Israel in the Region
What relations does Israel have with the Arab world?
Israel, which is about the size of Wales and with a population of eight million, is located among 22 Arab states with a combined population in excess of 300 million, covering a land mass larger that Europe. Egypt and the other North African states are to Israel’s west and southwest, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq are to the east and Syria and Lebanon are to the north.
When Israel was founded, the Arab world refused to recognise it and enforced a strict economic boycott. But since the late 1970s, some Arab states have recognised Israel and built political ties with it. Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, concluding a peace treaty in 1979. The PLO recognised Israel in 1993 as part of the Oslo peace process. This paved the way for the signing of a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan in 1994. With the development of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, more Arab states began to establish ties with Israel. Israel opened trade representation and interest offices in Oman, Qatar, Morocco and Tunisia. The economic boycott was relaxed somewhat during this time. In 1999, the West African state of Mauritania became the third Arab state to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel.
The outbreak of the Second Intifada caused Morocco, Oman and Tunisia to break off their ties, but contacts have been maintained in some areas. In 2002, the Arab League proposed to normalise relations with Israel in the context of the creation of a Palestinian state.
What is the Arab Peace Initiative and how has Israel responded?
The Arab Peace Initiative is a proposal originating with the Saudi government for resolving the conflict between Israel, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world. The proposal, first adopted by the Arab League in 2002, presents conditions under which the states of the Arab League would be willing to make peace with Israel and normalise relations. The conditions are that Israel withdraws to 1967 boundaries, allowing for the creation of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It also demands ‘a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.’
Although this position represents a considerable advance from the days when the Arab League refused to even contemplate peace with Israel, the proposal was initially treated with caution in Israel. One problem is that when first proposed, the initiative appeared to call on Israel to accept its terms without negotiation. Whilst the agreement may be seen as a basis for negotiation, the original terms were not acceptable to Israel. Israel accepts the principle of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but believes that the final borders must be negotiated, and cannot be exactly as they were in 1967.
Furthermore, UN General Assembly Resolution 194, dating back to 1949, suggests that Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to Israel. For Israel to accept such a proposal today would spell the end of the Jewish majority in Israel and therefore the end of the Jewish state. Israel maintains that since it accepted the UN’s Partition Plan of 1947, and the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states then started the war of 1948, it is the Arab states and not Israel who bear responsibility for the refugees. Israel further maintains that the principle of the two-state solution means that the Palestinian state, and not Israel, will be the national home of the Palestinian people and the destination for Palestinian refugees.
Nonetheless, Israel has been open to discussions with Arab states about the initiative. In 2007, then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni welcomed Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers to Israel for talks on the Arab Peace Initiative.
In April 2013, following a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, leaders from several Arab states declared a change to the terms of the initiative. Instead of demanding from Israel a strict return to the 1967 lines, they endorsed the idea of 1967 borders including “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land.” This small but significant refinement was an endorsement of an agreement based on the principle of negotiated land swaps.
What threat does Iran pose to Israel?
Iran, which is a Persian speaking, Shi’ite Muslim country, has been led by a radical and fundamentalist Islamic leadership since 1979. The regime subscribes to a theocratic ideology that is fiercely anti-Western and opposed to the very existence of a Jewish state in the region. Its leaders routinely call for Israel’s annihilation.
Iran is a country with ten times Israel’s population, nearly 80 times Israel’s size, and 10 per cent of the world’s oil. It aims to be the strongest power in the region and to export its radical ideology throughout the world. Iran’s leaders frequently call for the eradication of the State of Israel and have promoted anti-Semitism including denial of the Holocaust.
Iran’s nuclear programme
The danger posed by Iran to stability in the region threatens to be greatly enhanced by its rapid development of nuclear weapons technology. Iran claims that its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes, but in 2002, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors nuclear programmes on behalf of the UN, discovered that Iran had been systematically lying about the true extent of its programme for many years. In 2009 it was revealed that Iran had continued to deceive the world, when a secret uranium enrichment facility at Fordow was exposed by Western intelligence agencies.
Iran has repeatedly failed to explain evidence held by the IAEA that it has been developing nuclear weapons technology. Most Western governments believe that Iran’s true goal in its nuclear programme has been the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In November 2011, the IAEA issued a detailed report on the structure of Iran’s secret nuclear weapons research.
Israeli leaders across the political spectrum declared their opposition to the nuclear deal agreed between Iran and the P5+1 in July 2015, believing it will pave the way for Iran to reach the threshold of nuclear weapons capability.
