Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

ISRAELI – PALESTINIAN CONFLICTS: Contemporary Jewish and Palestinian conflict began at the turn of the 20th Century as many Jews worldwide began the "Zionist" movement. Some of the prevailing issues in the conflicts include to name but a few, exceedingly large numbers of Palestinian refugees who threaten the economy of Palestine, control over airspace, Hamas refusal to recognize Israel as a nation state, Refusal of the International system to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, Palestinian political parties and other organizations that are slowly turning into terror groups, the fight over Jerusalem as the capital city of both these stats among others. History of the conflict: The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs, the precursor to the Arab-Israeli conflict, began in 1881. At that time, about 565,000 Arabs and 24,000 Jews lived in Palestine; about 90% of the Arabs were Muslim while most of the rest were Christian. Because of discrimination in the Ukraine and other parts of Europe, the Zionists sought territory of their own around the Biblical holy lands of the Levant between the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. They also wanted that territory to include Jerusalem.Great Britain, with a significant Jewish population of its own, backed Zionism. During World War I, it took control of much of Palestine and maintained post-war control through a League of Nations mandate finalized in 1922. Arab Palestinians revolted against British rule on several occasions in the 1920s and 1930s.Only after Nazis staged mass executions of Jews during the Holocaust of World War II did the international community begin backing the Jewish quest for a recognized state in the Middle East. Judea, home of the Jews in ancient times, was conquered by the Romans and renamed Palestine. Palestine was later conquered and inhabited by Arabs for over a thousand years. A few Zionist Jews from outside the Holy Land decided they wanted to emigrate to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism, one form of Jewish nationalism, called for the return of Jews to the Holy Land (the area that is today called Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) and the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland; the last independent Jewish state had been destroyed in 63 BCE. During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire was defeated and collapsed. Britain then occupied the Holy Land and held it as a mandate from the League of Nations, a pre-cursor to the United Nations; the land was known as Palestine. The British also took control of the land east of the Jordan River that is today the country of Jordan. Zionist leaders sought statehood through diplomacy. On the ground in the Holy Land, Zionists built new communities, bought land, welcomed new immigrants, and, for many, emphasized Jewish labor and agriculture. The Zionist diplomats scored a major victory on November 2, 1917 when Lord Arthur J. Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, wrote the following to Lord Rothschild, a Jewish leader: “His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” This statement, known as the Balfour Declaration, clearly privileged the Zionist cause over the rights of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. The Arabs resented the Jews coming in to take their land. Led by Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, they rioted repeatedly and later revolted, creating a history of enmity between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Britain stopped Jewish immigration to Palestine. Following the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, pressure on Britain increased to allow  Jewish immigration  to Palestine.   The next Arab-Israeli war came in 1956 when Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt and sought to topple Egypt’s President, Gamel Abdel Nasser. Nasser espoused pan- Arabism, a call for Arab unity among the many Arab countries. In July 1956, he angered the British and French by nationalizing Egypt’s Suez Canal. Arabs and Israelis did not fight again until 1967. Tens of thousands of Egyptian soldiers were sent to Yemen to fight in the civil war against Saudi supported forces. At the same time, Israel was secretly working with France to build nuclear weapons; by 1970, Israel had nuclear bombs. Israel also started buying arms from the United States, a process that intensified after the 1967 war. The Soviet Union was the main arms supplier for Arab countries like Egypt, Iraq, and Syria In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Israeli forces drove all the way to Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and forced most PLO fighters out of Lebanon. Israel hoped to destroy the PLO state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon, install a pro-Israeli regime of Christian Lebanese politicians, and end attacks against northern Israel. The United States helped facilitate the PLO’s evacuation, and, the PLO moved its headquarters to distant Tunisia. As a result of the war, approximately 650-700,000 Palestinians became refugees mostly as a result of Israeli expulsions, military offensives, and massacres and the resulting panic and fear. Many women and children fled the war zone. Weak Palestinian leadership was unable to provide much support to civilians during the fighting. Ever since, Palestinians and the United Nations have claimed the Palestinians have a right to return to their former homes. Most of the Palestinian refugees ended up in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. They were treated differently in each country. Partitioning: The United Nations authored a plan to partition the region into Jewish and Palestinian areas, with the intention that each becomes a state. In 1947 Palestinians and Arabs from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria began hostilities against Jews. Full-blown war erupted. Israel beat the coalition of Palestinians and Arabs, taking territory that the United Nations had designated for Palestine. Israel, however, was always felt insecure as it did not occupy the West Bank, the Golan Heights, or the Gaza Strip. Those