A History of the modern middle east

Part Six: Challenges to the Existing Order

Chapter 22: The Palestinian Intifada and the 1991 Gulf War

The 1987 intifada and the 1991 Gulf War were momentous events for the entire region. The Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip participated in a mass uprising to bring an end to Israeli occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state. A second internal regional crisis occurred in 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Intifada

In 1982, Israeli society experienced a polarization that was reflected in the fragmentation of the country’s political life: Labor vs Likud were forced to govern together. Likud-dominance in the 1980s governments adopted measures designed to isolate and subjugate the Palestinian inhabitants. The resistance among Palestinians took the form of a sustained popular uprising that was both a rejection of the Israeli occupation and an affirmation of the Palestinian people’s right to national self-determination. The Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began in Gaza on December 9, 1987, following a road accident involving an Israeli military vehicle that killed four Palestinians and injured several others. At the beginning, it was a spontaneous rebellion fueled by the anger of the discontented young people of the occupied territories. It then broadened to include all strata of Palestinian society.

Objectives:

• Israeli stop building settlements and confiscating Arab lands and that it cancel the special taxes and restrictions that applied only to Palestinians.
• Called upon Israel to recognize an independent Palestinian state under the leadership of the PLO.

A new organization formed as rivals of the Israeli UNL: Hamas that came into existence in 1988 (Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood). Call to action in Islamic terms. The Israeli government made a determined effort to crush the uprising and this retaliation affected all Palestinian in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and led Palestinian society to unite in common opposition to the occupation. But in 1992, the cooperation among all segments of Palestinian society that had sustained the intifada started to evaporate. The only outside power capable of persuading Israel to modify its policies and enter into negotiations was the United States. However, the United States would not exercise its influence in this matter until the PLO recognized the state of Israel. But when Arafat did so without receiving any concession in return, it associated the PLO with Husayn’s Iraqi regime.

The Gulf Crisis

On August 2, 1990, the armed forces of Iraq invaded Kuwait; six days later, the Iraqi government announced that Kuwait had been annexed as a province of Iraq. This international crisis led to the US-led Gulf War against Iraq.

Immediate effects:

• Devastation of Iraq
• Creation of a monumental refugee problem
• The emergence of the US as an uncontested superpower in the Middle East

Why:

• Iraq’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the border dividing the two states: when British in 1923 defined the Iraq-Kuwait border, they gave Kuwait more territory in the north than the Kuwait rulers traditionally controlled. (Aim: restrict Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf).
• Economic and strategic considerations: the most significant point of contention between the two countries was oil production: Iraq accused Kuwait of violating some OPEC agreements, making the invasion a justifiable retaliation.

US response operation Desert Shield was set to prevent the Saudi Arabia’s invasion in October 1990. The US sought to persuade Arab countries outside the Gulf to support the operation. Egypt and Syria agreed, while Jordan disagreed. When the aim of the operation had been achieved, Operation Desert Storm was launched. The UN Security Council passed a resolution setting January 15, 1991, as the deadline for the complete withdrawal of Iraqi Forces from Kuwait. The resolution authorized the use of all necessary means to enforce Iraq’s pullout after January 15, leading to an offensive campaign for the liberation of Kuwait. When the deadline passed without the liberation, an air war against Iraq began. The Iraqi leader decided to provoke Israel into entering the war, but the American administration was able to convince the Israeli government not to react. With the success of Operation Desert Storm, the American administration demonstrated its supremacy.

Cease-fire

On April 3, 1991, after more than a month of negotiations, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 687, setting forth the terms for a formal ceasefire in the Gulf War.

• It forced Iraq to renounce weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and medium to long-range missiles.
• The countries of the region agreed to host US bases, which served the US and UK air forces to impose two no-fly zones on Iraq, one in the north and one in the south of the country. The northern one favored the formation of a Kurdish entity almost independent from Baghdad; the southern one did not prevent the repression of the southern Shiite rebellion.
• He avoided abolishing the economic sanctions imposed in August 1990, to make the regime unpopular and to hinder its rearmament. Later, the disastrous consequences of the sanctions on the Iraqi population led to their slight easing through the introduction of the Oil for Food program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil in exchange for basic necessities.

