Examine the Israel-Arab conflict as a conflict of interest between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union. (2000)
The Arab–Israeli conflict began as a local clash of two nationalisms, Zionism and Arab (later Palestinian) nationalism, over one territory. From the mid-1950s the superpowers overlaid it with their rivalry, so that each war became a proxy test of American and Soviet influence. The claim that it was a superpower conflict of interest is true of its middle phase, but it mistakes the overlay for the root.
The case for reading it as a superpower contest
- Shifting patrons: in 1948 both superpowers recognised Israel, and Soviet-approved Czechoslovak arms helped it survive. The pattern changed after the Czech–Egyptian arms deal of 1955 and Suez (1956), when Moscow backed Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and later Syria and Iraq. Washington, through the Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) and a partnership that became strategic after 1967, backed Israel.
- Competing interests: the US sought oil security, containment and an ally’s survival; the USSR sought Arab clients, Mediterranean access and a foothold on NATO’s southern flank.
- Wars as proxy tests: a false Soviet warning in May 1967 of Israeli troops massing against Syria helped trigger the Six-Day War; Soviet air-defence crews served in Egypt during the 1969–70 War of Attrition; and in the Yom Kippur War (1973) both superpowers resupplied their clients by airlift. A Soviet threat to intervene unilaterally drew a worldwide American nuclear alert (DEFCON III), the most dangerous moment since Cuba.
- A revisionist synthesis: Rashid Khalidi (Sowing Crisis, 2009) argues that superpower rivalry acted as a catalyst, prolonging the region’s wars and hollowing out its fragile democracies.
- Diplomacy as competition: after 1973 Henry Kissinger’s step-by-step diplomacy drew Egypt out of the Soviet orbit, completing a shift begun when Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet advisers in 1972. The Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egypt–Israel treaty (1979) excluded Moscow, a decisive American gain.
Limits of the superpower reading
- Local roots: dispossession of Palestinians in 1948, occupation after 1967, refugees and Jerusalem existed independently of the Cold War and outlived it.
- Clients steered patrons: in Kenneth N. Waltz’s terms the system was bipolar, but regional actors exploited it. Nasser played both sides, Sadat switched sides, and Israel acted against American wishes, as at Suez.
- The superpowers also restrained: both feared escalation. Resolution 242 (1967) and Resolution 338 (1973) were jointly supported, and the two co-chaired the 1973 Geneva Conference. This was competitive crisis management, not pure rivalry.
- Intra-Arab rivalries: Malcolm H. Kerr’s The Arab Cold War (1965) showed that Nasserist–monarchist divisions shaped regional politics as much as Moscow and Washington did.
- Domestic drivers: John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argue that American domestic politics sustained support for Israel beyond strategic logic.
The test of 1991 and after
If the conflict were only a superpower contest, it should have ended with the Cold War. Instead the jointly sponsored Madrid Conference (1991) and the Oslo Accords (1993) produced a process that later stalled. The war in Gaza from October 2023, the ceasefire of 10 October 2025 and the US-chaired Board of Peace for Gaza in 2026 show it continuing under American primacy, with Russia marginal. India’s path, from Jawaharlal Nehru’s Suez-era solidarity with Nasser to normalisation with Israel in January 1992, tracked the same logic.
Conclusion
The Arab–Israeli conflict was a superpower conflict of interest between 1955 and 1991, which explains its arms races, its escalations and its diplomacy. But the Cold War internationalised a local dispute rather than creating it. Its survival after bipolarity shows that the core is territorial and national.