View source for Arab-Israeli conflict

The '''Arab-Israeli conflict''' ([[Arabic]] "الصراع العربي الإسرائيلي", [[Hebrew]] "הסכסוך הישראלי ערבי") is a term used to refer to the recurring conflict between the citizens of [[Israel]] and the Arab states of the [[Middle East]] (notably [[Egypt]], [[Syria]], [[Jordan]], [[Iraq]], and [[Lebanon]]). Many wars have been fought between the State of Israel and other Arab nations in the region. Today, Egypt and Jordan recognize Israel while the other Arab states do not.

==See also==
*[[Right to exist]]
*[[Criticism of preferenrial treatment for Israeli Arabs over Jews]]

==List of Conflicts==
*[[1929 Hebron massacre]]
*[[1948 Arab-Israeli War]]
*[[Suez Crisis]]
*[[Six-Day War]]
*[[War of Attrition]]
*[[Yom Kippur War]]
*[[1982 Lebanon War]]
*[[1978-2000 South Lebanon conflict]]
*[[Gulf War]]
*[[Second Intifada]]
*[[2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict]]
*[[Operation Pillar of Defense]]

==Further reading==
* Tucker, Spencer C., ed. ''The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict  A Political, Social, and Military History'' (4 vol. 2008)

Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict 
by Mitchell G. Bard

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict
by Benny Morris

The Fight for Jerusalem
by Dore Gold

The Case for Israel
by Alan M. Dershowitz

==Info sites==

[http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html Myths & Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict]

[http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~samuel Fact and Fantasy in the Holy Land] 

[http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict.asp Arab-Israeli conflict - Basic facts]

[http://www.meforum.org/article/522 The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Palestine, 1922-1931]

[http://palestinefacts.org History, maps & facts] 

[http://www.conceptwizard.com/info.html Concept wizard info, Visual information about the Middle East conflict]

[http://www.iris.org.il/sizemaps.htm Israel Size Comparison Maps]

[http://lindasog.com/public/terrorvictims.htm A History of Terrorism in Israel (since the 1920's)]

[http://www.middle-east-info.org MEI- Middle East regimes and Terrorism]

[http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/xmlpath.pl?id=3 IHC Historical Facts]

==Historical Accounts prior to conflict==

The vast majority of travelogues and historical accounts of the Middle east describe this area as barren- that does not mean UN -populated- it does mean UNDER populated. 
Alexander Keith, recalling Volney's 1785 description (quoted above) fifty years later, commented: "In his day [Volney's] the land had not fully reached its last degree of desolation and depopulation." (The Land of Israel).

Other travelers and pilgrims recorded similar reports of the dreary state of the Land around the middle of the nineteenth century. Here are just a few examples:

Alphonse de Lamartine, in 1835: "...a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people" (Recollections of the East, Vol. I, p.&nbsp;308).

A contemporary German encyclopedia (Brockhaus, "Allegmeine deutsche Real- Encyklopaidie", Vol. VIII, p.&nbsp;206, Leipzig, 1827) calls Palestine "desolate and roamed through by Arab robber-bands."

In 1849, the American W. F. Lynch described the desertion of Palestinian villages "caused by the frequent forays of the wandering Bedouin" (Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, p.&nbsp;489).

And again H. B. Tristram, in 1865: "... both in the north and south (of the Sharon plain), land is going out of cultivvation, and whole villages ar rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no less than 20 villages have been thus erased from the map (by the Bedouin) and the stationary population extirpated" (p.&nbsp;490).

Mark Twain, 'Innocents Abroad' 1867:

""Desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... We reached Tabor safely ... 
We never saw a human being on the whole route" (p.&nbsp;451, 480); 
"There is not a solitary village throughout its (the Jezreel Valley's) whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction. 
There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents but not a single permanent habitation. 
One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings" (p.&nbsp;448); 
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren ... the valleys are unsightly deserts... It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land... Palestine is desolate and unlovely... Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition - it is dreamland" (pp.&nbsp;564, 567).

Referring to the same era, the Christian historian James Parkes writes in Whose Land?: "Peasant and Bedouin alike have contributed to the ruin of the countryside on which both depend for a livelihood... In spite of the immense fertility of the soil, it is probable that in the first half of the nineteenth century the population sank to the lowest level it had ever known in historic times." 

In 1738, the land was described by the English archaeologist Thomas Shaw as "lacking in people to till its fertile soil" (Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant). The French historian Conte Constantine Francois Volney writes:

"The peasants are incessantly making inroads on each other's lands, destroying their corn, durra, sesame and olive-trees, and carrying off their sheep, goats and camels. The Turks, who are everywhere negligent in repressing similar disorders, are attentive to them here, since their authority is very precarious. The Bedouin, whose camps occupy the level country, are continually at open hostility 
Alexander Keith, recalling Volney's 1785 description (quoted above) fifty years later, commented: "In his day [Volney's] tthe land had not fully reache its last degree of desolation and depopulation." (The Land of Israel).

Other travelers and pilgrims recorded similar reports of the dreary state of the Land around the middle of the nineteenth century. Here are just a few examples:

Alphonse de Lamartine, in 1835: "...a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people" (Recollections of the East, Vol. I, p.&nbsp;308).

A contemporary German encyclopedia (Brockhaus, "Allegmeine deutsche Real- Encyklopaidie", Vol. VIII, p.&nbsp;206, Leipzig, 1827) calls Palestine "desolate and roamed through by Arab robber-bands."

In 1849, the American W. F. Lynch described the desertion of Palestinian villages "caused by the frequent forays of the wandering Bedouin" (Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, p.&nbsp;489).