territories would serve as buffers against Jordan, Syria, and Egypt respectively. It fought and won wars in 1956, 1967,1973 and 1982 to occupy those territories. In 1967 it also occupied the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Many Palestinians who had fled in the diaspora, or their descendants, found themselves again living under Israeli control. Although considered illegal under international law, Israel has also built Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank. The United States backed Israel throughout those wars. The U.S. has also continuously sent military equipment and foreign aid to Israel. American support of Israel, however, has made its relations with neighboring Arab countries and Palestinians problematic. Palestinian displacement and the lack of an official Palestinian state became a central tenet of much anti-American Islamic and Arabic sentiment. The United States has had to craft foreign policy that both helps keep Israel secure and allows American access to Arab oil and shipping ports. Peace efforts: Since the late 19thCentury, the two states have fought over two major issues: control over Palestine and the existence of a Jewish state within the Muslim Arab world. The Arab-Israeli clash continued to create armed conflict In the aftermath of the wars, the tenor of the situation began to change when all of the Arab states accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242. This document called for Israel to pull out of the occupied territories, but it also guaranteed secure borders to all nations, thereby accepting Israel as a sovereign country for the first time. Further progress towards a long-term solution seemed possible in 1972 when Palestine hinted that it might accept a peace treaty with the Israelis if they would return the occupied territories. Throughout the mid-1970s, the United States was taking more and more of a leadership role in the Middle East peace process. U.S. interests in the region, particularly alliance with Israel and reliance on Arab oil, along with President Carter’s personal desire to solve the problem, fueled this new engagement. Meanwhile, both Egypt and Israel were showing new enthusiasm for the peace process largely because they both realized that they would benefit from a closer relationship with the U.S. hence the Geneva conference of 1977. Following these concessions, the parties conducted negotiations throughout the first half of 1978, but little progress was made towards a settlement, ultimately leading to the signing of the Camp David Accords(1978). There were four basic issues to deal with at Camp David: A peace treaty and normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt. Demilitarization and removal of Israeli settlements from the Sinai. Linkage between these issues and the future of the West Bank and Gaza. A statement on principles, including Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories and the right of Palestinians to self-determination. The negotiations at Camp David lasted for 13 days. Each delegation had its own cabins at the Presidential retreat, and members often did not mix except during structured negotiating sessions. Furthermore, the press was excluded from the proceedings, and very little contact was maintained with the outside world. The accord managed to restore peace between Israel and Egypt but failed to solve Palestine’s woes. The 1980s saw many failed diplomatic plans. On September 1, 1982, Ronald Reagan issued a plan for solving the conflict. The eight-point Fahd Plan of 1981, named for Saudi Crown Prince (and later King) Fahd, was adopted in modified form by the Arab League in 1982 (and then became known as the Fez Initiative). In 1985-1986, Israel’s Shimon Peres and Jordan’s King Hussein came to the secret London Agreement but that too failed to lead to a breakthrough. In January 1988, George Shultz, the US Secretary of State, issued a plan based on an international diplomatic conference and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Israel continued to build settlements in the 1980s, and the United States downgraded its criticism, calling them obstacles to peace rather than illegal. After the 1991 Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush called on Arabs and Israelis to come to high-level negotiations. After significant US diplomatic efforts, the parties met at Madrid, Spain in late October 1991. This led to many unproductive rounds of bilateral talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The PLO was not allowed to participate in the talks directly. Instead, Israel negotiated with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. In the summer of 1993 in Oslo, Norway, the Oslo agreement was another attempt at resolving the continually tiring disputes between Israel and Palestine. It gave Israel the authority to gradually cede control of the Palestinian territories back to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. Secret, exploratory Israeli-Palestinian talks led to a major breakthrough. As a result, Israel and the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP), or Oslo I, at the White House on September 13, 1993. The PLO also recognized Israel’s right to exist, rejected terrorism, and endorsed United Nations Security Council’s Resolution 242. The Oslo process continued from 1993 until 2001 but did not lead to a two-state solution to the conflict (two states: Israel and Palestine). With constant American mediation, the two sides negotiated several other agreements to implement Oslo I, including the Gaza- Jericho agreement (May 1994) and Oslo II (September 1995). The Oslo II agreement divided the West Bank, except East Jerusalem and parts of Hebron, into Areas A, B, and C. In area A, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was in charge of civil affairs and maintaining order. In area B, the PA was only charged with civil affairs while Israel retained responsibility for security and order. In area C, Israel remained in full control. On April 30, 2003, the Quartet of the United States, (European Union, Russia,United Nations, United States of America and Arab League) issued the Roadmap to peace, a blueprint for ending the conflict and Palestinian statehood. age 7 of 7