Destabilising the region
Iran’s ambitions are not only of concern to Israel. Iran opposes internationally-backed efforts to bring stability across the region, by supporting violent anti-Western forces in the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The British government has linked Iran to attacks on its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its sailors were abducted and taken to Iran from international waters in 2007. Iran’s missile programme has developed long-range weapons that can reach many parts of Europe. In 2011 a regime orchestrated mob stormed the British embassy in Tehran, leading to the closing of the embassy and the closing of the Iranian embassy in London.
Iran views terrorism as a legitimate means to further its ideological and strategic aims. Iran opposes any Arab peace agreements or recognition of Israel and assists Islamist terrorist groups and organisations that strive to attack Israel, sabotage the peace process and destabilise the regimes of the more pragmatic Arab countries.
The Iranian regime arms, funds and provides military training to the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organisation Hezbollah, which shares its ideology and acts in coordination with the Iranian government. Iran supplied Hezbollah with the missiles and rockets that hit major cities and towns in the north of Israel in the Second Lebanon War of 2006, killing and injuring hundreds of Israelis. Iran supports Palestinian terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran also has a close strategic relationship with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and has actively supported Assad in his brutal war against Syrian rebels.
Why is Israel deeply concerned about the Iranian nuclear deal?
Israeli leaders across the political spectrum declared their opposition to the nuclear deal agreed between Iran and the P5+1 in July 2015.
Israel has two main arguments against what has been agreed. First is that Iran will be able to develop capabilities to build nuclear weapons after 10-15 years, when restrictions on its uranium enrichment expire, or earlier if Iran violates the deal. Second is that the agreement releases hundreds of billions of dollars which Iran can use to promote its radical and sectarian regional agenda, including its support for terrorists and building up its own conventional military forces. Israel is also concerned that the legitimising of Iran’s nuclear threshold status threatens to spark nuclear proliferation across the region, with other states seeking the same status as Iran.
Israel’s concerns are particularly acute because of Iran’s repeated calls for the annihilation of Israel and its active support for armed extremist groups on Israel’s borders. However, Israel’s concerns are shared by many Sunni Arab states. Former Saudi Ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, compared the Iranian agreement to the failed nuclear deal with North Korea.
Many expert voices in the United States have also articulated their criticism of the agreement. Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schulze wrote in the Wall Street Journal following the signing of the framework agreement that “the projected nuclear agreement will reinforce, not resolve, the world’s challenges in the region.”
Writing in the Washington Post after the publication of the deal, Dennis Ross, former senior advisor to President Obama, wrote that, “after year 15, the deal, at that point, will legitimize the Islamic republic as a threshold nuclear state. The gap between threshold status and weapons capability will necessarily become small, and not difficult for the Iranians to bridge.”
How has Israel responded to the threat of ISIL/Daish?
Israel shares international concerns regarding the threat posed by ISIL/Daish, and supports the US-led international coalition.
Israel is threatened by Salafist Jihadists encroaching on its borders and was attacked with rockets by an ISIL affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula in July 2015. The group calling itself Sinai Province is thought to be a manifestation of the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2014. Since the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2013, Islamists have been fighting an insurgency against the regime of President al-Sisi, attacking Egyptian military forces in Sinai.
ISIL is also striving to gain influence inside countries neighbouring Israel such as Jordan and Lebanon, with Jordan’s security an issue of particular importance for Israel.
Israelis debate internally whether the growth of ISIL is a reason to defer political initiatives in the Palestinian arena. Some stress the risk that Jihadist elements may take over any territory Israel gives up on its borders. Others argue that the lack of political initiative increases the chances of escalation and radicalization in Israel’s immediate vicinity, and reduces the scope for cooperation with Arab moderates.
Israelis reject the view that Iran can be a strategic partner in the fight against ISIL, insisting that Shia and Sunni militant Islam are equally threatening to Western interests and regional stability, and that both need to be confronted.
How has Israel responded to the Syrian Civil War?
Israel has sought to avoid becoming entangled in the Syrian Civil War and has focused on preventing developments which directly impact its security.
Israel wants to deter any party in Syria, including the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah or Sunni Jihadist groups, from using Syria as a base to attack Israel. Iran and Hezbollah – who are backing the Assad regime in the war – have been trying to establish infrastructure to attack Israel from the Golan Heights leading to a number of exchanges of fire on the border.
