Historical Background and Resources for the 2023 Israel-Hamas War

In light of the recent attacks on Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization, we thought it appropriate to provide both a list of resources and a background summary on the American relationship with Israel, Israel’s history, and Israeli-Palestinian relations. There are also resources below about Iranian proxy forces hostile to Israel. While intended primarily for AHS chapters looking to organize events on the topic, these resources should also be helpful for any student’s learning.

The potential event topics below are only a few of the ways in which one could approach the deeply complex subjects of Israel, its relationship with its neighbors, and the broader geopolitical competition underway in the Middle East. Additionally, the speakers listed below are all experts on various aspects of these subjects, so be sure to examine their biographies closely to choose who might best fit your potential event.

FOR SPEAKER EVENTS

Topics

  • The History and Context of the U.S.-Israel Relationship

  • The U.S. Role in the Peace Process of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 

  • Iran’s Support for Terrorist Groups in the Middle East

  • Arab-Israeli Relations Before and After the Abraham Accords

  • Regional Competition Between Iran and Saudi Arabia

  • U.S. Relationships with Arab Gulf States

  • Russia’s Military and Economic Partnerships in the Middle East

  • Chinese Influence and One Belt, One Road in the Middle East

  • The U.S.-Turkey Relationship

  • Middle Eastern Democracy After the Arab Spring

Speakers

FOR ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

  • A Guide to Palestinian and Other Anti-Israel Factions. Alexandra Sharp. Foreign Policy. October 10, 2023. Link.

  • The End of America’s Exit Strategy in the Middle East. Suzanne Maloney. Foreign Affairs. October 10, 2023. Link.

  • Where Does China Stand on the Israel-Hamas War? James Palmer. Foreign Policy. October 10, 2023. Link.

  • Hamas Consigns the Pax Americana to History Books. Hal Brands. Bloomberg. October 9, 2023. Link.

  • Hamas’s Global Test for Biden. Walter Russell Mead. The Wall Street Journal. October 9, 2023. Link.

  • Israel’s War on Hamas: What to Know. Bruce Hoffman. Council on Foreign Relations. October 9, 2023. Link.

  • The Hamas Attack on Israel Changes Everything. Elliott Abrams. National Review. October 7, 2023. Link.

  • What is U.S. Policy on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Kali Robinson. Council on Foreign Relations. July 12, 2023. Link.


FOR BOOK CLUBS

  • Halevi, Yossi Klein. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.

  • Gordis, Daniel. Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

  • Mead, Walter Russell. The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.

  • Oren, Michael B. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.

  • Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present.

  • Wright, Lawrence. Thirteen Days in September: The Dramatic Story of the Struggle for Peace.

  • Edelman, Eric. Revolution and Aftermath: Forging a New Strategy towards Iran.

  • Takeyh, Ray. The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.

  • Doran, Michael. Ike’s Gamble: America’s Dominance in the Middle East.

  • Bohbot, Amir & Katz, Yaakov. The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower.

  • Pollack, Kenneth. Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness.

    Interested in starting a reading group for your chapter? If so, the books above are all excellent selections. Find a link to our reading group application below.

FOR FILM SCREENINGS

  • Golda (2023)

  • Munich (2005)

Overview

In 1897, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement, convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. The goal of this Congress and the Zionist movement more generally was to “secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured, home in Palestine” so that Jews might free themselves from over a millennium of violent anti-Semitism across Europe. This movement set in motion the migration of hundreds of thousands of Jews to the Holy Land over the following decades, which reached its zenith following the revelations surrounding the horrors of the Holocaust, the end of the British mandate over Palestine, and the founding of Israel on May 14, 1948.

The United States has been a key figure in Israel’s history from the very beginning when it was the first country to recognize the new state. Even in 1947, a year before the Jewish Agency for Israel proclaimed the establishment of the country, the United States—and, for different reasons, the Soviet Union—supported the United Nations (UN) resolution on the partition plan for Palestine. This plan called for the end of British rule in Palestine and the establishment of both an Arab and a Jewish state in the region. In supporting this plan, the Truman Administration sought to bolster the role of the fledgling UN and strike a balance between British strategic concerns in the region and liberal internationalist and Zionist calls for a full-fledged Jewish state.