And again H. B. Tristram, in 1865: "... both in the north and south (of the Sharon plain), land is going out of cultivvation, and whole villages ar rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no less than 20 villages have been thus erased from the map (by the Bedouin) and the stationary population extirpated" (p.&nbsp;490).

Mark Twain, 'Innocents Abroad' 1867:

""Desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... We reached Tabor safely ... 
We never saw a human being on the whole route" (p.&nbsp;451, 480); 
"There is not a solitary village throughout its (the Jezreel Valley's) whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction. 
There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents but not a single permanent habitation. 
One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings" (p.&nbsp;448); 
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren ... the valleys are unsightly deserts... It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land... Palestine is desolate and unlovely... Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition - it is dreamland" (pp.&nbsp;564, 567). 

==Further sites==

[http://all4israel.org Update on victims - All4israel]

[http://pmw.org.il 'Palestinian' Media Watch]

[http://www.think-israel.org Think Israel]

[http://www.factsandlogic.org Factsandlogic]

[http://www.onejerusalem.org One Jerusalem]

[http://rotter.net/israel Rotter]

[http://www.israel-wat.com/parent_eng.htm Israel's War Against 'Palestinian' Terror]

[http://www.awesomeseminars.com Awsome Seminars]

[http://freeisraelnow.blogspot.com/2006/05/israel-palestine-101.html Israel 'Palestine'  - 101]

[http://www.arabsforisrael.com Arabs For Israel]

[http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/AminAlHusseini.htm Amin Al Husseini - The Grand Mufti and father of today's jihad]

''In November 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right. The Mufti offered Hitler his “thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches....The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely....the Jews....” Hitler replied.''
[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/muftihit.html The Mufti and the Fuhrer] 

[http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/farhud.html 1941 The Farhud, the Mufti inspired Krystallnacht in Iraq]  

''In 1948, nearly 900,000 Jews - indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa - lived in what are now known as the "Arab States." ~ Today, 99% of these indigenous Jewish communities no longer exist. ~ Arab governments forced us to leave, confiscated our personal and communal property and stripped us of our citizenships.''<br>
[http://jimena.org Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa]

[http://www.memri.org MEMRI: Middle East Media Research Institute (translating Arab media)]

==Basic articles==

[http://israelinsider.com/views/articles/views_0401.htm Twenty facts about Israel and the Middle East] 

[http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0ldc0 Arab terrorism came before the (so called) "occupation"]

[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13590 The Case for Israel]

[http://www.aynrand.org/israel Israel's morality]

[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4454 Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East]

[http://www.pmw.org.il/LatestBulletins.htm#b300506 Who caused the Arab "refugee" problem? Refugee: Arab leaders told us to flee Israel in 1948]

[http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Israels_Moral_Right_to_its_Life.asp Israel's moral right to exist]

[http://www.peacewithrealism.org/antizi05.htm Israel's Right to Exist Questioned, Anti-Zionism or Anti-Semitism?]

[http://www.likud.nl/press50.html Israel and the Palestinians: no moral contest]

[http://gamla.org.il/english/index.htm Gamla]

[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7268 Two causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The first is Arab racism, rejects any presence that isn't Arab in its neighborhood; the second is Islamic intolerance which leads to same rejection]
 
[http://www.tampabayprimer.org/index.cfm?action=articles&drill=viewArt&art=1255 How Strong Is the Arab Claim to Palestine?]
 
[http://www.ldolphin.org/palestinians.html The Arabs in the Holy Land - Natives or Aliens?]
 
[http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2006/08/flauberts-observations-of-jerusalem.html "Flaubert's Observations of Jerusalem and the Jews Living There &#91;1850&#93;"]
 
[http://www.therefinersfire.org/israel_defends_itself.htm Israel Has A Moral Right To Its Life Why reason and justice are on Israel's side] 

[http://www.netanyahu.org/ismorleg.html Israel's Moral Legitimacy] 

''British National Archives unveil presence of Nazi S.S. agents in Mandatory Palestine, working closely with Palestinian leaders. Historical documents in Britain's National Archives in London show''
[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3248081,00.html Nazis shipped arms to Palestinians] 

[http://students.washington.edu/israeluw/info-anti.html When being anti-Israel is anti-Semitic]

[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html The Hebron Massacre of 1929] 

[http://haveitclearly.blogspot.com/2006/04/120-years-to-first-of-arabs-attack-on.html March 2006 - 120 Years to first of Arabs' attack on Jews in "palestine" Israel, Petach Tikva 1886]

''As grand mufti, al Husseini presided as the Imam of the Al Aqsa mosque in ... 1929. Hebron Massacre, Amin Al-Husseini organizes more riots in Palestine ''<br>
[http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2543 From Al Husseini to Hitler Radical Islam and the Nazi connection] 
 
[http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/israel_the_struggle_for_good_vs_evil/index.html Israel's struggle for Good VS Evil]

[http://www.think-israel.org/wright.munich.html Munich & morality tale of good vs. evil]

[http://www.acpr.org.il/cloakrm/clk117.html The Islamization of Bethlehem by Arafat] 

[http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/lel66/2006/sep/12/palestinian_persecution_of_christians Palestinian persecution of Christians, Hamas may be seeking to impose Islamic rule on the Palestinian population] 

[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32560 Persecution in 'Palestine', video documentary that exposes the anti-Christian persecution within the Palestinian Authority, "Holy Land: Christians in Peril,"] 

[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27338 The Jews took no one's land]
 
[http://www.israelnationalnews.com/print.php3?what=article&id=1726 Arabs Recognized Israel - 1919]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4 The Middleeast porblem explained by the Prager University]

[[Category:Israeli Wars]]
[[Category:Middle East History]]