Israel has also sought to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, including advanced ground to ground and ground to sea missiles, and is believed to have carried out a number of airstrikes to prevent such transfers. Hezbollah already has a huge arsenal of rockets in south Lebanon posing a major threat to Israeli civilians and strategic targets.
Since the Syrian Civil War erupted, Israel has treated many wounded Syrians who have arrived at its border, constructing a field hospital in the area and taking casualties who have been seriously wounded to Israeli hospitals for life saving treatment. By the end of 2015 around 2000 Syrians had received Israeli medical treatment.
What is the nature of the territorial dispute between Israel and Syria?
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, Syria was one of the countries that attacked the newly established Jewish state. Following the war, Syria used the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon as a base from which to shell Israeli agricultural settlements in northern Israel. Disputes over the water sources in the area were also a cause of tension. In 1967, Syria made a military pact with Egypt and backed Egypt’s calls for the destruction of Israel. During the Six Day War, Israel captured the Golan Heights.
In 1973, Syria and Egypt launched coordinated surprise attacks on Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, in what became known as the Yom Kippur War. Israel was pushed back in the war, but following a series of extremely costly battles managed to regain control of the Golan.
Since 1973, the border between Israel and Syria has been relatively quiet, but Syria has supported armed groups in neighbouring Lebanon, which it partly occupied from 1976 to 2005, in their attacks on Israel. In particular, Syria supplies weapons to Hezbollah, and allows weapons supplies from Iran to pass through Syria. Syria has also funded and supported extremist Palestinian terrorist groups in their attacks on Israel. The political head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, was hosted by the Syrian government in Damascus until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Before the civil war broke out in Syria Israel had engaged in periodic negotiations, either directly or indirectly, with Syria to explore the possibility of returning the Golan Heights in exchange for Syria signing a peace treaty with Israel and halting its support for terrorist groups that attack Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made this offer via American intermediaries in 1994. Prime Minister Ehud Barak entered into negotiations on this basis with then-Syrian president Hafez Assad in 2000. But the Syrians eventually backed away from the deal. Under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel also explored the possibility of a deal via indirect talks mediated by Turkey.
However, any prospect of further negotiations between Israel and Syria has been removed for the foreseeable future by the civil war that has engulfed Syria.
What is the nature of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon?
There are no legitimate territorial disputes between Israel and Lebanon, but Lebanon is a very weak and divided state and has been used by various groups as a base from which to attack Israel.
In 1970, the PLO established itself in southern Lebanon and launched terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. In 1982 this triggered the First Lebanon War, in which Israel invaded Lebanon and succeeded in expelling the PLO. It also drew Israel into the complex and bloody internal fighting within Lebanon. During the war, Christian Lebanese forces allied to Israel committed an infamous massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside Beirut. A subsequent Israeli inquiry found then-defence minister Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible. Eventually Israel pulled back to a ‘security zone’, 20km inside Lebanon. In 2000 Israel pulled all its forces to the internationally recognised boundary and the UN Security Council concluded that Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon in accordance with UN requirements.
After the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982, the principal threat to Israel was posed by the radical Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah, which established effective control of the southern part of Lebanon. Hezbollah, closely allied to Iran, has continued to use Lebanon as a base from which to attack Israel without justification. After the UN endorsed Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, Hezbollah took the opportunity to increase its arsenal of missiles and other weaponry. Between May 2000 and June 2006, Hezbollah carried out numerous missile attacks and cross-border raids against Israel, including one which resulted in the capture of three Israeli soldiers whose bodies were only returned four years later.
In 2006, it launched a simultaneous rocket attack and cross-border raid, killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two more, triggering the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War (known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War). Over the next month Hezbollah fired approximately 3,800 rockets into northern Israel, deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. They displaced between 300,000 and 500,000 Israelis from their homes and forced many more into bomb shelters.
Whilst Israel attempted to avoid Lebanese civilian casualties in its attempt to halt Hezbollah’s fire, Hezbollah’s tactic of intentionally hiding its forces and infrastructure within densely populated areas made this difficult.
Today, Hezbollah claims that it still has legitimate grounds to fight Israel because Israel retains control of the ‘Sheba Farms’ area, an eight square mile piece of land between Lebanon and the Golan Heights. Israel’s position, is that it no longer occupies any part of Lebanon and the area was in fact formerly part of Syria. This is backed by the UN. It should therefore be subject to negotiations between Israel and Syria.
What is Hezbollah and what threat does it pose to Israel?
