Israel Palestine conflict

Israel- Palestine conflict

In this article we will discuss about the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been going around for nearly 70 years. We will discuss How it started? , different events that took place, current situation, wars etc.

In the above map you can see different countries; this whole region is known as Middle East because from the western civilization point of view this is the area that lies in the middle on the path to the East(India, China etc. ). It is also considered as one of the most unstable region of the world.

ISRAEL :  It is often known as The Holy Land, Canaan, Al Sham, Levant, Palestine, The Promised Land.These all are the names of Israel.

In the map you can see Israel shares its border with Egypt, Jordan and Syria as well.

Now in the above detailed map of Israel you can see some important geographical regions.

·         Golan Heights: It is a mountainous region between Syria and Israel.

·         West Bank: It is actually the west bank of Jordan river.

·         Jordan: The east of the Jordan river is a country named Jordan.

·         Negev Desert: It is in the south of Israel.

·         Gaza: It has a border with Egypt and rest of it is enclosed by Israel.

Origins of the conflict:  In 19^th century this whole area was under the control of Ottoman Empire.

It was one of the most ancient empire. It started in 14^th century and was there for more than 700 years. It became very weak in 19^th century. This was the empire that controlled the area of Palestine.

At the same time there was a wave of Nationalism going on in Europe. Countries like Italy, Germany etc. were united due to the feeling of nationalism. They were made of different small states, regions but the people there due to some region felt that since we have a same language, same culture we shouldn’t be divided anymore on the basis of kingdoms; we should become one country. Similar feeling was in the Jewish people, but the problem was that Jewish people were not concentrated in one region of Europe. Most of the countries of Europe had a small Jewish population so they couldn’t have a  country of their own at a single place.

But a person named Theodor Herzl wrote that ‘ the nationalistic movement of Jewish people should lead to the formation of a Jewish state that was our Promised Land in Palestine.’ Now the question is Why Palestine?, because it is said that the Jewish religion was started from that place Jerusalem(in and around Jerusalem) and that is also the holiest place in Jewish religion. He suggested that they should go back to their holiest land where they came from. This whole movement was called Zionism/Zionist movement.

So since 1890s there were migrations of Jewish people to Israel. One of the biggest reason was not just nationalism and Zionist movement but also their persecution in different region of the world like Russia, France, Eastern European countries etc.

Role of British :  In 1917 World War I was going on and Ottoman Empire was almost defeated at that time. The British people (i.e. Sir Arthur the Foreign Minister of Britain at that time) declared that after the World War I ‘we will try to establish in Palestine a national home for Jewish people: BALFOUR DECLARATION’.

Also at the same time British people promised that the Palestine would be kept for themselves under the SYKES- PICOT agreement with France and Russia. It was a secret deal made between France and Russia(allies in war). They divided the whole Middle East among themselves.

(Here you can see a lot of hypocrisy and false promises)

They also promised the Arabs that they will give them Palestine if they revolt against the Ottoman Ruler.These Arabs were the people living in Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria etc.) They revolted against their Ottoman Rulers and after the world war got Iraq, Jordan but Palestine wasn’t given to them.

The British Mandate of Palestine:

 After WWI in 1920 this Mandate of Palestine was established, this was just an administrative setup and a govt. was setup in Palestine by the British. Many Divide and Rule policies were followed by them. There were different rules for Jewish, different rules for Christian and thus the seed of this problem were sown.

During this period the population of Jewish rose to 30% of the population of Palestine (during Ottoman rule it was just 3% but due to continuous migration it increased from 3 to 30%) and slowly they evicted the local workers, labourers of that area.

In 1936 finally the Arabs revolted against British. During this revolt many Jewish Militias were formed. They helped the British govt. at that time to suppress that revolt.

After this revolt British thought that they should also give some concessions to Arabs so they restricted the No. of Jewish migrations. But this didn’t go well with Jewish people living in Israel at that time and all these militias turned against the British themselves.

Then in 1939 WW2 occurred and from 1941-45 Hitler started his biggest programme of killing Jews. It was called the Holocaust. Around 4.2 million Jews were killed and due to this more migrants came to Israel.

CREATION OF ISRAEL:  

All this was taking place in the mandate of Palestine now. So as soon as the world war got over many refugees came streaming in and British thought that this matter couldn’t be solved by them and they gave this matter to newly formed United Nation.

UN had a resolution in 1947; there was a voting and in voting the majority of the votes were in favor of the creation of a new state which would be called Israel and that would be a Jewish state and at the same time a Palestine Arab state.

So UN said that two states have to be formed and will be carved out of the same land and there will be an International controlled govt. over the city of Jerusalem because that was still disputed and they couldn’t find any resolution for that at that moment.

 Palestine map of partition

ARAB-ISRAEL WAR (1948-49):

But as soon as this vote was done and Israel was created, all the neighbouring Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan) attacked the newly formed state because they didn’t want a Jews state neighbouring them.

Israel didn’t have any army at that time but they had their militias and slowly an army was formed. Against all odds Israel repelled all these countries and extended its boundaries (increased by 30%).

