The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Inception till date

INTRODUCTION
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s longest-running and most questionable
conflicts. For centuries there was no such conflict. In the 19th century the land of Palestine was
inhabited by a multicultural population – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian,
and 4 percent Jewish – living in peace. At its heart, it is a conflict between two self-assurance
developments — the Jewish Zionist undertaking and the Palestinian patriot venture — that make
a case for a similar domain. Be that as it may, it is in this way, a lot more convoluted than that,
with apparently every reality and verifiable detail little and vast contested by the opposite sides
and their protectors. The purpose of this research ia to know the facts about Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and its position today.

Literature Review
Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, located just east of the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinians,
the Arab population that hails from the land Israel now controls, refer to the territory as
Palestine, and want to establish a state by that name on all or part of the same land. The Israeli-
Palestinian conflict is over who gets what land and how it’s controlled. Though both Jews and
Arab Muslims date their claims to the land back a couple thousand years, the current political
conflict began in the early 20th century.
Though both Jews and Arab Muslims date their claims to the land back a couple thousand years,
the current political conflict began in the early 20th century. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe
wanted to establish a national homeland in what was then an Arab- and Muslim-majority
territory in the Ottoman and later British Empire. The Arabs resisted, seeing the land as rightfully
theirs. An early United Nations plan to give each group part of the land failed, and Israel and the
surrounding Arab nations fought several wars over the territory. Today’s lines largely reflect the
outcomes of two of these wars, one waged in 1948 and another in 1967.

Nakba
The 1948 war uprooted 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating a refugee crisis that is still
not resolved. Palestinians call this mass eviction the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — and its
legacy remains one of the most intractable issues in ongoing peace negotiations. Today, there
are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees, defined as people displaced in 1948 and their
descendants. A core Palestinian demand in peace negotiations is some kind of justice for these
refugees, most commonly in the form of the “right of return” to the homes their families
abandoned in 1948.

Israel can’t accept the right of return without abandoning either its Jewish or democratic identity.
Adding 7 million Arabs to Israel’s population would make Jews a minority — Israel’s total
population is about 8 million, a number that includes the 1.5 million Arabs already there. So
Israelis refuse to even consider including the right to return in any final status deal.

Zionism
Zionism is Israel’s national ideology. Zionists believe Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion,
and that Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland, Israel, in the same way the
French people deserve France or the Chinese people should have China. It’s what brought Jews
back to Israel in the first place, and also at the heart of what concerns Arabs and Palestinians
about the Israeli state.
Jews often trace their nationhood back to the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon, circa 950
BC. Modern Zionism, building on the longstanding Jewish yearning for a “return to Zion,” began
in the 19th century — right about the time that nationalism started to rise in Europe. A secular
Austrian-Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, was the first to turn rumblings of Jewish nationalism
into an international movement around 1896.
Arabs and Palestinians generally oppose Zionism, as the explicitly Jewish character of the Israeli
state means that Jews have privileges that others don’t. For instance, any Jew anywhere in the
world can become an Israeli citizen, a right not extended to any other class of person. Arabs,
then, often see Zionism as a species of colonialism and racism aimed at appropriating Palestinian
land and systematically disenfranchising the Palestinians that remain. Arab states actually pushed
through a UN General Assembly resolution labeling Zionism “a form of racism and racial
discrimination” in 1975, though it was repealed 16 years later.

West Bank
The West Bank is a chunk of land east of Israel. It’s home to nearly three million Palestinians,
and would make up the heart of any Palestinian state. Israel took control of it in 1967 and has
allowed Jewish settlers to move in, but Palestinians (and most of the international community)
consider it illegally occupied Palestinian land.

