In North Africa, as in Indochina, the French fought long and stubbornly to retain their possessions. A principal reason was the substantial number of French settlers in this region-250,000 in Tunisia, 400,000 in Morocco, and 1 million in Algeria. These colons, in league with powerful French economic interest in North Africa, bitterly opposed all proposals for self-rule and sabotaged a number of provisional moves in this direction made by certain Paris cabinets.
Tunisia and Morocco had the legal status of protectorates,
which France claimed to administer in behalf of their traditional
rulers. Both territories were governed autocratically-not even
the resident Europeans were allowed political rights. This foreign
domination stimulated movements for national liberation: in Tunisia,
the Neo-Destour party, established in 1934 and led by Habib Bourguiba;
and in Morocco, the Istiqlal party, founded in 1944 and given
some support by Sultan Mohamed Ben Youssef.
Tunisia and Morocco won their freedom relatively easily followings
World War II. The French were determined to hang on to Algeria
and were willing to accept losses elsewhere in order to concentrate
on this prime objective. Accordingly, when armed resistance began
in Tunisia in 1952, the French, after two years of guerilla warfare,
agreed to grant it autonomous status, and having made this concession
in Tunisia, they were ready to do likewise in Morocco. Sultan
Mohamed, who had been exiled for his pro-Istiqlal sympathies,
was allowed to return to his throne. He then demanded complete
independence, which the French conceded on March 2, 1956. In the
same month, Tunisia also became fully independent, with Bourguiba
as president of the new republic.
The French now were able to deal with the crucial Algerian
problem without distractions. Legally, Algeria was not a colony
but an integral part of France, with representative in the National
Assembly in Paris. In practice, a double standard of citizenship
prevailed in Algeria, so that the country was dominated economically
and politically by the Europeans, who comprised only one-tenth
of the 10 million total population. Ont he other hand, the colons,
like the Afrikaners at the other tip of the continent, did not
regard themselves as mere colonists. Algeria was their homeland
as much as that of the native Algerians. Their fathers and grandfathers
had worked and died there, and they were resolved to defend their
patrimony. This meant unalterably opposition to any concessions
tot he Algerian nationalists.
Armed revolt against French rule began in the fall of 1954. The
French had been ousted from Indochina only four months earlier
and were in no mood for compromise. With the enthusiastic approval
of the colons and of the army officers, who were still smarting
from the Indochina humiliation, the Paris government resolved
to crush the uprising. The result was an exhausting, brutalizing
struggle, that dragged on until 1962. At its height, the French
were forced to send a half million men into Algeria and to spend
nearly $1 billion annually. The Algerians paid much more heavily
in human terms, including 1 million dead, or one-ninth of their
total numbers.
In May 1958, a North African "Committee of Public Safety"
seized power in Algeria in order to replace the republic with
an authoritarian regime that presumably would be more successful
in holding the empire together. The demoralized National Assembly
bowed to this show of force, especially since most of the armed
forces were in Algeria. In June 1958, the National Assembly voted
full power to de Gaulle to rule France in whatever manner he wished
for six months and to prepare a new constitution for the country.
Before the end of the year the Fourth Republic had given way to
the Fifth, and political power had been shifted decisively from
the legislative to the executive branch-specifically to the president.
President de Gaulle now used his unprecedented popularity to end
the Algerian bloodshed, despite the opposition of the colons and
the military who had made possible his rise to power. In March
1962, after a referendum in France had approved such a move, de
Gaulle agreed to a cease-fire and to a plebiscite to determine
Algeria's future. On July 3, 1962, he proclaimed the independence
of Algeria after its people had voted overwhelmingly in favor
of it. All of North Africa was now free for the first time since
French soldiers had landed in Algeria in 1830. The granting of
independence to Algeria marked the virtual end of a French African
empire that once covered nearly 4 million square miles and contained
more than 41 million people.
