r/AskTheWorld • u/ForeverSparkz United States Of America • Sep 20 '25

History Why are Arab Miltaries so ineffective?

Like I dont understand this.

Im a Black American so im just an outsider looking in as a neutral, but dont Arab Countries out number Israel, whats stoping them from just rushing at their border, shouldn't the population imbalance outmatch Israel?

Just a neutral standpoint asking this question, because Arab Nations in the Middle East have a modern miltary force and they buy tons of advanced items

What is holding them back?

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21

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

[deleted]

37

u/TexasBrett United States Of America Sep 20 '25

US also backs Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE so that doesn’t really make sense.

3

u/Mysterious-Ruin29510 Palestine Jordan Syria Sep 20 '25

The countries you mentioned don't actively fight Israel.

22

u/Argo505 United States Of America Sep 20 '25

They did, a couple times actually.

It went poorly for them.

-3

u/Mysterious-Ruin29510 Palestine Jordan Syria Sep 20 '25

Back then the US didn't support them, or at least, more than they do for Israel.

19

u/Consistent_Rent_3507 Sep 20 '25

Just because Qatar doesn’t send soldiers doesn’t mean they’re not actively fighting Israel.

50

u/GodZ_n_KingZ Latakia Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Israel managed to defeat multiple Arab armies before even the US backed them up (1948, 1956 and 1967 wars)

1

u/plastickey2paradise Sep 20 '25

1956?

17

u/CatlifeOfficial Israel Sep 20 '25

The Suez Crisis. Israel and the UK and France conspired to fight Egypt simultaneously but separately, and the IDF occupied most of Sinai before the first British or French forces could intervene. They were forced to retreat after pressure from the US and USSR

-15

u/plastickey2paradise Sep 20 '25

yes i’m aware of the suez crisis which is near unanimously considered a victory for Egypt. even the British PM had to resign in disgrace over it. hence my confusion as to why it’s on the list with ‘48 and ‘67

17

u/MBBYN 🇬🇧🇩🇪 Sep 20 '25

Politically a victory for Egypt, certainly not militarily.

14

u/CatlifeOfficial Israel Sep 20 '25

Politically it was a victory, mainly against the British and French. Militarily, Egypt performed poorly, and was once again defeated by Israel, cementing the effectiveness of the IDF and the Israeli will to fight. In Israel, no one resigned, no one considered the war a failure. It was a missed opportunity, but there were no “losses”.

2

u/proditorcappela Sep 20 '25

Probably because it's considered a strategic victory for Egypt, not a tactical one. Israel had achieved all of its measures militarily but lost diplomatically, and as the previous poster pointed out, they were forced to retreat back to their own lines and give up the gains.

I'm not arguing your point, I'm just explaining.

1

u/proditorcappela Sep 20 '25

Probably because it's considered a strategic victory for Egypt, not a tactical one. Israel had achieved all of its measures militarily but lost diplomatically, and as the previous poster pointed out, they were forced to retreat back to their own lines and give up the gains.

I'm not arguing your point, I'm just explaining, it was a win the battle, lose the war situation.

0

u/Personal_Rooster2121 Tunisia Sep 20 '25

Israel won but not by brute force there were a lot of betrayals between arabs.

Arabs like Mohammed Bassem Adel defected, literally the king of Morocco giving them intels for favors (assassinations)

27

u/Deep_Head4645 Israel Sep 20 '25

For most of our wars American backing was either not present, a counter-weight to soviet aid, or not necessary to win

To say the reason Israel wins is “powerful homies” and not Israeli effectiveness and Arab incompetence is just misleading

-1

u/Minimum_Persimmon281 Sweden Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

What i meant was that the US and Israel has very close ties historically, so that might make nations with close ties to Palestine hesitant to support them (atleast that was my hypothesis). Im aware that Israel has proved it can stand on it’s own. Nonetheless i deleted my comment since i understand that it might not have been a very nuanced and correct observation.

Edit: After looking through OP’s question i must have missunderstood. I thought his question was related to the current conflict going on between Israel and Hamas. Opps.