Chapter 23: Peace

Oslo I involved secret face-to-face meetings between Palestinian and Israeli officials; it set the stage for additional steps toward normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors:

• Full treaty of peace and mutual recognition between Israel and Jordan.
• Return of Arafat to Palestine and his assumption of authority over a small portion of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

However, it contributed to the assassination of an Israeli prime minister by a Jewish Israeli citizen and division in Israeli and Palestinian society.

The Road to Oslo

1. Madrid Conference of 1991 sponsored by the US and SU which opened in Madrid on October 30, 1991. On the one hand, there was the objective of achieving peace between Israel and Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan; on the other hand, the aim was to initiate dialogue between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.

Sticking points:

• Israeli policy aimed at building colonies in the occupied territories with the clear intention of annexing parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. President Bush constrained American loans to renounce the installation; without the loans, Israel could not afford to finance its settlement policies.
• The possible return to Israeli territory of Palestinians who had fled in previous decades.
• Mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel.
• The status of Jerusalem.

In late summer 1993, Palestinian and Israeli delegates provided for a mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and laid the foundations for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Two agreements were hammered out:

2. First: mutual recognition in which Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the PLO unequivocally recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, renounced the use of terror and violence.
3. Oslo I or Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-Rule that outlined a five-year program for interim Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories. Norwegian Prime Minister Holst liberated Oslo as a secret venue for negotiations; the agreement was signed in Washington with Clinton’s mediation and a handshake between Rabin and Arafat.

Meeting point recognition by Israel of the PLO as a Palestinian interlocutor and by Arafat the right of Israel to existence, plus the birth of a Palestinian National Authority representing the embryo of a government and a state.

Oslo effect: In the following months, a number of factors played against the implementation of the agreements:

• Not all Israeli public opinion shared Rabin’s optimism and the settlements of colonies stopped.
• Several Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, did not accept the outcome of Oslo and this led to an escalation of attacks on Israeli civilians.
• The deteriorating economic situation in the occupied territories for Palestinians.
• In 1995, a young Israeli extremist killed Rabin, causing a setback for negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

4. Oslo II: the Israeli government ceded to the Palestinians self-government over a number of cities in the West Bank, allowing the creation of the Palestinian National Authority. A peace treaty was also established between Jordan and Israel.
5. Camp David: Towards the end of his second term, Clinton attempted yet another act of mediation between Israel, then under the leadership of Prime Minister Barak, and Arafat. In July 2000, a tripartite declaration was signed at Camp David, which appeared as the premise of a serious agreement; Israel undertook to withdraw from most of the occupied territories, excluding Jerusalem. However, Arafat withdrew from the agreement.
6. Wye River Memorandum: negotiated agreement between Israel (Netanyahu) and the Palestinian Authority (Arafat) at the Wye River Maryland summit on October 23, 1998, with Clinton’s mediation; it aimed to resume the implementation of Oslo II.
7. Taba summit: the Israeli negotiating team presented a new map at the Taba summit in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001. It was decided to eliminate "temporary Israeli control" in some areas and the Palestinian side accepted it as a basis for future negotiations. However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not conduct further negotiations at that time and the talks ended without an agreement.

Second intifada: At the end of September 2000, a demonstration organized by the leader of the Israeli right-wing party on the esplanade of the mosques in Jerusalem, a sacred place for both Jews and Muslims, was considered by the latter as a desecration and was the spark that gave rise to the second intifada that lasted until 2005. The historical reasons were rather the slow build-up of tensions between 1993 and 2000, due to the stalemate in the peace process, which suggested a failure of the Oslo agreements. The tension would reach its peak in July 2000 with the failure of the Camp David summit.

Chapter 24: Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran

Turkey has been able to make use of its strategic geopolitical position especially since the 2000s, and is the result of a combination of regional transformations and internal political changes. At a foreign level, especially the 2003 Iraq war and the disappearance of a major regional player have opened up new areas of maneuver and opportunities in the Middle East for Ankara. Internally, a new political formation, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Erdogan in November 2002, influenced the government. In the first decade of the 2000s, the government gave a more dynamic and assertive orientation to the country’s regional policy.