Meanwhile, Arab nationalism had been as militant in the Middle
East as it had been in North Africa. During the interwar years
the British had given up their hold on Egypt and Iraq, and both
countries had entered the League of Nations. Arab nationalist,
however, were far from appeased, since the British still exercised
controlling authority over these countries. They had reserved
various privileges, including the right to maintain a garrison
along the Suez Canal, to maintain three air bases in Iraq, and
to administer the Sudan together with Egypt. More galling had
been the stiff-necked attitude of the French, who continued to
hold Syria and Lebanon as mandates. Above all, Arab nationalism
had been aroused by large-scale Jewish immigration into the British-held
Palestine mandate during the 1930s.
Because of these unhappy experiences during the interwar years,
most politically conscious Arabs during World War II were either
neutral or openly hostile to the Western powers. Hence the pro-Axis
uprising in Iraq in May 1941 and the extremely reluctant assistance
that King Farouk I of Egypt gave to the British despite his treaty
obligations.
Although the Arab nationalist had been unable to satisfy their
aspirations during World War II, the new postwar balance of power
offered them a unique opportunity, which they promptly exploited.
Britain and France, who had dominated the Middle East before the
war, now emerged drastically weakened. A power vacuum was created,
which the United States and the Soviet Union attempted to fill.
The Arabs skillfully took advantage of the Anglo-French weakness
and the American-Russian rivalry to play off one side against
the other, thus enabling them to win concessions that would have
seemed preposterous only a few years earlier. The Arabs were further
aided by their control over vast Middle East oil reserves, which
appeared particularly indispensable to the fuel-hungry West during
the postwar years.
In October 1944, the Arabs organized a League of Arab states to coordinate their policies and maximize their effectiveness. The Arab League won its first success against the French in Syria and Lebanon. In May 1945, a French expeditionary force landed in Beirut and proceeded to bombard Damascus in an attempt to cow the local nationalists. Such tactics had prevailed in the 1920s, but they did not work now. The Arab League Council promptly met and passed a resolution demanding the evacuation of all French forces. Churchill supported the Arabs, especially since the war was not yet over, and he had no desire to cope with an aroused Arab nationalism in the Middle East. Under British pressure the French withdrew their troops, and in July 1945 they accepted the end of their rule in the Middle East. As a result of the French withdrawal, the Arab states of Lebanon and Syria won their independence.
In Egypt, the aim of the nationalist leaders after the war
was to end or modify the 1936 treaty, which was the legal basis
for Britain's control of the Canal Zone and of the Sudan. The
Egyptians tried various measures, including direct negotiations,
appeals to the UN Security Council, and desultory guerrilla activity.
All proved futile, and the resulting frustration, together with
the general resentment against the disastrous failure in the Palestine
War, culminated in an army revolt in July 1952. General Muhammad
Naguib assumed power and forced King Farouk to abdicate.
Naguib removed one of the sources of friction between Egypt and
Britain when he concluded an agreement with Britain on February
12, 1953, by which the Sudanese were to be given a choice of independence,
union with Egypt, or some other course. The decision was for independence,
and in 1956, the Sudan joined the ranks of free nations. The remaining
Egyptian grievance-the British presence at the Suez-was ended
by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who displaced Naguib as head of the new
Egyptian regime. After prolonged negotiations, Nasser signed an
agreement with Britain on October 19, 1954, by which under certain
stipulated conditions, the British garrison was to be removed
and the British installations transferred to Egypt.
Arab nationalism was successful in Syria and Lebanon, and in
Egypt and the Sudan, but it failed disastrously in Palestine.
The mass extermination of Jews in Hitler-controlled Europe created
strong pressures for opening up Palestine to the desperate survivors.
In August 1945, President Truman proposed that 100,000 Jews be
allowed to enter the mandate. In April 1946, an Anglo-American
investigating committee reported in favor of the president's proposal.
The Arab League responded by warning that it was unalterably opposed
to such an influx, and that it was prepared to use force to stop
it. The United nations then sent a fact-finding commission to
Palestine, and the General Assembly, after receiving the commission's
report, voted on November 29, 1947, in favor of partitioning the
mandate. On May 14 of the following year, the Jews invoked the
partition resolution and proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish
state to be called Israel. On the same day, President Truman extended
recognition to the new state. The following day, the Arabs carried
out their long-standing threat and sent their armies across the
Israeli border.
