Jan 20, 2025
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Can you explain the 1973 war and its relation to the oild crisis? I don't think you have a post about it
I love getting asks that really call for a book...and then trying to answer them meaningfully in less than 1,000 words. It's ridiculous and fun, even when nuance is sacrificed on the altar of brevity.
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We'll get to 1973 after a little context because you can't understand Sadat without understanding Nasser and you can't understand 1973 without undertanding 1967.
Before 1967, Egypt occupied Gaza, Jordan occupied the West Bank, and the whole Arab world was still pissed off that the military power of five Arab nations had failed to wipe out a tiny nation of dhimmi, Jews who were mostly refugees, in 1948-1949:
In May of 1967, Egypt's President Nasser moved 100,000 troops and nearly 1,000 tanks to Israel's southern border, expelled the UN peacekeeping force that had kept the peace since 1956, and blockaded the Straits of Tiran — Israel's only southern trade route and oil lifeline.
Nasser did all this while publicly declaring, in his own words:
"our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."
Syria and Jordan signed military pacts and massed their own forces on Israel's other borders. Cairo Radio says on May 16, 1967:
"the sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."
The blockade of the Straits was itself an act of war under international law, the threats were made, the intent was clear, and troops were amassed on Israel's borders - so Israel struck Egypt's air force on June 5, 1967.
The result was swift and stunning. In six days, Israel captured the entire Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria - it now controlled quadruple the territory.
Here's how things looked after the Six Day War:
That humiliation set the stage for everything that followed in 1973.
What happened between 1967 and 1973?
If defeat had chastened the Arab world, it didn't show. Three months after the war, Arab League leaders met in Khartoum and issued what became known as the Three No's of Khartoum:
No peace with Israel
No recognition of Israel
No negotiations with Israel.
The door to diplomacy was slammed shut - and not by Israel.
Meanwhile the Cold War was reshaping the region.
Egypt and Syria were Soviet clients, armed with Soviet weapons and advised by Soviet generals.
The US, watching Israel's stunning 1967 performance, had come to see Israel as an essential strategic partner in the Middle East. Israel was, after all, democratic, militarily formidable, and reliably anti-Soviet.
Washington's backing of Israel deepened steadily through the late 1960s not out of ancient loyalty, but cold war calculation.**
Three years after Israel's shocking 1967 victory, the Arab world was still living inthe shadow of this defeat. The loss had been swift, total, and humiliating - Egyptians wanted the Sinai (and their pride) back.
This was the context in which Anwar Sadat became Egypt's president in 1970.
Sadat knew, though, that he had no realistic path to getting the Sinai back.
Militarily, Egypt couldn't match Israel. Diplomatically, the Three No's had slammed shut every possible door.
Sadat, though, thought Israel's sense of regional invincibility was actually the obstacle to peace. He reasoned that as long as Israel believed it could hold the Sinai forever at no cost, it would never negotiate. The only way to get to the negotiating table, he thought, was to make holding the Sinai feel expensive.
So Sadat planned a war with a limited objective. He didn't need to destroy Israel and he didn't need to retake the Sinai by force - he needed to bloody Israel badly enough in the opening days of conflict to make it hurt.
Sadat figured he didn't need to win. He needed to not lose so badly that Egypt could be ignored.
Sadat found a willing partner in Syria's Hafez al-Assad, who similarly wanted the Golan Heights back. They planned - this time in secrecy.
They attacked on October 6, 1973 - Yom Kippur.
They figured that on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Israeli soldiers would be fasting and communications would be minimal.
(It also fell during Ramadan, giving the attack a sacred dimension for Arab soldiers.)
At 2pm, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched simultaneous assaults across the Suez Canal and into the Golan Heights. The scale was overwhelming: Egypt crossed with 100,000 troops and 1,600 tanks.
The early days of the Yom Kippur War were the worst Israel had experienced since its founding.
Egyptian forces punched through Israeli defenses in the Sinai. Syrian tanks nearly broke through to the Israeli heartland in the north. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the same legendary one-eyed general who had seemed unshakeable in 1967, reportedly told Prime Minister Golda Meir that Israel faced "the destruction of the Third Temple."
Washington watched the early days of the war with alarm and began a massive airlift of military supplies to Israel.
This came with an immediate price. On October 17, with the war still raging, Arab oil-producing states announced an embargo against any nation supporting Israel, targeting the US and its allies. The message was unambiguous: back Israel and your economy suffers.
Oil prices nearly quadrupled almost overnight. Gas station lines stretched for miles across the US. Rationing was imposed. Speed limits were lowered. Daylight saving time was extended to save energy.
For the first time in the post-war era, ordinary Americans felt the Middle East in their daily lives not as a foreign policy abstraction, but at the pump.
That embargo lasted only until March 1974 and the actual reduction in US oil supply was around 7%. But the psychological impact was permanent. The West had discovered its oil-based vulnerability.
(@short-wooloo may well have asked this question with the Strait of Hormuz in mind, hm?)
