Which is what has exactly happened in 3 wars (1948, 1956 and 1967, in 1973 the Arabs took the initiative..) between Usrael and the Arabs.. So there is no evidence supporting the claims that the Arabs were defeated.. to the contrary, they gathered back their forces and defeated Usrael in 1973..
@Saif al-Arab ,
@Gomig-21
Absolutely. October/Yom Kippur war was unequivocally a sound victory for Egypt. Despite the limited objective, the logistic difficulties of crossing the Suez Canal, ingeniously penetrating the "impenetrable" Bar Lev line and securing all the Israeli command posts along the entire canal and up to 20 kilometers in all the way until the end of the war, then watching the Israelis withdraw back (not only to the other side of their erected Bar Lev line, but 1/3 of the way into Sinai to the passes while the Egyptian army maintained its gained territory is such an obvious military & strategic victory for Egypt. Unfortunately haters will be haters, what can you do.
War of independence, Sinai war, war of attrition, six day war etc all Israeli victories against multiple Arab foes.
Do you think they could have pulled this off against another group of nations? replace Arab states Egypt, Syria, Iraq & Saudi with Turkey, Iran, Pakistan or Malaysia.
Or was it the sheer incompetence of Arab armies and politicians that they lost every war against Israel
Before even suggesting replacing Egypt and the other Arab states with your examples, I would strongly suggest that you learn a lot more about each of those wars, and not only from sources like Wikepedia, but more importantly to read the views from both sides of the conflict as well as nuetral observers. To assume and tote the standard, biased and (in many instances, at least it's quite prevalent here on PDF) from 'haters' and not so informed individuals doesn't lend any credibility to the question. I can look at the way you worded the question and instantly deduce your bias, and more importantly, for the sake of a mature discussion, the lack of detailed and objective knowledge about this entire conflict. I don't mean that as an offense, it's just exactly what I see immediately. I usually stay away from these hate-filled and nonobjective threads, but since I was tagged by
@The SC , I'll offer my view and take my chances.
First, 1948, great resistance and repelling for the newly placed Jews in Israel. They were determined and rallied as a strong resistance and prevailed. The goal of the Arabs was not necessarily the destruction of the Jews as much as it was an objection to the creation of the state of Israel at the expense of the Arabs. It's important to understand that since the Israelis manipulate the "existential threat" line quite well to their advantage. It wasn't the people that the Arabs wanted to fight, it was the concept of taking away control of that land from the Arabs.
1956, you do realize that had to do with Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalizing the Suez Canal to become independent of British control and to be an all-Egyptian asset, since it's on Egyptian land and should belong to Egypt, yes? So who attacked Egypt then? The British, the French at Port Said and along the canal and as Egypt was preoccupied with that onslaught against those two big powers, the Israelis snuck in and invaded Sinai. Don't forget this fact (because it will come up later) that the border between Israel's Negev and Egypt (Sinai) is desert and some mountains, but access is very flat in the critical areas. From Egypt proper to it's Sinai peninsula, the separation is the Suez Canal. Logistically, the latter is VERY difficult to maneuver since there are no bridges while the former is a wide open land border.
So let's replace Egypt in 1956 with your examples of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia, do you think either one of those would've fared better against the British, the French and a sneak invasion from Israel into a peninsula that has tough access to defend it? I highly doubt it. And what was the result? A shameful retreat by all 3 of those entities because their motives (specifically Israel) were akin to those of Hitler's Nazi Germany. They wanted control of more land for expansion under the pretext of not allowing Egypt to nationalize it's own Canal. By then, anything resembling the actions of Hitler was an abomination to the international community and how ironic that Israel would behave like Nazi Germany? Is that an admirable thing to you or the others that constantly bash Egypt and the Arabs? So please think about all of these aspects and consider the position Egypt was in before judging it.
In the end, as I mentioned, all 3 retreated in shame and Egypt's goal of nationalizing the Suez Canal came to fruition. So who really won in the end?
1967 - a complete failure by Egypt (and Syria & Jordan). There's no doubt about that and I'll be happy to get into details if you like. Bottom line, the Egyptian army was unprepared, didn't take standard defensive protocols seriously and command was delegated to very unqualified personnel. No other way to explain that. Nasser mined and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and sent a few tanks to the Egyptian/Israeli border and never considered the consequences of those actions. There were other things he did not worth mentioning since the bottom line is it was an epic failure for Egypt (and the other two) on many levels.
