Israel-Palestine Conflict and the Role of Egypt - Essay Example

?Israel-Palestine Conflict and the Role of Egypt The Israel-Palestinian conflict is the given to the military, political, cultural and social struggle between the Jews and the Arabs of the region of current Israel which started as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Because of this conflict various Arab countries have refused to recognize Israel as an independent and sovereign state in the nations of the world and thus do not have any sort of diplomatic connections with Israel. The conflict has also given rise to various wars in the region between the various Arab countries of the region and Israel. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important issues in the international politics and various efforts have been initiated by United Nations and various countries to resolve the issue and bring about a compromise between the two parties of the conflict but none of the efforts has been able to achieve success (Harms and Ferry). There are many other issues related to the conflict which include the economic failure of the Palestinian authority and the deplorable condition the Arabs in the region, the terrorist activities of the Islamic extremist, violation of international laws by both parties of the conflict and the human rights violations in the region. The conflict has gained extraordinary importance because of the fact that Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three major religious communities of the world; Christians, Jews and Muslims and due to the dismal security situation of the region, a large number of pilgrims are not allowed to visit their holy places. Both parties of the conflict are not willing to show any type of flexibility in their stances and thus a deadlock persists despite repeated international interventions and efforts. The most feasible solution presented by the United Nations and the international community is the establishment of two states in the region, a Palestinian State for the Arabs and an Israeli state for the Jews; majority of people in the region agree on this solution, however they have failed to come up with an acceptable partition plan. The acts of violence committed by the Palestinian armed groups and the Israeli army have also complicated the whole peace promotion process. Important international actors in the conflict include United Nations, United States, Russia and the Arab League particularly Egypt. The history of the Israel-Palestine conflict can be traced back to the end of the 19th century when the first Zionist Congress was held in Switzerland with the establishment of the World Zionist Organization. The Jews of the world aspired to return to Zion (Jerusalem) as part of their religion, and that is why in the latter half of the 19th century the Jews started to organize themselves and started to strive for an independent Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine. The World Zionist Organization established a Jewish National Fund for encouraging the immigration of the Jews from various regions of the world to the Palestinian regions and large sums of money were spent on the purchase of land from the Ottoman rulers and later the from the British rulers. During that time, for the first time in history, Arab Nationalism also started to become popular among the Arabs of the world, particularly in this region. The Jews managed to buy large areas of land in the Palestinian regions and started to build the Jewish settlements and at the same time Jews from all over the world were encouraged to migrate to the Palestinian regions in the newly constructed settlements. During the beginning the minor conflicts stirred up because of the accidental killings by the Jews and Arabs in the regions, however the Arabs soon became aware of the Zionist ambitions of the Jews, particularly the peasants and farmers of the lands where the Jews have started to build settlements. These farmers, known as fellaheen felt dispossessed of their lands and started to protest before the Ottoman leaders about the increasing Jewish settlements in the region, the anti-Jewish riots in Russia also increased the number of Jews arriving in the region. Alarmed by this, the Ottoman authorities issued a decree to ban the selling of land in the Palestinian regions to foreigners, particularly the Jews because the Jewish plans of establishing a state of their own in the region have become very evident now, however by this time the number of Jews in the region have almost doubled, increasing to sixty thousand (Schlutze). The Ottoman rulers sided with Germany in the First World War and thus came in direct confrontation with the allied powers i.e. Britain, France and Russia. In the meanwhile, Arab nationalism has also taken the form of armed struggle against the Ottoman rulers and the leaders of the Arab nationalist movement demanded separate Arab state in the region of Palestine, Jordan and Syria. The possibility of getting freedom from the Ottoman Empire with the help of the British made the Jews as well as the Arabs of Palestine to side with the British. Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt assured Husayn ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca that the Britain will give the sovereignty to Arabs living in the Ottoman Empire to form separate sovereign Arab states in the region. However the Balfour Declaration of 1917 only talked about a Jewish State in the land of Palestine, and thus it was not acceptable to the Arabs, however Faisal I of Iraq who was the leader of the Arab Nationalism at that time conditionally accepted the declaration which aggrieved the Arabs of Palestine who decided to leave the ideology of Arab nationalism and started striving for an independent state in the region with Arab majority for the first time in history (Karsh). The Germans and thus the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War and the regions of Palestine and Jordan came under the direct control of the British military. The British tried to achieve a compromise between the Arabs and the Jews of the region and asked them to cooperate with each other. With the British in control of the region, the ban on the establishment and construction of Jewish settlements in the region was lifted up and thus large number of settlers arrived in the region during the years after the war mainly because of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents throughout the world. The Arabs of the region saw this as a real threat to their national identity and integrity and therefore not only protested against it but also started to attack the Jewish settlements. The Muslim scholars of the region also started to issue Fatwa, a religious decree in Islam, to kill the Jewish settlers in the region and also their supporters i.e. the British. This promoted a series of acts of violence in the region from 1920 to 1948 in which a large number of people were killed. The British support of the Zionist movement and its recognition of the Jewish efforts to establish a state in the Palestinian region forced the Arabs of Palestine to side with Hitler in the Second World War which helped the Arabs to get advanced arms from Germany to attack the Jewish settlements and the British (Gelvin). After the Second World War, the United Nations was established and it expeditiously sought to resolve the issue in the Palestinian land. The United Nations proposed a partition plan according to which two states were to be established in the region, one for the Jews in the Jewish majority areas, other for the Muslim Arabs in the Arab majority areas and a third neutral zone was to be established in the city of Jerusalem which was to be controlled by the United Nations. Neither side accepted the plan, the Jews thought that Jerusalem should be added to the Jewish state because it had Jewish majority at that time whereas the Arabs were of the view that the plan violated the interests of the majority of population of the region i.e. Arabs who comprised 67% of the population of the region, they also argued that the partition plan if followed will trap a large number of Arabs in the Jewish lands. The majority of the members in the General Assembly of the United Nations voted in favor of the partition plan and thus the British decided to leave the region in order to ensure the United Nations recommendations. As soon as the British left after the expiry of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion on May 17, 1948 declared the establishment of the state of Israel in the Palestinian region (Tesseler). The declaration of establishment of the Jewish state started a new series of violence in the region and Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq declared war on Israel. The war was won by Israel with aid from the western world and thus the state of Israel established itself firmly in the region. The control of the Arab majority regions as per the partition plan was divided between the Egypt and Jordan. A number of Palestinian leaders were expelled to neighboring Arab countries particularly Jordan and Egypt and thus these Arab countries served as the bases for the Palestine Liberation Organization, an organization formed by the leaders of the Arab armed struggle against Israel. The armed infiltrators trained by PLO in Jordan and Egypt attacked various civilian and military targets in Israel during the later years giving rise to more wars between Arab states and Israel. The United States has always sided with the Israeli government and state in all of these conflicts and has provided assistance to the Israeli state in the form of military as well as political aid. The very primitive justification given by the United States for its unflinching support to the state of Israel despite the involvement of the Israeli forces in various acts of human rights violations is the strong adherence to the United Nations recommendations which grant the right of sovereignty to the state of Israel (Milton-Edwards). The acts of violence have continued ever since with various military groups and organizations carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel and the Israeli forces have also retaliated in the form of violence on various occasions. With passage of time the state of Israel has gained more stability and strength however no commendable efforts have been made by the international community to resolve the dispute and improve the conditions of the Arab community of the region which has forced the frustrated and disappointed Arabs to carry out acts of terrorism and thus the failure of international community and the United Nations to resolve the issue has also put the regional security at stake. Egypt supported the right of self determination of the Arabs of Palestine and participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War against Israel for the establishment of a Palestinian state. After the war Egypt also helped in the administration of the Palestinian areas of Arab majority and also granted refuge to a large number of Arabs from Palestine on its land. The Jewish community in Egypt was expelled from the country in 1956 and objected to the existence of the state of Israel on a number of occasions in the United Nations and other global and regional forums. In addition to the political efforts, Egypt also tried to weaken the state of Israel economically by closing the Strait of Tiran and Suez Canal to Israeli shipping in 1956. Egypt also waged a war on Israel in 1967 and the hostilities continued till 1970. The war was waged in order to gain control of the Sinai Peninsula and to help the Palestinian to gain control of Israel. The Egyptian effort was the result of the 3 No’s policy adopted by the Arab countries against Israel, according to which the state of Israel was not to recognized and there