All the Arabs living in Israel’s area (around 7 lakhs) migrated to other countries.

After this war the area of ‘Gaza’ came under the control of Egypt and area of ‘West Bank’ came under the control of Jordan.

(You can see after this war suddenly the country that was Palestine didn’t exist as it was divided into many portions controlled by different countries)

 SIX DAY WAR 1967:  In 1967 Egypt brought its army near the border of Israel and to prevent the attack Israel did a preemptive strike and Egypt lost most of its air force in that attack. Also at the same time Jordan and Syria attacked Israel but Israel repelled the attack and again captured more areas that were Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, West Bank. It was a big win for Israel and now Israel tripled its area from that was given to him in 1947.

1973 YOM KIPPUR WAR: 

Again after six year there was another war called Yom Kippur War. Yom Kippur is actually one of the most important festivals of Jewish religion. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on that day and they tried to regain Sinai and Golan and due to this sudden attack Israel suffered heavy losses but then repelled the attack again.

This war lead to talks with Egypt and CAMP DAVID ACCORDS 1978 was signed. Sinai was returned to Egypt and Egypt recognized state of Israel. It was a very big diplomatic victory for Israel as none of the Arab Nations (40 countries) recognized Israel at that time.

Slowly and steadily all Arab states made peace with Israel. They stopped fighting with each other.

But there was another organisation PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANISATION: PLO (formed in 1964) which carried on the struggle for independent Palestine using both political and terror tactics.

(Up till now this conflict could be said Arab-Israel conflict but after this phase was over it became Palestine-Israel conflict)

1^st INTIFIDA 1987-93:

It means simply uprising. It was a violent phase in the struggle of Palestine. Huge protests, boycotts happened.

Around 100 Jews and 1000 Palestinians died during this period. During the 1^st Intifida an organisation named ‘HAMAS’ which was more extremist and nationalistic than PLO came up in area of Gaza.

After this finally Israel agreed to talk and OSLO ACCORDS 1993 took place

After secret negotiations in OSLO, the agreement was signed in WASHINGTON DC and Israel as a state was recognized by PLO. Also Israel recognized that PLO isn’t a terrorist organisation.

In 1993 they (PLO) were decided as the sole representative of Palestinian people and finally a new authority formed (PALESTINE AUTHORITY) for self governance of West Bank and Gaza.

CAMP DAVID II -2000:

 The Oslo accord was actually temporary peace. According to Oslo accord it was decided that they would have a peace for 5 years and after that they would negotiate a permanent agreement, because there were a lot of other issues that had to be decided.

So the second round talks failed miserably as there was no common ground and peace process broke down.

2^nd INTIFIDA (2000-05):

After the failure of Camp David II, 2^nd INTIFIDA started. It was even more violent than the 1^st one. Around 1000 Jews and 3200 Palestinians were killed. There were a lot of bombing in buses and in many public places bombs were thrown. It created a huge security problem in Israel.

AFTER THE INTIFIDA:

After the 2^nd  Intifida there was a drastic change in policy. Now the thinking of the leaders of Israel was changed.

A rightward shift of politics occurred. They withdrew Israeli forces from Gaza strip-2005 and due to this HAMAS become more influential after 2006 as there was no army.

After HAMAS took over, Israel started blockading Gaza (stopped all kind of supplies to Gaza) and declared HAMAS as a terrorist organisation.

HAMAS launched rockets into Israel but Israel has Iron Dome missile structure. So it stopped many missiles.

So between HAMAS and Israel there have been 3 wars 2008, 2012, 2014. Thousands of people killed in these wars. Both HAMAS and IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) used violence against civilians.

Major issues:  

Now we will discuss the major issues that are hampering the peace process between Israel and Palestine and why it is a complex issue.

STATUS OF JERUSALEM:

Jerusalem is a holy site for Jews, Muslims and Christians. For Jewish it is the holiest place, for Muslims it is the 3^rd holiest place and for Christians it is also a holy place as Jesus Christ was crucified here.

The East part of the city is populated by Muslim, West part by Jewish people and in between these both populations at the Centre of the city there are all the holy shrines and the holy places.  

Now Israel controls the city and it restricts access to holy sites from time to time (depending on the situation).Also Israel says that its capital is Jerusalem but internationally it is not recognized as it is a disputed territory according to the UN Resolution of 1947.

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES:

After the wars of 1948 and 1967, there were a lot of refugees. These refugees are staying in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and many other Arab countries. Refugees are demanding constantly to come back to their home lands.

OTHER ISSUES:

• ·         Israel’s security concern over terrorist activities and civilian attacks.
• ·         Israel’s military occupation of West Bank and blockading of Gaza.
• ·         Israeli settlements in west bank.
• ·         Water resources.
• ·         West Bank Wall

 SOLUTION:

• ·        Two State Solution (two countries within one area).
• ·        Each party has to understand the legitimacy of each other’s narrative.
• ·        Presence of Hawks and doves among the stakeholders on both sides. Some people really have a very extremist view and some have moderate views. These groups have to coordinate with each other.
• ·        Reach common grounds by talks.