel in becoming president of Lebanon. At the time, there was a ceasefire in place, and the PLO in Lebanon, while growing stronger militarily, offered few provocations from Lebanese territory. The PLO did, however, launch attacks from Jordan as well as attacking Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe. Israel responded with air strikes into southern Lebanon.


On June 3, 1982, terrorists attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in London. Although Iraq was suspected in the attack, Israel retaliated with attacks on PLO targets in West Beirut and southern Lebanon. The PLO responded with rocket and artillery fire into Israel. On June 5, the UN passed a resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities.


On June 6, 1982, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee. The Israeli Defense Force quickly moved 40 miles into Lebanon, reaching the outskirts of Beirut. The Israelis swiftly cut the road between Damascus and Beirut, essentially cutting off the PLO forces from aid by Syria. Syrian aircraft did attempt to halt the invasion, but suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Israeli Air Force.


The Israelis found massive tunnels near the border. These tunnels were stocked with an impressive arsenal of weapons, from rifles to tanks, mostly of Soviet manufacture. Captured documents revealed that the Soviet Union both equipped and trained PLO terrorists.

The UN passed a second resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal on June 6. On June 8, the US vetoed an additional resolution demanding an Israeli withdrawal. The US also called for a PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. On June 26, the US vetoed another resolution that would have preserved the PLO as a political force.


Israeli aircraft and artillery attacked PLO forces inside Beirut for the next several weeks. On August 12, the sides agreed to a truce, negotiated by the US, which called for the withdrawal of both the PLO and Israel. A multi-national force made up US, Italian, and French soldiers would keep the peace and protect Lebanese civilians.

The Israelis believed that many PLO fighters were hiding in refugee camps near Beirut. This led to the tragic case of Sabra and Shatila. On September 16, 1982, Israeli troops entered West Beirut, violating the ceasefire, and transported 200 Phalange militiamen to two of the camps. The militia members remained in the camps until the morning of September 19 and killed somewhere between 700 and 3,000 Palestinians.


Israel set up the Kahan Commission to investigate the killings and, by Israel's own admission, none of the dead were members of any PLO unit. The commission held Ariel Sharon and Chief-of-Staff Rafael Eitan indirectly responsible and recommended that Sharon resign. Sharon did resign, although he remained influential in the Israeli government.


On May 17, 1983, Israel, Lebanon, and the United States signed an agreement ending the war. The agreement called for the removal of Israeli and Syrian troops. The Arab world viewed the agreement as a surrender. Syria refused to withdraw, but Israel withdrew its forces back to the security zone in August 1983, where they remained until 2000. Syrian troops remained in Lebanon until 2005.


On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber attacked the US embassy in Beirut. The US responded with a naval bombardment of Druze militia positions. On October 23, 1983, a second suicide bomber attacked the US and French headquarters killing 241 US Marines and 58 French soldiers. This sparked a series of terror attacks and kidnappings of Americans that plagued Lebanon for the remainder of the decade. US troops left the country in 1984.


Also during this period, the situation in Lebanon deteriorated into civil war again. Violence flared between the various Christian and Muslim sects and the Syrians. The conflict continued until 1990, when Syria launched a major offensive that secured the country.


During the late 1980s, disaffected Shiites from a number of groups banded together to form Hezbollah. This new terror group gained the support of Iran and quickly became powerful. It would soon become a dangerous foe of Israel.


Sources:

http://www.answers.com/topic/ lebanese-civil-war

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~ samuel/lebanonwar.html

http://www.aim.org/publicatio ns/aim_report/1982/09b.html