Different Kinds of violence has from different actors has characterized the Israeli –Palestinian conflict. Political, economic and social violence has characterized the West bank and Gaza strip. Despite several effort to come to a compromise to reduce this violence it seems to continue to escalate with all forms of compromise contributing to the violence. The Oslo accord seems to be the closest the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had come in the last two decades yet this accord has catalyzed violence from several actors who disagree with the terms.
The Oslo is shaped in a manner that, Palestinian Authority was responsible for public services and public development i.e. they will be in charge of education, culture, health, social, welfare, direct taxation and tourism. The division of responsibility is that public internal issues remains within the Palestinian authority while external threat issues include border issues are handled by Israeli government. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the different type of violence that continued to disrupts the possibility of stability in the region using the failure of Oslo as an example. Also reveals element of American politics that partake in the violence.
The paper first will consider the failure of Oslo. Secondly the types of violence that continued in the region. Thirdly, Israeli American relations will be examined to see how it contributes to violence. Lastly the violence and dispute within Hamas and other actors are examined.
Failure of Oslo
The Israel compromise was less a big deal as it only involves the recognition of PLO against its foundational security principle. Arafat had agreed to hold elections take up civil responsibility as well as recognizing Israel too. The irony of such an agreement is the fact that the borders were not decided yet. The extent of Palestinian territory was not defined. Palestinian territory was under Israeli control in the whole territory as well as continuing economic dependence while further talks on PLO demands was postponed. The agreement was possible because Arafat came close to making concession. The challenge to the negotiation is brought forth as the military where integrated into the negotiation process. This is because Israel had still put security as a priority.
In both Palestine and Israel, Oslo agreement divided the people on both side into factions of those who agree to Oslo and those who disagree. One significant opponent is the Yesha Zealots and Islamic armed groups in Israel and Palestine respectively. Those who are opposing the agreement from both Israel and Palestine tries to act in a way that escalated into violence. They have engaged in several human right violations as they do target both armed and unarmed using different kinds of humiliating tactics to kill. For example Yesha Zealots target civilians in Palestine as Islamic armed group pursued after settlers (Grinberg, 2009).
Types of Violence
There are different kinds of violence that continue to persist in the Israeli Palestinian issue. They include political, economic and social violence.
Political Violence
Palestine has been refuse the status of Statehood through vetoing of the recognition of Palestine state by United Stated for its ally, Israel. This has led to several act of frustration on the sides of Palestinian and even a few Israelis. Beyond the targets of political ideology is the killing of political leaders from Arafat to Rabin. For example Some Jews would not agree to some kinds of agreements such as Oslo as it is seen as being against the Jewish ways. Therefore Yigal Amir, a Jew, assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin because of the political process he stood for. The Prime Minister was able to create an atmosphere that will change the minds of people and shift them towards a compromise which the assassin and his links are against (Grinberg, 2009; Phillips, 2011).
Economic Violence
Palestinian remained under domination by Israeli’s economy. This has resulted into low standard of living in the Palestinian territory. One of the causes for this is that the Palestinian economy experience a high level of unemployment and poverty. Israel has placed embargo on labor, goods and capital therefore no foreign direct investment could locate Palestinian easily and directly. Also restricting the movement of people within the areas makes it impossible to pursue better life in the region. Such policies have been seen as a result of threat perception of Israel towards Hamas. Fund transfer to Palestinian region will continue to be blocked by Israel as a form of economic violence because on their insecurity. (Young, 2006).
American military support to Israel that makes it continue to carry out all forms of violence in the region reveals an indirect form of economic violence. Several scholars have argued that support for Israel is a burden to the United States however the allocation for an ally still continues to hit millions of dollars to maintain such a relationship that helps to promote violence. Although Israel seem economically stable, the difference between Israel and Palestine is the USA a factor.
