The Strategic Causes of Conflict - What caused the 1973 Arab-Israeli Essay

The Strategic Causes of Conflict - What caused the 1973 Arab-Israeli War - Essay Example Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat instead opted to resolve the issues through diplomacy, and resorted to withdrawing the Mitla and Gidi. Additionally, President Anwar suggested starting the diplomatic relations with the US and signing a peace pact with Israel, however, Israel also decided to withdraw to the armistice borders that were earlier established before June 5, 1967. There have been various schools of thought with regards to the implications and genesis of this war, on one side, the West European political elites placed blame on the United States for provoking the war through the assistance it provided to Israel. On the other side of the divide, Edward Heath, the then British Prime Minister did not welcome the United State’s response towards the war by its unanimous decision to uplift nuclear forces to Defense Condition 3 (DEFCON3) without giving the British government timely warning. Scholars have provided various perspectives of the October 1973 war, with a major focus on the military dimension, its societal implications between Arab, Israel and its neighbors, and its crisis in the Cold War. Given its huge crisis and implications, various researchers have only compared this war to the Suez War in 1956, the Bosnian civil war of 1992-3, and the latest Iraq war of 2003. 3This paper examines the strategic causes of this and the involvement of countries that fueled the war. An attempt is also made to provide an in depth analysis of the Western influence into this war with a focus on Britain and US. At the end of this paper and an attempt will be made to look into the negotiation process and peace building strategies that were put in place in a bid to resolve this war. Background to the Israel-Arab War When the Israel-Arab War broke out in the year 1973, Israel found itself in a defenseless position and not ready for the War for the first time – scholars have a rgued that this was a very big mistake for a nation that possessed very little information on its territorial boundaries and its enemies. However, with the progress of the war, Israel over time gained military superiority, but all in all, it was Egypt that emerged victors in the war through be achieving its main goal. In the end, the stalemate that had been at the heart of the Israeli-occupied Sinai was resolved, leading to the Camp David Accords and the Egypt’s reacquisition of the Peninsula. Other scholars have conceded that the War was in equal measure the success of President Anwar Sadat, and it never have been possible without the element of surprise tactics achieved through a carefully planned strategic deception approaches. While there were various elements to that deception campaign, an interesting one that was employed relevant to this particular case was the one of Ashraf Marwan, who was a high ranking-ranking Egyptian official and Israeli spy who by that time marri ed to the daughter of Ganal Abdel Nasser. In his endeavor in making diplomatic approaches to the conflict, President Anwar was already in the process of preparing for war. In this process, President Anwar contacted his Syrian counterpart, President Hafiz al-Asad to plan

Writing to Evaluate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Writing to Evaluate - Essay Example However I feel even though what conditions these people had to face are mentioned in dramatic detail there seems to be the key aspect of not knowing what these exact hardships were. "A persistent stream pressed northward, circling the scattered settlements, staring wide-eyed at the sights of the settled land" (78). This phrase depicts the people yearning for what they didn’t have now but perhaps at one point in time did have. You can clearly feel the desperation that surrounds the nomad’s as Oz has artfully depicted their lack of options and the clear undeniable message that they were not welcome. "If you passed them on a noisy tractor and set billows of dust loose on them, they would courteously gather their scattered flocks and give you a wide passage, wider by far then was necessary. They stared at you from a distance, frozen like statues."It is the descriptive power that the writer so gracefully unfolds that brings to one’s mind not just the scene in astonish ing clarity but also the ability to get absorbed in the narrative. With the air so thick with unwelcome it is only when you really invest yourself in the narrative do you understand the message and placement that these unwelcome nomad’s served for the Israeli’s. They were blamed for every negative incident that took place regardless of whether the accusation made sense of not. The fact that there were no witnesses or solid evidence that backed up the accusations was of little value. Disease, theft and even crop damage were blamed on the new neighbors. The unfairness of it all I find ludicrous but at the same time it fascinates me as it seems to be a mere reflection of human nature – Our ability to blame others only to admitting fault within ourselves. Another interesting observation that I would like to mention is that the role of the narrator though showed considerable effort to seem fair and impartial as far as any mention of the nomads was concerned, there we re considerable amount of cracks in his demeanor. This was seen in the way racism was evident in several phrases that he had used. Such as , ‘We are no believers in forbearance or vegetarianism. This is especially true of our men. Decency constrains me not to dwell in detail on certain isolated and exceptional acts of reprisal conducted by some of the youngsters whose patience had expired, such as cattle rustling, stoning a nomad, or beating one of the shepherds senseless." It is hilarious that after admitting the behavior that they had indulged in a poor he makes excuses for it by stating that the shepherd in question "had an infuriatingly sly face. He was blind in one eye, broken nosed, drooling, and his mouth was set with long, curved fangs like a foxes"(80). Once again I marvel at the tactics adopted by the author to inject interest and a note of realism in his narrative by drawing attention to the intolerable nature that human beings have the ability to exhibit. It is alm ost a minute reminder of the segregation conducted by the Nazi’s in Germany in the way the behavior of the Israeli’s towards the nomads unfolds. Moving forwards we notice how the author shows the gradual onset towards a more cordial relationship between the nomads and the Israeli’s as the secretariat holds and audience with the elders of the nomad tribe to try to mitigate the hostilities. The nomads are seen to admit somewhat of the responsibility for the thievery and return the stolen gods. This seemed to be a promising start of a ‘mutual understanding’ between the two nations however I sense undercurrents of lessons learnt from history in which lavish and extensive promises between two nations are always in