Editing Palestine (section)

=====1973 "Yom Kippur" War=====
When in South Africa the Bantustan territory was founded in 1970 to nominally solve racial and demographic issues, giving black South Africans enclaves of their own, it was a disastrous failure. However, future decades of Israeli leadership saw this as another model for how to carve up and control Palestinian territory, by breaking it into separate, easily surrounded and controlled regions. This has been referred to as the "Bantustan option" for "dealing with" the "Palestinian problem", as Israel and its defenders put it. First put forth during this time, this "option" is one tactic used by Israel and its allies over many years to curb peace talks and assert their right to the domination of the occupied territories. As we have already stated, the Bantustan option has been used since 1970 across the West Bank, destroying highways and setting IDF checkpoints between the enclaves. 
[[File:Palexpand.jpeg|thumb|Depiction of "Bantustanization" of Palestine over the years]]
At the end of the Egyptian war of attrition, the Israeli-Egyptian border did not move. Nasser died of a heart attack in September 1970, putting an effective end to the war as it was. Anwar Sadat took over as president. Israel continued occupying the Sinai while Egypt continued military exercises and operations, planning to retake the Sinai. Sadat offered Israel a peace deal in exchange for their withdrawal from the desert, but Israel's fourth Prime Minister Golda Meir rejected it. Sadat then turned to Assad, whose mission it was to liberate Golan Heights from Israeli occupation, as an ally.

In coordination with Syria, Egypt deceived Israeli forces of their intentions of invading and reclaiming Golan Heights and the Sinai, respectively. They chose Yom Kippur not for its religious significance, but for the fact that Israeli television and radio broadcasts don't air, nor do shops open or transportation run on the holiday. Thus Israel was unable to issue a 48-hour alert unlike in June 1967, which led to early successes for Egypt and Syria.

Sadat commenced Operation Badr on October 6th of 1973, crossing troops and armored vehicles over the Suez canal into Israeli-occupied territory. They captured the Bar Lev Line, a giant fortified sand wall on the banks of the canal. Syria, in the north, quickly crossed the 1967 ceasefire line and within two hours captured Mount Hermon. However, within 24 hours two Israeli armored divisions pushed back the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and pushed deep into Syrian territory themselves. Iraqi, Saudi, and Jordanian units moved in to help defend Syria against the counterattack, but Israel still managed to burrow towards Damascus. 

The Soviet Union supported the Arab states with funding and weapons, while the US supported Israel with the same. When their stockpiles ran low, each superpower would ship the necessary armaments and artillery to their respective beneficiaries. This conflict was one of the tensest proxy wars of the Cold War for that reason.

By October 16th, Ariel Sharon's forces penetrated Egyptian and Syrian defenses, and moved swiftly towards Cairo. Having nearly mobilized Israeli forces almost to both capital cities, the fighting came to a standstill. The next day, the Arab oil-producing countries under the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced production by five percent. They pledged to “maintain the same rate of reduction each month thereafter until the Israeli forces are fully withdrawn from all Arab territories occupied during the June 1967 War, and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people are restored”. They imposed an oil embargo on the US and its allies, which led to sky-high oil prices across the world and a US reassessment of support for the war. The embargo lasted from October 1973 to March 1974 and targeted Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Rhodesia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Finally, in the final week of October, both sides were ready to sign a ceasefire. Estimates of Israeli casualties at 2,600, of Egyptians at 7,700, and Syrians 3,500.

The 1973 hostilities were followed by Security Council Resolution 338, which called for peace negotiations between the parties concerned among other things. In 1974 the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and to return. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and conferred on the PLO the status of observer in the Assembly and in UN conferences.

Israelis were utterly traumatized by the war. Golda Meir resigned as Israeli PM the following year and her Labor party fell into decline. Yitzhak Rabin took over as Prime Minister. Henry Kissinger helped negotiate the peace settlements and prisoner exchanges, broking the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal and helping negotiate between Tel Aviv and Damascus. Partial territorial concessions were made, but Israel retained a portion of the lands it took in 1967. Meanwhile, Sadat cozied up to Israel and began a process of détente. 

After only four years, Sadat went to Jerusalem to give the Knesset a speech on peace with Egypt. In September 1978, President Jimmy Carter brokered the Camp David Accords between Sadat and Menachim Begin, which ended with Egypt as a cautious (better yet, precarious) ally of Israel. Sadat took some early cues from the waning Soviet Union in "opening up" Egypt to Western influence. This was the origin of Egypt's treating Israel with kid gloves, greatly influenced by Egyptian military losses in 1956 and 1967. The treaty was signed in March 1979 but never was enacted, with both sides blaming each other. However, the IDF did withdrawal from the Sinai, and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty served as the basis for the later Abraham accords. Golan Heights was formally annexed by Israel in 1981, though it is still considered to be occupied by Syrians and Palestinians alike. 

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 inspired many across the Arab world, especially Shias, and renewed a sense of civilizational unity. However, there also came intensification of certain contradictions in the Arab world which arose from this. Iran was asserting itself as the superpower of the Middle East, and has since emerged as the main pole of the region in the transition to a multipolar world.

Out of the Muslim Brotherhood came a splinter group: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which grew as a faction in the MB until it split in October 1981, following the Iranian Revolution. It was founded by Fathi Abd al-Aziz al-Shikaki, a physician from Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Its armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, was founded in 1992. Three years later, al-Shikaki was assassinated by the IDF in retaliation for a double suicide bombing. PIJ's fundamental program is the destruction and dissolution of the artificial state of Israel, on the basis of revolutionary Sunni Islam. Its sister group in Egypt was responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat on October 6th, 1981.