Social Violence
The Palestinian society has been divide as a result of Israel’s continuous building of settlements in the region. This has caused the creak down of the society and institutions. Firstly in the aspect of the society, continuous building of the illegal settlements in the West bank and Gaza has caused several disruption of the live of the people in those places. The government of Israel have move in new settlers after violently pursuing the inhabitant of West bank and Gaza. The demography has changed drastically as they building and occupy. They continue to make the society insecure not for the inhabitants alone but for settler as they are prone to attack from Palestinians. Secondly, research institutes have been attacked by Israeli government. They claim to be investigating the work of Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem while they confiscate their documents. This is not the first institution that Israeli government have confiscated their work. The reason is that original result of research that can shed light to the events in the region would reveal the violence therefore destruction of facts papers have become there next form of social violence . (Farsakh, 2001, Gostoli, 2017).
Israeli America Relations
The Israeli and America relations is a stimulating factor to the continuity of the conflict America tries to maneuver between Israel and the Arab world. The Israeli and America relations is a stimulating factor to the continuity of the conflict as America tries to maneuver between Israel and the Arab world. Challenges that characterized the Palestinians and Israelis continue to cause problem with the sub units of the United States while trying to shape its policy towards the Middle East. Generally in the Middle East, there exist believes that U.S. can impact its intention on international organizations whether persuasively or coercively as well as on other States. Furthermore it can pursue this through the use its large arsenal of military capabilities to fulfil its goal while ignoring the opposing voices in the international society. Also Washington as the capital of US is perceive to hand an overarching influencing on the America-Israeli foreign policy and as the only power which has the capacity to influence that policy.
There is a consistent opposition to the United States as a result of its policy it pursue with regards to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the region as a whole. America’s stand in the conflict has been seen as biased using different forms to diplomatically support Israel with regularly reference to customary norm of international law as if it does restrain itself to such norms. Although Every US president comes up with his own agenda for Israel Palestine conflict yet it has not been significantly different from themselves. E.g. ‘Israel First’ of Bill Clinton and Roadmap for Peace of Bush administration.
Constructivist theory argued that the identity that has been built between America and Israel i.e. friendship is accountable for this. Other constructivist claims that it is the already existing perception of America towards the Arab identity that led to such pro-Israeli policy. The identity between America and Israel goes beyond religion or sympathetic as some authors will argue. Capitalist democracy has been also been used as an excuse that democracy will not fight democracy or oppose another democracy. This is liberal democratic peace theory but applicable to constructivist identity. The unconditional support for Israel is a means of showing the region the capitalist democratic nation is there to stay.
Hegemonic theory views America as a hegemon whose interest is shaped by it what he can get in return. Consider the Israeli expertise and Human resource that dominates American politics, it evidence that Washington will continue to support Israel despite internal oppositions to such policy.
Negotiation theory focuses on the critical role of process and methodology in determining the success of conflict resolution efforts. Drawing heavily on the classics in the field of conflict resolution, Breakthrough notes that, "Skilled negotiators think hard about. The impact of process on perceptions of interests and alternatives, on the part of their counterparts and those they represent, and on their own side. Therefore American being on Israeli’s side would mean no neutral or independent broker as Bush as anticipated.
Patterns of violence that occurred in the Israeli-Palestine conflict has been made complex by inter and intra state or group disagreements on solutions to the conflict. Considering Israel, a strong debate over the accords took place; the left wing supported them, while the right wing opposed them. After a two-day discussion in the Knesset on the government proclamation in the issue of the accord and the exchange of the letters, on 23 September 1993 a vote of confidence was held in which 61 Knesset members voted for the decision, 50 voted against and 8 abstained. Meaning, internally, Israel accepted the accord's guidelines. But considering it 50 votes remained significant
Palestinian reactions were also divided. Fatah, the group that represented the Palestinians in the negotiations, accepted the accords. But Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine objected to the accords because their own charters refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist in Palestine. A common criticism of Israel is that it continued with settlement construction following the Oslo Accords and so, from the point of view of Palestinians, Israel was responsible for choosing war over peace.
