Arab–Israeli conflict — impact and peace efforts (History (2028+) HL)

By the 1970s, the Arab–Israeli conflict had been running for decades — through 1948, Suez, 1967 and 1973. Wars end, but their effects don't just switch off. This section looks at how the conflict reshaped politics, economies and everyday lives across Israel, the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world.

Think in four layers: Political, economic, social and human. A good Paper 3 answer on impact always separates these out, rather than blurring them into one vague paragraph about 'suffering'.

For Israel, land taken in the 1967 War — the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai — became a long-term political headache. Should it be kept for security? Returned for peace? Settled by Israeli civilians? Every Israeli government since 1967 has had to answer that question, and the answers have divided Israeli society ever since.

For the Palestinians, the political cost was even sharper: no state, a population split between the West Bank, Gaza, Israel itself and refugee camps abroad, and leadership increasingly split after 1967 between the secular PLO PLO and, from the late 1980s, the Islamist Hamas.

Don't write 'both sides suffered' and stop: Examiners want specifics. Name the impact (loss of land, refugee status, military spending, international isolation), say who it affected, and say how it shaped what happened next.

Wars move people. The Arab–Israeli conflict produced one of the largest and longest-running refugee situations in the modern world, and it changed the lives of women and minority groups in ways that are easy to miss if you only focus on treaties and troop movements.

Migration and refugees

Around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the 1948 war — a displacement Palestinians call the Nakba Nakba. Many ended up in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, some of which are still there today, now home to grandchildren of the original refugees.

At the same time, roughly 850,000 Jews left or were forced out of Arab and Muslim-majority countries between the late 1940s and the 1970s, most settling in the new state of Israel. This wave of Jewish migration is far less discussed in most accounts, but it is a real and significant part of the region's demographic story.

Experiences of women

Women experienced the conflict differently from men, even though this is rarely the headline story. Palestinian women in refugee camps often became the main breadwinners and household heads while men were fighting, imprisoned, or working abroad.

Women were also active participants, not just victims. They organised welfare networks in refugee camps, took part in protests during the Intifadas (uprisings) of 1987 and 2000, and some joined militant groups. In Israel, women served in the military from the state's founding, though mostly in support roles rather than combat until much later reforms.

Women in the First Intifada (1987–1993): Palestinian women's committees organised strikes, boycotts of Israeli goods, and community food networks that helped sustain the uprising — a visible break from purely domestic roles, even though formal political leadership stayed mostly male.

Marginalized groups

Palestinian Christians, a minority within the Palestinian population, were also displaced and lost influence as the conflict dragged on, with many emigrating abroad. Bedouin communities in the Negev and Sinai were repeatedly disrupted as borders and military zones shifted around them.

Israeli Arabs — Palestinians who remained inside Israel's 1948 borders and became Israeli citizens — occupied an uneasy middle position: full legal citizens, but often facing discrimination and viewed with suspicion by a state built around Jewish national identity.

If war reshaped the region, so did the search for peace. Four major efforts stand out on the syllabus, and each one tells you something different about why full peace has proved so hard to reach.

Why Egypt–Israel (1979) worked where others struggled: It solved one clear, land-for-recognition problem between two states — not the far harder, multi-sided question of Palestinian statehood, Jerusalem and refugees. Sadat also paid a price: Egypt was expelled from the Arab League for years, and Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamist militants opposed to the treaty.

The Camp David Summit in 2000 is often treated as the moment the peace process broke. Accounts differ sharply on why it failed — and that disagreement is itself something you can use in an essay.

A genuine historical debate: Some blame Arafat for rejecting a genuine Israeli offer and walking away without a counter-proposal. Others argue Barak's offer still fell short on Jerusalem and refugees, and that the summit was rushed and poorly prepared. Both explanations appear in serious accounts — a strong essay can weigh them rather than pick one as simply 'true'.

The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 flipped the usual approach: instead of Israel negotiating with Palestinians alone, the entire Arab League offered full peace and normal relations in one go, if Israel would withdraw to 1967 borders. It has been renewed several times since, but Israel has never formally accepted it — a sign of how far apart 'land for peace' and 'security first' positions remained.