Resupplied by the US and regrouped by leadership, Israel's counterattack pushed Syria back beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines and, in one of the war's most dramatic turns, an Israeli armored force under Ariel Sharon crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt itself, encircling an entire Egyptian army.
A UN ceasefire took hold on October 25.
Israel had survived, but the world had changed.
What Changed?
OPEC became a geopolitical force. Before 1973, global oil prices were largely controlled by Western oil companies. After 1973, that power shifted decisively to oil-producing states. The era of cheap, reliable Middle Eastern energy as a Western entitlement was over.*
The US got serious about the Arab-Israeli conflict as a direct national interest. Before the embargo, US support for Israel was real...but sorta' abstract. After sitting in gas lines, Americans understood that what happened between Israel and its neighbors had consequences at home. This drove Henry Kissinger's intensive diplomacy and ultimately contributed to the 1978 Camp David Accords, in which Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel's right to exist and got the Sinai back. That deal was unthinkable before 1973.
The war (paradoxically) made peace possible. Sadat's gamble worked, but not quite how he planned. Egypt didn't win militarily, but it fought well enough to restore Arab dignity. That restored dignity gave Sadat the political standing at home to do what no Arab leader had done: fly to Jerusalem, address the Israeli Knesset, and make peace. He was assassinated for it in 1981 by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but the Egypt-Israel peace treaty he signed in 1979 has held for over four decades.
The 1973 war established a template that still governs Middle Eastern geopolitics.
What about the people of Gaza or The West Bank?
Egypt and Syria didn't go to war in 1973 for the Palestinians. Sadat wanted the Sinai. Assad wanted the Golan Heights. The Palestinians were not at the table, not in the planning, not in the goals, and not in the outcome.
Egypt got its land back and made a separate peace. Syria got bupkis and went home. The people living in the West Bank and Gaza were, to both Egypt and Syria, irrelevant.
This matters because the story we often hear (that the Arab world's conflict with Israel is fundamentally about Palestinian liberation) doesn't survive contact with any knowledge of 1973. The leaders who came closest to destroying Israel were fighting for their own territory, their own dignity, and their own place in the Cold War chessboard. The Palestinian question wasn't sidelined by accident. It was never the point to begin with.
Palestinians noticed this, too.
Lessons learned:
Gulf states (including Iran) learned that oil is a weapon.
The West learned that energy dependence is a strategic liability.
Israel learned that military dominance doesn't guarantee security.
The Palestinians stopped waiting for Arab armies to save them. At the 1974 Arab League summit, every Arab state unanimously recognized the PLO - a Palestinian organization committed to fighting its own war - as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people...but within five years, Egypt had its land back and the Palestinians had been excluded from the negotiations that delivered it.
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*Note how some freaked out when the UAE left OPEC in late April 2026...?
**This partnership wasn't a blank check When the 1973 attack actually commenced, the US didn't rush in to help immediately. For several critical, bloody days, Washington hesitated. Henry Kissinger (the ultimate practitioner of Realpolitik) reportedly wanted Israel to be "bloodied" just enough to humble their sense of invincibility, believing a bruised Israel would be more flexible at the negotiating table later. It was only when the Soviet Union began its own massive resupply of Egypt and Syria that Nixon famously ordered the "everything that flies" airlift (Operation Nickel Grass) to prevent a total Israeli collapse. It was a move made not out of a warm heart, but to ensure the Soviets didn't claim a total victory on the Cold War scoreboard.
Declaration, also signed by EU and over a dozen countries, urges terror group to give up Gaza rule, free hostages; calls on Israel to end wa
Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, signed a declaration Tuesday condemning for the first time Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and calling on the Palestinian terror group to release all the hostages it is holding, disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Strip.
Seventeen countries, plus the 22-member Arab League and the entire European Union, threw their weight behind a seven-page text — obtained by The Times of Israel — agreed at a United Nations conference on reviving the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
The “New York Declaration” sets out a phased plan to end the nearly eight-decade conflict and the ongoing war in Gaza. The plan would culminate with an independent, demilitarized Palestine living side by side peacefully with Israel, and their eventual integration into the wider Middle East region.
If you read the entire article, it's obvious the the "New York Declaration" is complete b*llsh*t. GAJ
A Quick Rundown of News on Gaza
All right, fair warning: this is a summary of current events, with sources, but it's also rife with my personal opinions. Especially about Trump.
I saw that there was a big U.S. protest against Trump's desire to act like he owns Gaza, kick everyone out, and build casinos or whatever.
I almost never say this about protests - in fact, I'm not sure I HAVE ever said it - but that is a big waste of time.
Trump has zero claim to Gaza. He has zero power to do any of that.
That energy could be going into so many urgent protests about things he's doing right here in the States.
If anyone supported his "plan," maybe he'd have a shot. But literally every single country and group involved is against Trump's fantasy Gaza real estate takeover.
Israel is against it. Palestine is against it. Hamas is against it. Egypt is against it. Jordan is against it. The entire Arab League is against it. The people of Gaza are against it. The people of Israel are against it. The rest of the people of Palestine are against it.
