Just wondering…
The Arab World now accounts for 20% of all defense spending in the world.
Saudi Arabia has the 2nd most powerful Air Force in the middle east after Israel. Egypt and Jordan have powerful Armies.
What I want to know is why cant they launch a limited war agaisnt Israel, take Gaza and West Bank from Israel and hold it.
And then give those lands to the Palestinians for their state.
I mean, if you compare this to Yom Kippur War of 1973.
Syria got bogged down in the Golan Heights due to the mountainous terrain of that area and Egypt lacked the Air Force to give its Army Air Cover in the Sinai and only could advance 8km.
But things have changed, Saudis, Egypt, Jordan all possess powerful armies.
Gaza and West Bank are flat plains which it makes it easy to advance.
I mean they should not launch a war to destroy Israel, but to re-capture Gaza and West Bank.
If the Arabs care so much of their palestinian brothers, why don’t they do this for them?
Re: Why can't the Arab Countries liberate Gaza and West Bank from the Israelis?
Jordan does not have a powerful army. It's armed forces are just 80,000 men and its equipment is old. Egypt can't go to war with Israel because it's economy will collapse when US aid stops propping it up in response. The Saudis don't have a border with Israel.
If the 3 countries go to war, Jordan will be crushed before Saudi forces are much beyond the border, Egypt will have to bottleneck its forces at the Sinai Peninsula, where numbers will become irrelevant because only a limited number of units will be able to fight simultaneously. Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran (assuming Iraq permits transit) might be able to push the Israelis back.
However, based on the hints Israel has dropped so far, if Israel's military is so crushed that it cannot hold gaza and the West bank any longer (and thus is on the brink of complete defeat), then it will launch nukes at the cities of its enemies.
In other words, if Israel is about to be so utterly defeated, it will try to wreck the countries fighting it. Given that neither Saudi Arabia, nor Egypt, nor Jordan, nor Iran have any weapons that have a reasonable chance of stopping a Nuke (and neither does Israel) , then these countries are powerless to defend themselves in the face of Israeli attack.
And thus they won't go to war again, no matter how powerful they are.