Israel-Hamas War

This week we talk about the Gaza Strip, the Yom Kippur War, and Egypt.

We also discuss 9/11, charged topics, and sneak-attacks.

Recommended Book: Pinpoint by Greg Milner

Transcript

In 1972, the Egyptian military started building up its offense-capable forces, buying things like MiG fighter jets and T-62 tanks from the Soviet Union, while also gutting its swathe of generals—many of whom attained the rank for political, not experiential reasons—replacing them with more capable versions of the same.

This buildup and swap-out of leadership was being conducted in the lead-up to an invasion of Israel, with the intention of reclaiming territory that Egypt lost during the Six-Day War in 1967: a conflict that saw Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all going to war with Israel, mostly because of the simmering bad relations Israel had had with all its Arab neighbors since the First Arab-Israeli War, which ended in 1949, but the catalyst for that conflict was Egypt threatening to close the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping; something that would be devastating to Israel's economy, and which the Israeli government had previously said would serve as a casus belli—a justification for war—and which was already the casus belli for the aforementioned First Arab-Israeli War.

So the same general ingredients that led to the First Arab-Israeli War in the mid-20th century were in place again in the late-60s: strained relations between Israel and its neighbors, one of those neighbors threatening to clobber the Israeli economy by denying them the use of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran for shipping exports, and though the second time around the Egyptian military was pulled back into a defensive position after announcing that ban on Israeli shipping using these water channels, the Israeli military preemptively struck Egyptian forces and launched a ground offensive into Egypt that ended less than a week later.

This conflict left tens of thousands of Arab soldiers from these three countries dead, while Israel only suffered about a thousand fatalities.

The Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian governments gave up territory to Israel as part of the ceasefire following this relatively brief war, and the territory Egypt gave up—the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, which it had been occupying, directly informed that 1972 buildup of Egyptian forces and recalibration of their military leadership.

Throughout that buildup and booting of generals, though, the Egyptian government tried to get Israel to accept a deal that would involve them giving the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt in exchange for the Egyptian government formally recognizing Israel's rights as an independent state—something none of its Arab neighbors were willing to do, which perhaps understandably had been an ongoing source of tension in the region.

Everyone, including Israel's most powerful ally, the US, were keen on this agreement, but the Israeli government said no, as the deal wouldn't guarantee their protection from Egypt in the future.

This pissed off a lot of those allies, and the Egyptian government continued to float the idea right up to the moment they attacked Israel in 1973—an attack that was anticipated by essentially everyone, including the Israeli government, because it had become well-understood that the Egyptian government, for reasons both economic and governmental, wouldn't really be able to survive as an independent state without the Sinai territory that was now under Israel's control.

Egypt conducted a bunch of military exercises between May and August of that year, which is why similar exercises, right next to the Suez Canal in late September, were ignored by many in the Israeli establishment as just more exercises, nothing to worry about.

And tens of thousands of the soldiers participating in those exercises were given permission to make their pilgrimage to Mecca a few days before the attack, which reinforced the idea that this was just more posturing on the part of Egypt—and that proved convincing, even though the Israelis received eleven warnings of an impending attack from well-placed sources.

The Israeli government finally scrambled to call up reservists a handful of hours before Egypt moved in, though, and despite being in the position to make a preemptive strike, they were dissuaded from doing so by US leadership, which told them they should do everything they could to avoid being the one to start a new war in the Middle East, also saying that if they did start something, they wouldn't receive any support from the US; the Soviet Union, for their part, made similar efforts to dissuade the Egyptians from starting a new conflict, but to no avail.

What became known, in Israel at least, as the Yom Kippur War, because it began on that holy Jewish holiday, ultimately lasted just shy of three weeks; it saw successful Israeli counterattacks into Syria and Egypt, eventually led to the beginnings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace...

[carolea]

17:44 ok last comment. I'm against the war on Ukraine. And I also feel like, especially in this context, we need to discuss the connection/relationship between Ukraine & the Israeli regime - at least key Israeli political leaders. Ukraine is not an outsider in this - though the civilians may be. Zelenskyy is not the first connection. Many prominent political leaders on the Israeli side were either born in Ukraine or are from Ukraine. If we're going to talk geopolitics, this needs to be part of the conversation.

[carolea]

I will speak to the part about Egypt. In my understanding, in 1972 & 1973, Egypt would not have fought the Israeli forces had Egypt not been directly threatened by the Israeli regime. The land grabs during 1967 were part of it, for sure, but the rhetoric coming out of the Zionist movement in the 1920s & 1930s also was a threat to Egypt. In other words, the expansionist ideas that would draw the national homeland for the Jewish people into parts of Egypt, even if they hadn't materialized during that time, were a threat to Egypt.

Of course, the expulsion of neighboring Palestinians from Haifa & Yafa into Gaza & neighboring countries is also a problem. This is just from the perspective of protecting Egypt's borders & interests.

Of course there are other factors at play. Egypt was still under the British until 1952. The influence of Britain & France in the region was enormous on Egypt & on the region. It's still palpable to this day. The first war mentioned in the first few seconds to 1:30 takes place in the context of colonization, a very charged nationalist context, and territorial maximalism coming out of the Zionist movement.

[carolea]

Do we know what geographical regions were breached & attacked by Hamas on October 7th? Do we have the city or settlement names? Who lived there? Or were these businesses?