The Middle East had not known anything about peace for many years now. The Arab-Israeli conflict would be an example of a very complicated conflict, that is still going on today in the Middle East. It is one of the most well-known and least understood conflicts in modern times. Fifty years of war, terrorism, peace negotiation and human misery. This conflict is a dispute over land, borders, and religion. The expansion of Israel started back in 1947, although its origins started in the 19th century, when the immigration of Jews increased in Palestine. Many attempts have been made, and still going on today, to create a two-state solution, involving an independent Palestine and an independent Israel. In order to fully understand the hostility between these two nations that keeps causing peace talks throughout the years, one must look at the roots of how everything started.
The people of Israel believe that the land of Israel is the promised land which God had given it to them through Abraham. Therefore, they believe the land rightfully belongs to them. This claim resulted in the creation of a movement called Zionism. Zionism is Israel’s national ideology to create a sovereign homeland for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. The movement began in the 1800s and it was around the time when anti-Semitism grew to become a huge problem in Europe. Founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, thought that combining Zionism and Palestine “would gain wider support for the movement among Jews, including more religious elements in the Jewish community who had not been early supporters” (Bennis, p. 175). However, many ultra-orthodox Jews, at that time were against it. They believed that only God can deliver them a state and that any “human-based effort” was against their beliefs. In 1897, the Zionists started demanding for their land back, although the Palestinians had already been occupied in that land. About 25,000 Jewish immigrants moved into Palestine in the early 1900s, and thousands more keep flowing in few years later. The Jews had to live amongst the Arabs then. The Ottoman Turks had already been controlling over Palestine up until they were being forced out by the Britain forces and the Arab revolts.
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the government of Britain and France made a private agreement to divide up the Arab nation between them. While France got Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey, Britain got Trans-Jordan (what is now Jordan) and Palestine. Although the British has promised to support the Arabs for their independence in most lands that the Ottoman Turks had ruled, they also had promised the Jews. They had hoped that if they helped the Jews, they can have their support for the allied side in World War I. In 1917, British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a public statement, known as the Balfour Declaration, about the British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It stated that, “His majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (Bennis, P. 175).
At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was signed between Germany and the Allied powers. Germany was forced to take the blame for the damages they had done in the war and had to pay a huge amount of money for it. This caused Germany’s economy to go down. Hitler had offered the German citizens some hope to restore the destruction of Germany after World War I. He then became the dictator of Germany in 1933 and started a regime party known as Nazi. The rise of the Nazi party brought imprisonment of homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, handicapped people and others that they classified them as being dangerous to the world while also establishing concentration camps. Shoah is the Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe”. It denotes the Holocaust where six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II. In the aftermath of the Holocaust and World War II, Britain went back in deciding on the future of Palestine and took up the cause of Zionism.
Palestinians were angry about how much Jewish settlers increased after the World War II. The US and Britain couldn’t allow “large scale immigration” refugees into their countries, so the British had decided the only place to place them is in Palestine. Violence rose between the Palestinians, the European settlers, and the British occupation soldiers. The UN Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) suggested to divide Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The UN resolutions of 1947 required the proportion of 55% of land to the new state of Israel, and 45% of land to the state of Palestine (Bennis, P. 101-102). The UN plan didn’t work in 1948 when a civil war broke out a day after Israel was officially declared as a state. On May 14, 1948, the five Arab countries surrounding Israel–Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq, declared war on them, demanding for them to leave Palestine. In the result of that war, Israel defeated them and ended up occupying more land than they were initially given. Egypt was given the control of the Gaza Strip. For the Palestinians, this created a huge disaster known as the Nakba. Nakba, also known as the 1948 Palestinian exodus, was when “more than 700,000 Palestinians left or forced to flee their homes in the newly-formed Jewish Israel” (History, Para. 5). Refugees settled in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and elsewhere like Syria and Lebanon. As of today, there are still refugees living in camps from 1948.