was no room for negotiations and peace with Israel. According to the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the military initiative. The Egyptian forces were defeated by the Israeli army, again with the secret help from the United States and the Sinai Peninsula was occupied by Israel (Korany, Hilal and Abul Kheir). The war was followed by Camp David accords according to which the occupied lands were returned and the borders were restored to pre-war condition. The Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Began and the Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat signed a peace treaty which also granted the right of passage to the Israeli ships from the Egyptian controlled Suez Canal and Tiran Strait. Egypt later accepted the state of Israel and thus faced ejection from the Arab League for a number of years. The signing of a peace treaty with Israel improved the Egyptian image in the western world and it was seen as a peace keeper in the region. However a large majority of Egyptian population does not support the peace keeping efforts with Israel and protests and sit-ins against Israel are very commonly seen. The changing conditions in Israel and the reports of incidents of Israeli army killing Palestinian civilians very often prompt the Egyptian government to call back its ambassadors from Israel and end the diplomatic process. Therefore the relations between Egypt and Israel are not very friendly and Egypt has ensured strong support to the Palestinian cause of an independent state and self determination. Egyptians relations with the United States started off with a low because of the unflinching support United States provided to the state of Israel whereas the Egyptian government has always recognized the Palestinian demand of self determination and supported them for establishing an Arab sovereign state in Palestine. However the relations improved with the passage of time as United States repeatedly defended its support to Israel as its policy of acting on the United Nations recommendations. Moreover Camp David Accords are termed as a breakthrough not only in Egypt-Israel relations but also in Egypt-US relations because after the Camp David Accords, the stressful relations between the two countries started to improve drastically and agreements of economic, political and military cooperation were achieved. Prior to the Camp David Accords, the Egyptian government under the new leadership of Anwar El Sadat has shown positive signs towards US by asking the Soviet military advisor to leave the country. The United Sates appreciated the flexibility shown by the Egyptian government over their stance on Israeli-Palestinian conflict and assured economic and military cooperation and large aid packages were approved by the US Congress in 1980. During the time of Hosni Mubarak, the relationships improved drastically and Egypt managed to create a moderate image in the Western circles and United States started considering Egypt as the most reliable ally in the Arab world. The Egyptian government’s alliance with the American government and the change the stance on Israel invited a lot of criticism from the general public as well as other Islamic countries; however Hosni Mubarak continued the policy of alliance. According to international relations analysts, Egyptian government wants to resolve the Palestinian issue with the support of the United States that is why it is pursuing the policy of alliance with the United States (Sharp). The recent developments after the change of government in Egypt as a result of Arab Spring has strained the relations again because the new government in Egypt has detained a number of US citizens working in Non Governmental Organizations on charges of intervention in the general elections. Efforts are being made from both sides to improve the relations. Despite the statements issued by the Egyptian governmental officials regarding its policy towards Israel, analysts believe that the Egypt no longer a part of the pressure group supporting the Palestinians and does not prioritize the resolution of Palestinian dispute while devising its foreign policy and deciding its relationships Western powers. This change in stance has improved Egyptian image in the Western world but the Islamic countries, particularly the Arab countries are not happy about these policies. Egypt and the United States are the countries which most actively participated in the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to analysts, the change in stance of Egypt has slowed down the resolution process, however the new Egyptian government is believed to have a stronger supporting stance towards Palestinian people and another change in policy is expected. Nonetheless Egypt is one of the most important countries involved in the conflict and a positive and constructive effort from the Egyptian government is imperative for the ending the conflict. Works Cited Gelvin, James. The Israel-Palestine conflict: one hundred years of war. N.p.: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Harms, Gregory, and Todd Ferry. The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction. N.p.: Pluto Press, 2012. Print. Karsh, Efraim. The Arab-Israeli conflict: the Palestine War 1948. N.p.: Osprey Publishing, 2002. Print. Korany, Bahgat, Ali Hilal, and Karen Abul Kheir. The foreign policies of Arab states: the challenge of globalization. N.p.: American University in Cairo Press, 2008. Print. Milton-Edwards, Beverly. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a people's war. N.p.: Taylor and Francis, 2009. Print. Schlutze, Kristen. The Arab-Israeli conflict. N.p.: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print. Sharp, Jeremy. Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations. N.p.: DIANE Publishing, 2011. Print. Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. N.p.: Indiana University Press, 1994. Print. Read More