In reaction to Trump's wild claims, the Arab League had an emergency summit over the weekend, at which it agreed on an Egyptian plan that... leaves Hamas in charge of Gaza.
Which, yet again, everyone's against. Especially the people of Gaza, whose opinion of Hamas is eloquently expressed here by activist Hamza Howidy:
The sad truth is, when Israelis aren't involved, no one is interested in advocating for the Palestinian rights they claim to care about so d
But the "everyone" in "everyone's against this" still includes the Arab League.
Because, among other things, the Arab League knows perfectly well that leaving Hamas in charge guarantees that it will continue keeping Palestine functionally divided into two countries, unable to negotiate a two-state solution.
Hamas has explicitly and openly opposed a two-state solution since it was founded in 1987. (And I don't think it's a coincidence that this was happening at almost the exact same time that Palestine was declared independence.) Hamas's mission has always been the violent destruction and takeover of Israel.
The Arab League knows that if Hamas stays in power, it will fulfill its public promise to repeat October 7 "again and again" in an attempt to destroy Israel. Which will result in more wars, more aid, more suffering, more refugees, and more chaos.
So why did the Arab League agree to this plan?
Analyst Dahlia Ziada explains: the emergency summit wasn't focused on Gaza in the first place. It was a panicked response to Trump's "bombshell statement."
(I hate when Twitter link previews refuse to work. Here's the link, so you can watch her video and follow her.)
She says they weren't trying to solve the problem in Gaza.
They were trying to preserve the status quo, in order to stop Trump from getting involved.
The status quo is bad, sure.
But the status quo is also primarily Israel's problem.
If Trump DID ethnically cleanse Gaza, it would mean that not only would other countries have to absorb millions of Gazan civilians, but they would also be absorbing unknown hundreds or thousands of members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, etc.
Those groups have all worked as a coalition for years. And Hamas is the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is based in Egypt, and already took over Egypt's government once.
Egypt has been trying to prevent feeding more resources into the Muslim Brotherhood for years.
That's why, ever since Hamas's violent 2007 coup in the Gaza Strip, Egypt's border with Gaza has been completely closed most of the time. Total blockade.
Occasionally, it's opened up to let specific people through, or (like now) to let people cross once they've been screened for security risk and paid a massive $5k-$12k fee which is absolutely war profiteering.
The absolutely bizarre bit isn't that the Arab League would go, "okay, sure, if you think you can contain the threat in Gaza, we'll back you up by telling Trump we have this covered."
Or that the Trump Administration would go, "well, that's not a plan."
It's that the Trump Administration has been talking directly with Hamas.
I can't even imagine what the idea there is.
My fantasy would be the U.S. lightly, between the lines, threatening Hamas about what the U.S. could do if it doesn't release the rest of the hostages and surrender.
Because that's what the activists in Gaza have been demanding in protest after protest, throughout the war. And the pro-Palestinian movement has utterly silenced this in favor of stanning Hamas.
The current situation is that the first ceasefire phase is over. The second phase was supposed to involve Hamas releasing dozens more hostages, in exchange for Israel pulling out all troops and the war ending.
To give the current administration some credit... which it physically pains me to do....
Israeli officials said Sunday they support a proposal to extend the first phase through Passover and Ramadan — near the end of April — crediting the idea to Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
If that plan gets the green light, Hamas would release half the hostages on the first day and the remaining when a permanent ceasefire agreement is reached.
Trump's envoy talking directly to terror group in Qatar, despite US's designation of Hamas as terror group; US consulted Israel on idea, but
Israel’s Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis welcomed the report, telling Fox News, "President Trump actually changed the whole idea. Instead of putting Israel under pressure, President Trump is putting Hamas under pressure, and this is the right thing to do."
I'm so fucking mad that they're doing something right.
Update: While I was writing this, Dalia Ziada was apparently tweeting some more:
Trump truly communicates with all the tact and grace of a rabid bull.
Declaration, also signed by EU and over a dozen countries, urges terror group to give up Gaza rule, free hostages; calls on Israel to end wa
Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, signed a declaration Tuesday condemning for the first time Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and calling on the Palestinian terror group to release all the hostages it is holding, disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Strip.
Seventeen countries, plus the 22-member Arab League and the entire European Union, threw their weight behind a seven-page text — obtained by The Times of Israel — agreed at a United Nations conference on reviving the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
The “New York Declaration” sets out a phased plan to end the nearly eight-decade conflict and the ongoing war in Gaza. The plan would culminate with an independent, demilitarized Palestine living side by side peacefully with Israel, and their eventual integration into the wider Middle East region.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu (Ben Gvir probably too) is opposed to this (not a big surprise though) but can anyone pressure him/ them and the rest of the Israeli government into accepting it? Please and thank you! 🙏
Image created by @notaplaceofhonour
Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt has held talks with the UN refugee agency on supporting Sudanese...
"Why is it that when Arabs kill millions of Arabs, no one bats an eye? Where is the outrage? Where are the protests? High Commissioner, may