The War of Attrition, there was a lot going on during those 3 years -- with Israel conducting thousands of sorties into Egypt and Egypt even attacking northern points in the Sinai (El Areesh) etc. But, the bottom line is that all of that was a spectacular diversion to the real war that was about to come. While the Israelis were enjoying air superiority for the most part, Egypt was fighting as much as it could while setting up its air defense network and preparing for the next war, and they did it right under the noses of the Israelis during and after the fighting. Egypt was pounding the Israeli posts on the eastern side of the canal and intercepting and dog-fighting Israeli Jets all over the gulf of Suez. All this action was exactly what the war was meant to achieve - fight in an attrition-like manner to fool the Israelis into thinking that the Egyptians would never be able to fight back. At the same time, raise the morale of the Egyptian army and people after the horrible defeat of 1967. While all this was being done, Egypt replenished its air force (to a certain extent) and more importantly, tricked Israel into thinking it wasn't capable of fighting back enough to recoup its lands and all it can do was fight this war of attrition. Under all that, it brilliantly set up it's SAM defenses to impede Israel's air superiority and stop their unabated flying into Egypt, which it succeeded.
The goal of the war of attrition for Israel had 2 goals:
1) To bomb as much and as far as possible to break the will of the Egyptian people and the military to not be able to fight for a long time, maybe even permanently since Israel's goal was not strictly defensive protection against a phantom existential threat, it was to keep the great Egyptian land of Sinai and be able to annex it as Israeli territory. There is no doubt about that. They invaded it twice and lost it twice. That clearly explains its true motives right there.
2) To prevent any strengthening of the Egyptian military along the west bank of the canal, and specifically the SAM concentrations of the Egyptian army.
The goal of the war of attrition for Egypt:
1) To keep the will to fight and strengthen the military's capability to fight back another day. Create some victories (even if they are small) but mainly not to sit idle after the defeat of 1967. For the morale of the military which would then shift to the people, it needed to keep fighting as much as it could.
2) To constantly raid Israeli installations, bait their air force and distract them and while continuing to strengthen the SAM network along the canal and north of Egypt to limit Israel's freedom of the air. It achieved BOTH.
After the cease fire and through it, Egypt had moved 600 SAM-2 and SAM-3 missiles systems along a 125 kilometer stretch of the canal. Israel lost its freedom to fly in and out of Egypt and was restricted to much further into the Sinai and the over the Gulf of Suez. Not to mention all the artillery and guns and units Egypt moved to the canal bank. It replenished its aircraft that were lost in 1967 and trained its military to be much better fighters.
In the meantime, Israel 2 goals were not achieved in the slightest. There are many other details that would take me hours to type for you but I'll spare us because this is enough to show you that when you look at the details and not just listen to the uneducated hatred and noise from outside, you will realize this was a terrific victory for Egypt. The goals were achieved despite the military disadvantages. That's the true strength of a country's power, to fight when the odds are very low and to achieve the goals and that's what Egypt did.
Would your other examples have fared the same? You would have to put them in the same exact position and at the time, after a major defeat like '67 and then make educated guesses as to how they would've done. What were their military strengths between 1948 through 1967? These are not the militaries of today.
What Egypt did and achieved in the War of Attrition destroys the biased, idiotic and hatred-filled notion of Arab armies being incompetent. It gets even better in 1973. But haters are gonna hate and especially ignore the big picture.
1973. October War, Ramadan War, Yom Kippur war. I've discussed this war for over 25 years and never get tired of it, except when exchanges are insulting and ignorant. Also, this war can take up 300 pages of a thread, but to summarize it.
- Egyptian intelligence, deception and especially military planning in all phases from mining and blocking the Red Sea at Bad El Mandab to Israeli oil shipping coming from
Iran, to preparing for one of the most difficult logistical military operations of modern time in not only crossing the Suez Canal, but penetrating the Bar Lev line (I hope you know what that was?)
...and defeating all the Israeli posts and bunkers on that side (except for 1 at the furthest point in Port Said) and lay down floating bridges and move 5 armored and infantry divisions to the other side and take control of the entire stretch of the canal.
Hold that position (despite critical mistakes made by Sadat) all the way through the war.
Even when the US provided Israel with SR-71 intel pics of the battlefield to give them the small, narrow corridor between the 2nd and 3rd armies, and Sadat's horrible decision to relieve Egypt greatest general in Shazly and allowing the Israelis to get behind the 3rd army, Egypt never retreated or gave up a single inch, held on to all the territory it gained, used the allied influence it had in Saudi Arabia to place the oil embargo on the US and use it to its advantage (critical part of the strategy that often gets ignore because it considerably helped Egypt), and the final result of the war was a MAJOR withdrawal of Israeli forces well beyond the territory Egypt has defeated them in. How can that not be a clear, sound and unequivocal military and strategical victory for Egypt? It's dumbfounding how people don't realize that. Actually it isn't, at least is is clear WHY people choose to ignore this.
Prior to the war:
After the war:
It doesn't get any more obvious as to who won this war. Egyptian troops maintain their territory, Israel loses what it had and forced to retreat way beyond what it had prior to October 6th, 1973. A compete Egyptian victory.
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