The course of the war went contrary to expectations. The Arab
armies lacked discipline, unity, and effective leadership. The
Israelis, fighting literally with their backs to the sea, possessed
all three qualities to a high degree. They not only repulsed the
Arab attacks from all sides but also advanced and occupied more
territory than had been awarded to them by the UN Assembly's resolution.
After two abortive truces, the Isaelies finally signed armistice
agreements with the various Arab states between February and July
1949.
A peaceful settlement did not follow the cessation of fighting.
The main reason was that the armistice agreements left Israel
with more territory than had been allotted by the United Nations.
The Arabs demanded that this extra territory be surrendered. Israel
maintained that it was won in a war that the Arabs themselves
started and that the extra land was needed for the Jewish immigrants
pouring in from all parts of the world.
This issue resulted in renewed warfare in 1956, 1967, and 1973.
Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 to stop repeated border raids, and
Britain and France joined in the attack because Nasser had nationalized
the Suez Canal. Both the Untied States and the Soviet Union strongly
opposed the invasion and forced the three aggressors to withdraw.
Quite different was the outcome of the six-day Israeli blitz of
June 5-10, 1967. Claiming that the surrounding Arab states were
planning invasion, the Israeli forced quickly advanced tot he
Suez Canal and the Jordan River and also occupied Jerusalem, the
Gaza Strip, and Sharm el-Sheikh on the Tiran Strait.
The UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, passed a resolution
requiring both withdrawal of the Israeli armed forced from the
overrun territories and Arab acknowledgement of the independence
and integrity of Israel. The resolution remained inoperative because
Israel demanded direct peace negotiations with the Arab states,
whereas the latter demanded Israeli withdrawal before negotiations.
The deadlock persisted for six years, marked by an unending succession
of attacks and counterattacks. On October 6, 1973, the fourth
round in the Arab-Israeli struggle exploded with the Egyptians
attacking across the Suez Canal and the Syrians into the Golan
Heights. In successfully crossing the Suez Canal and occupying
a wide strip in the Sinai along the northern half of the canal,
the Egyptians destroyed the myth of Israeli invincibility, even
thought he Israelis counterattacked and occupied an equally wide
strip of Egyptian territory along the southern half of the canal.
On January 17, 1974, Egypt and Israel agreed that Israeli forces
would withdraw to a north-south line roughly twenty miles east
oft he canal and that a UN buffer force should be installed between
the two armies. On May 31, a similar agreement was signed by Israel
and Syria concerning the Golan Heights.
It was hoped that these agreements would clear the way for
a lasting peace, but his ha not happened. The main reason is that
he Palestinians demanded an independent state on the West Bank,
whereas an increasing number of Israelis referred tot he West
Bank by the old biblical name of Judea and Samaria and viewed
it as an integral part of the land of Israel ceded to the Jews
in the Bible. Egypt's President Anwar Sadat tried to break this
stalemate with his famous peace trip to Jerusalem in November
1977. The outcome was the Camp David accord, or Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty of March 26, 1979, which provided that the two countries
would establish full diplomatic relations, Israel would evacuate
the Sinai within two years, Egypt would end its economic embargo
of Israel and allow Israel shipping through the Suez Canal, and
the two countries would negotiate on the future of Palestine with
the aim of holding elections for local representative councils
within one year.
The treaty lessened the danger of a Mideast war because the Arab
states lost their most powerful member. Ont he other hand, the
basic problem of Palestine remained unresolved. Rather than reaching
some settlement, the Israelis and the Palestinians drifted further
apart.
On the one hand the Israelis were embittered that their cession
of the large Sinai territory did not lead to rapprochement with
the Arab world. Instead Sadat incurred the enmity of Islamic fundamentalists
because of his accord with Israel, and in 1981 he was assassinated.
His successor, Hosni Mubarak, tried to walk the same tightrope
but with little more success. Most Egyptians seemed to be impressed
less by Sadat and Mubarak and more by Abdel Nasser, whom they
remember with pride for his strong stance against Israel and the
West. Rather than rapprochement, the Israelis have had to contend
with repeated assassinations and hijackings, both within their
country and without.