Why they are still living in refugee camps? There are two types of Palestinian refugees. The first one, was from the Nakba. Another one, was when they were physically driven out of their own homes by the Zionist militias. 254 Palestinians were killed in a village of Deir Yassin outside of Jerusalem by the soldiers. After that massacre, the soldiers drove down to the next village, using loudspeakers in their trucks yelling out “Deir Yassin! Deir Yassin!” in a way to scare off any remaining Palestinians there. Many had fled, hoping that one day they will return home after the Zionist militias end. Many from that generation, are still alive and living in refugee camps with their children and grandchildren, “clinging to the keys and the hope that they will be allowed to go home before they die” (Bennis, p. 27). However, Israel opposed the idea for the refugees to return because they thought it would put an end to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Between 1949 and 1956, tensions arise in the Middle East as Syria, Jordan, and Egypt attempted to secure their rightfully owned boundaries while Israel expanded their “territorial limits at the expanse of Palestinian villages” (Fernandez, 17). Israel attacked Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser, realizing his lack of arms in order to defeat the Israelis, he turned to the U.S, Britain, and France for help. However, they all rejected his help, he then went to the Soviets for military assistance. This resulted the Suez Crisis, where Israelis were soon joined with French and British forces. British and French forces took control around the area of the Suez Canal. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev rallied against the attack and threatened to launch their nuclear missiles on western Europe if the Israeli, French, and British forces do not withdraw. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, afraid of ruining the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets, demanded the Israeli and their forces to withdraw. Israel refused and was threatened that the U.S. aid to them will be cut off if they don’t. Eventually, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion obeyed to the U.S demands. (Fernandez, 19)
The 1967 Six Day War was one of the famous and major conflict in history. For the Arabs it was for revenge and for Israel it was an act of survival. Arab forces rallied up along its borders and Israel response was to launch simultaneous attacks against Egypt and Syria. Subsequently, Jordan joined the fray. After six days of fighting, Israel occupies doubled its size now. Occupying the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel agreed to exchange it back to them if the Arabs agree to recognize Israel as a true independent state and will be no future attacks. In August 1967, Arab leaders held a meeting, called the Fourth Arab League Summit, in Khartoum, Sudan. They decided on a policy known as ‘The Three No’s’: “This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country” (The Khartoum Resolutions, 3). Egypt eventually negotiated and made peace with Israel, and in 1982, the Sinai Peninsula was then returned to Egypt. Both Egypt and Jordan gave up their claims to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the Palestinians respectively. A peace agreement weather to return the Golan Heights back to Syria remains elusive. (Fernandez)
Then became a surprise attack on Israel by former Syrian and Egyptian presidents Anwar Sadat and Hafez Al-Assad on October, 1973 during Yom Kippur– the holiest day for the Jews. It was also during Ramadan, which is the holiest day for the Muslims. They decided to attack on that particular day because it is the only day in the year where there are no radios or televisions during the holiday. Israeli were caught off guard and unprepared. This marked the start of Israel’s most memorable war in history, the Yom Kippur War, also called the Ramadan Warm or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. Both the Soviets and the U.S. began sending arms and supplies to their allies. The U.S, cautious of a nuclear war, demanded a ceasefire. Israel and Egypt later signed a peace treaty, under its terms of returning the Sinai Peninsula to the Egyptians. It also concluded that Israeli ships should have a clear, safe passage through the Suez Canal and to recognize the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. (Tsoref)
In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, was created, in aim to challenge the Israelis. It is largely controlled by leaders of the Arab States. Initially, the organization’s goals were to unite numerous Arab groups and create a liberated Palestine. In 1968, it fell into the hands of Yasser Arafat. The PLO launched attacks on Israelis from their bases in Jordan, but by 1971, they were forced to relocate their base to Lebanon. Factions within the PLO start to neglect target attacks on Israeli military, but to carry out terrorism plots instead. Arafat called the attacks to stop, as part of his plan to gain acceptance and legitimacy globally. In 1974, the UN General Assembly acknowledged the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” Again, in 1982, the PLO moved its bases to Tunisia and again moved to Ramallah, which still remains there today, in 1994. (Bennis p. 33-35)
In the late 1980s came the uprising of Palestinians known as the Intifada. It is Arabic for “shaking off”. This uprising was created when an Israeli truck struck over and killed four innocent Palestinian workers in one of the refugee camps in Gaza. Some thought it was intentional, however no one knew for sure. Days later, Gaza Palestinians protested in the streets, burning cars, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at troops. Hundred of thousands were either killed, wounded, or imprisoned by the Israeli military. Riots then spread to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli paratroopers were sent there to control the violence. (Bennis, p. 155-157)
Almost all Palestinian groups were founded due to the main goal of theirs: destroy Israel by violence. The PLO was the only group that had renounced this goal. The Oslo Declaration of Principles was an attempt to solve the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was the first face-to-face meeting between the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, U.S former President Bill Clinton, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat. In 1993, Arafat signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles, stopping their violence and to recognize the state of Israel to exist. In exchange, Israel must allow the Palestinians to regain their control of the Gaza Strip and most areas in the West Bank. Extremist Palestinian group opposed that agreement and continued their ambushes and suicide bombings against Israel. (Gazit)
The response made by the Israelis toward the Palestinian violence was by limiting the flow of Palestinian workers to Israel and by strict checks at border checkpoints. Those who are actual workers had to deal with long waits and humiliating searches at the checkpoints. The IDF, Israel Defense Forces, soldiers are sometimes very quick to open their fire whenever their suspicious. Thus, killing innocent civilians. Not only these checkpoints made it difficult for the workers, but also to those who have to travel in between Palestinian towns to visit families and friends. The IDF also had killed over thousands of Palestinians, while also demolishing their homes. In addition to security, the Palestinians had to deal with some extremist Israeli settlers. They have been harassed, their property destroyed, and got beaten up by them.
This is an issue that deals with politics, uneven distribution of resources, and nationalism, and will take a great strength to come to an agreement. This is a battle that has a long history that will continue until a mutual agreement and understanding is settled.