In 1967, Israel fought a war with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Israel fired the first shot, but claims it
was preempting an imminent Egyptian attack; Arabs disagree, casting Israel as an aggressor. In
six days, Israel routed the Arab powers, taking the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan.
Middle East
Israel has fought multiple wars with each of its four neighbors, all of whom nominally support
the Palestinian national cause. Today, it has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but its relations
with its other neighbors, Syria and Lebanon, are fraught. There are large, mistreated Palestinian
refugee communities in all of Israel’s neighbors but Egypt. Outside of its immediate neighbors,
the three most important regional states in the conflict are Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

Gaza
Gaza is a densely populated strip of land that is mostly surrounded by Israel and peopled almost
exclusively by Palestinians. Israel used to have a military presence, but withdrew unilaterally in
2005. It’s currently under Israeli blockade.
The sporadic rocket fire that’s hit Israel from there since its pullback has strengthened Israeli
hawks’ political position, as they have long argued that any Palestinian state would end up serving
as a launching pad for attacks on Israel.

US Israel Friendship
American support for Israel really is massive, including billions of dollars in aid and reliable
diplomatic backing, experts disagree sharply on why. Some possibilities include deep support for
Israel among the American public, the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, and American ideological
affinity with the Middle East’s most stable democracy.

The countries were not nearly so close in Israel’s first decades. President Eisenhower was
particularly hostile to Israel during the 1956 Suez War, which Israel, the UK, and France fought
against Egypt.

As the Cold War dragged on, the US came to view Israel as a key buffer against Soviet influence
in the Middle East and supported it accordingly. The American-Israeli alliance didn’t really cement
until around 1973, when American aid helped save Israel from a surprise Arab invasion.
Since the Cold War, the foundation of the still-strong (and arguably stronger) relationship
between the countries has obviously shifted. Some suggest that a common interest in fighting
jihadism ties America to Israel, while others point to American leaders’ ideological attachment to
an embattled democracy. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the American public has, for a
long time, sympathized far more with Israel than with Palestine.

Peace Process (Oslo)

“Oslo” is an ongoing American-mediated effort to broker a peace treaty between the two
populations The goal is a “final status agreement,” which would establish a Palestinian state in
Gaza and the West Bank in exchange for Palestinians agreeing to permanently end attacks on
Israeli targets — a formula often called “land for peace.”

Many people believed the peace process to be over in January 2001. Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat had just rejected his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak’s peace offer (there’s huge
disagreement as to just what that offer entailed). Moreover, renewed talks failed to generate an
agreement, and worsening violence during the second intifada violence made another round of
talks seem impossible.

Despite the 2001 failure, the general Oslo “land for peace” framework remains the dominant
American and international approach to resolving the conflict.

One-state solution Two-state solution

The “two-state solution” would create an independent Israel and Palestine, and is the
mainstream approach to resolving the conflict. The idea is that Israelis and Palestinians want to
run their countries differently; Israelis want a Jewish state, and Palestinians want a Palestinian
one. Because neither side can get what it wants in a joined state, the only possible solution that
satisfies everyone involves separating Palestinians and Israelis.

The “one-state solution” would merge Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip into one big
country. It comes in two versions. One, favored by some leftists and Palestinians, would create a
single democratic country. Arab Muslims would outnumber Jews, thus ending Israel as a Jewish
state. The other version, favored by some rightists and Israelis, would involve Israel annexing the
West Bank and either forcing out Palestinians or denying them the right to vote. Virtually the
entire world, including most Zionists, rejects this option as an unacceptable human rights
violation.
Conclusion
This review aimed to study the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the very beginning and
its status today while studying it and examining the facts I’ve concluded that major powers have
a great role in hyping this issue and they must play their role now to end up this war which has
resulted in loss of many thousands lives and also made way to many other issues. Negotiation is
the only solution to this issue both the parties should come on table talk, show their demands
and then resolve it with justice.

References
Pollack, Kenneth, M., Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, University of New Press, (2002), pp.
93–94, 96.

Monty G. Marshall. Major Episodes of Political Violence 1946-2012. [Link]. “Ethnic

“A History of Conflict: Introduction”. A History of Conflict. BBC News.

The Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: 1882-1914w2

“Canadian Policy on Key Issues in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”. Government of Canada.

Edward Wright, ‘Tourism Curbed in Palestinians Areas,’ Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2000.

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