Equally disillusioning for Israelis was their invasion of Lebanon
on June 6, 1982. The announced objective was merely to clear Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) forces from a zone twenty-five miles
north of the border. But as Israel's army kept advancing northward
to Beirut, it appeared that some Israeli leaders had more ambitious,
though undeclared, objectives. these included destruction oft
he PLO as a political as well as a military threat, installation
of a friendly government in Beirut, a peace treaty with that friendly
government that would parallel the 1979 treaty with Egypt.
Rather than attaining those goals the Israeli forces found themselves
mired in the quicksands of Lebanese factionalism and attacked
on all sides by the Shia Moslems, who had welcomed them in June
1982. When the Israelies finally withdrew early in 1985, polls
showed that whereas 70 percent of Israel's population had supported
the invasion when it began, only 20 percent did so at the time
of withdrawal.
The extent of Israeli disillusionment and frustration is reflected
in the growing popular support for Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was
elected to the Israeli Parliament in 1984 on a program calling
for the forcible expulsion of all Arabs from Israel (where they
comprise a 14 percent minority) and from the West Bank territories
(where they comprise a 94 percent majority). The American-born
Kahane at first was dismissed as an "American import"
and as a "racist lunatic." ?But an April 1985 poll of
600 Israeli high school students showed that 42 percent of them
supported Kahane's program.
Likewise, a June 1988 poll showed 49 percent of Israeli adults
believe that "causing the Palestinians to leave" the
occupied territories would best allow Israel to maintain its Jewish
and democratic character. By contrast, only 28-32 percent believe
that relinquishing territory would better meet this goal. These
and other polls indicate that the formerly peripheral Rabbi Kahane
entered into the mainstream of Israeli politics-so much so that
his Kach party (before his recent assassination) became a serious
rival for the traditional Likud and labor parties.
On the other hand, the Palestinians are equally disillusioned
and frustrated by the course of events, so militant elements are
gaining ground among them also. The principal Palestinian grievance
is the continued planting of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The number of settlers has risen from 3,200 in 1977 to 17,400
in 1980 to 51,600 in January 1985, to 70,000 in 1989 (as against
800,000 native Palestinians).
When Gorbachev allowed Jews to emigrate freely from the Soviet
Union, many chose Israel as their destination, especially because
the United States refused to accept Soviet Jews in unlimited numbers.
Consequently 100,000 came to Israel in 1990, and the Israeli government
estimated in December 1989 that a total of 750,000 would arrive
during the next six years. Those Israelis who have favored the
expulsion of Palestinians, now welcome the Soviet influx as a
welcome means for transforming the West Bank from a predominantly
Palestinian land to a predominantly Jewish land.
Faced with the bleak prospect, Palestinian resistance assumed
a third new form. The first, until 1948, depended on the outside
Arab states to repulse the Israelis. The second phase depended
on the PLO, whose forces also were outside Israel. With the failure
of both the Arab states and the PLO, younger Palestinians now
believe that delivery will come not from the outside but only
from direct action by themselves.
This direct action is taking two forms. One is the intifada
or uprising of stone-throwing youth who have lost their fear of
Israeli soldiers and are making life miserable for them by constant
pinprick harassing. The other resistance action is by assorted
fundamentalist Islamic organizations such as the Islamic Resistance
Movement, the Islamic Holy War, and the Party of God. These organizations
are more militant than the PLO because they reject on religious
grounds the PLO willingness to recognize and accept the existence
of the state of Israel. "The land of Palestine is an Islamic
trust left to the generations of Moslems until the day of resurrection.
It is forbidden for anyone to yield or concede part or all of
it. The solution to the Palestinian problem will only take place
by holy war."
On the other side, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was giving
similar religious reasons to support his stand that Israel never
will give up one square inch of the West Bank lands. "We
will not withdraw from these territories which we believe belong
to us. We believe that all this country that is called Palestine-this
country belongs to us, the Jewish people." With the Islamic
fundamentalists becoming stronger in the Moslem camp, and the
Likud fundamentalists becoming stronger in Israel, the spiral
of violence and counter-violence continues unchecked in the Middle
East - until recently, when peace finally seems to have broken
out.