Hezbollah (Party of God) is a radical Shi’ite Islamist organisation, based in Lebanon since 1982. Ideologically and religiously inspired by the fundamentalist Iranian regime, it receives extensive military support from Iran and Syria. In recent years it has become the dominant force in the Lebanese government.
With Iranian and Syrian support, Hezbollah has developed extensive independent military forces and is the strongest faction in Lebanon. It is also a powerful political force representing Shi’ite Muslims. Since the early 1980s, Hezbollah has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Israel and Jews around the world, and has killed hundreds of innocent people. In addition, Hezbollah has acquired a large arsenal of missiles which they have fired at Israeli communities.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is known for his venomous rhetoric and has called repeatedly for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel along with many other states have long called for Hezbollah to be disarmed in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701, which call for the Lebanese army to be the only military force in the country.
Hezbollah is accused by Bulgarian authorities of carrying out a bombing in Burgas In July 2012 that killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver. This murderous act on EU soil finally led the EU to proscribe the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation in 2013. Hezbollah is also involved in global organised crime to finance it activities, including drug smuggling, money laundering and counterfeiting.
What is Israel’s nuclear policy?
Israel established a nuclear research programme in the 1950s. On the question of nuclear weapons, Israel maintains a strict policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying the possession of a nuclear arsenal.
However, it is widely believed by analysts that Israel has a nuclear weapons capability. Israel’s unusual stance is rooted in its unique security concerns. Geographic and demographic asymmetries in the region leave Israel inherently vulnerable to attack. Its small size prevents the possibility of ‘strategic depth’ – the ability to absorb a first strike and then launch a counter-attack. This geostrategic vulnerability is regarded as the key concern that motivated Israel to develop a nuclear deterrent. However, if Israel explicitly acknowledged possession of nuclear weapons, the fear is that this might motivate Arab countries to establish nuclear programmes, triggering an arms race and further proliferating nuclear weapons. Maintaining a policy of ambiguity has been successful in preserving Israel’s strategic deterrence, without resorting to threatening rhetoric.
Israel, though not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the highest interest in preventing other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons or related materials, especially those countries that support proxy terrorist groups in the region. Israel has stated that it supports the vision of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. Israel’s position is that this goal can be pursued effectively when regional peace is secured and all states in the region come into compliance with their arms control and non-proliferation obligations.
How has Israel responded to the Arab Spring?
Triggered by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vender in December 2010, a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests spread across the Arab world. In Israel people have asked the same profound questions about the Arab Spring that have been asked in the West: will the dramatic political changes ultimately bear the fruits of democracy or give way to non-democratic forces and further radicalisation? The impact of political change in the Arab world, however, is felt much more directly by Israelis. Israel’s President, Shimon Peres, expressed the sentiment of the majority of Israel’s when he said:
“A great revolt has been initiated by young people and women, to gain freedom, bread and hope. Israel is watching with great expectation. … Those reactionary forces, that would hijack their countries back down the path of radicalism, are also the enemies of peace with Israel. That is why we hope our neighbors will choose to join the family of democratic nations.”
Even though the political upheavals across the Middle East have largely been focused inwards, Israel has and will continue to experience reverberations. Whilst the spread of liberal democracy in the Middle East would improve the prospects for peace and stability across the region, Israelis are concerned that anti-democratic forces will take the opportunity to gain power, and give vent to populist anti-Israel sentiment, endangering key regional relationships. The destabilisation of countries surrounding Israel also creates greater freedom and opportunities for terrorist groups to operate on Israel’s borders.
Egypt is the most important test case for transition in the region. Egypt is by far the largest Arab state and shares a 150-mile-long border with Israel. Egypt was also the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, and since then has been an important supporter of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The Israel-Egypt peace treaty also significantly improved Israel’s security, as it removed the threat of war with the strongest Arab military force. However, since the ousting of long-time president Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent struggle for power in Cairo between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military, the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula has rapidly deteriorated. This sparsely populated and poorly governed region has been used as a base for extremist armed groups to launch terror attacks against Israel.
The Arab spring has also caused debate among Israelis as to whether the regional turmoil calls for an effort to revive the peace process with the Palestinians, or to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Key to this is the consideration of whether the fundamental stability to sustain agreements exists, or whether a lack of moderate Arab backing for the process and seeming American loss of influence make this unlikely.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has continued to press for direct negotiations, but has cautioned against concessions that do not come with clear security guarantees.