Hamas
Hamas is a Palestinian organization (having political and military units both internally and externally) governing the region of Gaza. It remained significant in its determination to fight on behalf of the Palestinian for liberation and occupation by Israel. Hamas as a whole alongside its military sect has opposed most forms of agreement negotiated by Palestine authority, Israel and other mediators ("Report: Hamas Proposes 10-Year Cease-Fire In Return For Conditions Being Met").
Although this is a group with leaders, their military sect (Izz ad din Al Qassam) almost seem to be out of control. The have engaged in different forms of terrorist act , assassinations and rocket discharge towards the Israeli territories (both occupied and pre-occupied) . Such attackers have killed civilian meanwhile this is against the modus operandi granted unto Hamas. ("Israel/Palestine: Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians", 2017).
The goals, target, attitude and character of the commanders of these group shapes the extent of their action. It seems that they could take some direct instruction while exhibiting it to their own extent. It seems as if they act out of control of Hamas itself as some have argued that they are almost independent of Hamas (Julie, 2010) (Arendt, 1963). In order words they bypass the leadership of Hamas. For reaction to the killing of 29 Muslims was focus on disproportionate use of violence in the region that goes beyond the control of the leadership. The brigade focus on retaliation without regards for caution. This result in the assassination of Hamas leaders that thereby making Hamas decentralized its leadership. The control of the military wing became more diffuse, spreading into very small units. This makes the control of violence more difficult as escalation continues irrespective of the ongoing process (Phillip, 2011:75).
Therefore apart from Hamas objecting agreements, it military wings are expressing objection through irrational bombings and the diffuse of leadership makes it much difficult to control violence because they are on a retaliatory agenda.
Yesha Zealots
Similarly on the Israeli side, the Yesha Zealots made up the other side of the cycle of violence. As Hamas and it military arm express disagreement against Oslo by killing settlers the Yesha Zealots respond by random attack of Palestinians especially or specifically civillians. This involve shooting and other horrific attacks. “The most turbulent area was Hebron which held hardcore extremist from both sides groups called Kach and Kahane living among the Yesha Zealots and the main Islamic fanatic in the West Bank” (Grinberg, 2010:58 )
Their stand was that there are other violence in the nukes and crannies of the region that are not seen and admittedly cannot be controlled. The Yesha Zealots were privilege to be under a status of free movement, therefore it was difficult to curb their violence. It is significant to note that Baruch Goldstein of Kach who is an activist also linked to Yesha Zealots was the killer of the 29 Muslims while they were praying. Although this seems like a lone wolf acting, however this action is linked to Kach, Yesha Zealots and Israel as a whole. Such individual violence show decentralize violence cycle that could be difficult to curb if an agreement is reached (Grinberg, 2010:75)
Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
This is an arm of the government that is represented in the negotiation of Oslo accord. It is responsible for the external threat and border protection of the whole region. However it has been possessed by the spirit of irrational retaliatory actions. This is because the duties and responsibilities of IDF is established on “conflictual assumption” that makes all Palestinian a suspect of attacking Israel. There is a “joint horror” collaboration of IDF and Yesha Zealots in controlling the establishment of settlement and occupation of the West Banks and Gaza strip. Hence such could not make IDF respond to the violence perpetrated by Yesha Zealots as there is a collaboration of non-state and state actor (Cohen, 1995).
Conclusion
The violence of non-state actors are inform of retaliation and expression of disagreement to accord such as Oslo. It also reflects the support of Washington to Israel as well as trying to keep up with Arab world. Such violence will be difficult to curb because there is no neutral broker as America tries to claim to be. Diplomatic languages and legal terms have been used to play double side in the conflict. Further reason while the violence continued is because of the decentralized pattern of such non-state groups such as Hamas and Yesha Zealots. They have both expressed their disagreement to the Oslo accord and have retaliated through carrying out bombings, assassinations, massacre on civilian population. As Hamas military arm carried out escalation of violence in retaliatory actions, Baruch of Kach linked to zealots also arouse violence in the middle of political process. All these, cycle of violence from both state and non-state actor have perpetuated the conflict.