However, American support for Israel was not absolute. In the First Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Israeli War of Independence, the United States held firm on its arms embargo to all belligerents to avoid alienating Britain and the oil-rich Arab nations. Nevertheless, Israel won this war despite fighting not only the Palestinian Arabs but the nations of the Arab League (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq) as well. Seven years after the end of the First Arab-Israeli War, the United States maintained its arms embargo on Israel in the 1956 Second Arab-Israeli War, or the Suez Crisis, in which Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt to reverse the nationalization of the Suez Canal and, for Israel, to reopen the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Once again, despite the embargo, Israel achieved its objective, though the Suez remained under Egyptian control.

After years of growing closer to Israel on the basis of both Cold War-era geopolitical strategy and shared democratic and liberal values, the American arms embargo on Israel was lifted in 1963. This allowed Israel to use purchased American weapons in the Third Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Six-Day War, in 1967. To force the reopening of the Straits of Tiran, which had been closed again by Egypt that same year, Israel launched a series of preemptive strikes on Egypt and Syria and, as the name of the war suggests, defeated its foes and captured Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights in six days.

In an attempt to reclaim lost territories and redeem the humiliation suffered from the Six-Day War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel in 1973 in what became known as the Yom Kippur War. This was the first instance in which the United States sent military aid to Israel, which used the armaments to conduct a successful counteroffensive into Syria and hold the line in Sinai. The victory of Israel in this war and the aid it received from the United States precipitated the 1973 oil embargo, in which Arab petrostates punished nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War by cutting off oil flows. This in turn led to greater American involvement in the Middle East to secure this vital resource, entwining the fates of the United States and Israel ever closer. 

While Israel retains control over the formerly Syrian Golan Heights won in the Six-Day War to this day, it eventually agreed to return Sinai to Egypt in 1978 as part of the Camp David Accords in exchange for Egyptian recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. These Accords marked the beginning of the prominent U.S. role in helping Israel normalize relations with its Arab neighbors.

Following the successful Camp David Accords, certain actors, including the UN, criticized the process for not including a Palestinian representative. This, combined with Israeli operations against the Palestine Liberation Organization in southern Lebanon, led to an increase in tensions between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors, ultimately culminating in the First Intifada (uprising) in 1987, a series of Palestinian protests and violent riots. The fighting lasted until the signing of the U.S.-brokered Oslo I Accords in 1993, which saw the creation of the Palestinian National Authority, an interim self-government for Palestinians, and an agreement for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza. 

However, these withdrawals did not take place even after the Oslo II Accords in 1995. A final settlement was attempted with the 2000 Camp David Accords, but that same year, the Second Intifada broke out. This round of fighting, which was significantly more violent than the First Intifada, lasted until a 2005 ceasefire when Israel militarily withdrew from Gaza and uprooted all settlements in the territory. Although the armistice put an end to the official Intifada, the electoral success of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Palestinian 2006 legislative elections signaled more violence was to come.

This violence arrived in the form of the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, the 2014 Gaza War, and the 2018-2019 Gaza border protests. Throughout this time, Hamas remained the dominant force in Gazan politics while the right-of-center Likud party under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu governed Israel. Although Israel achieved a normalization of relations with the Arab states of Bahrain and the UAE in the 2020 U.S.-led Abraham Accords, as well as normalization with Morocco and Sudan in the same year, the peace process continued to degrade.

Over the years, the United States and Israel have drawn closer to one another based on authentic people-to-people connections, shared democratic values, and a common hope for a secure and prosperous Middle East. The recent devastating terrorist assault on Israel is likely to bring the two countries closer still on the basis of not only military aid but cultural solidarity as well. With the human cost of the conflict bound to rise, the prospect of peace between Israelis and Palestinians becomes even more distant than before; but in the event of future peace summits, the American role will remain one focused on finding reasonable points of conciliation for both Israelis and Palestinians.

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