History of the Israel and Palestinian Conflict - Case Study Example

History of the Israel and Palestinian Conflict History The long history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict still contains a lot of contradictions unclear for the ordinary observers. 1“The conflicting historical narratives of both sides regarding the historical injustices committed and the ways to rectify them present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a classic case study of the link between justice and peace”. The state of Israeli-Palestinian relations is a key factor, determining the destiny of the Middle East. Till the present moment, peace negotiations had no particular effect on the regulation of the conflict. There are different reasons, which predetermined this situation. Among them, the inability of the parties to agree on the status of the Eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as the unwillingness of Israel to make serious concessions in relation to the Palestinians and the lack of a unified Palestinian leadership. As a result, the conflict has a serious threat to become an undisputable issue, which will harmfully affect the life of the Middle East countries. The aim of this work is to analyze Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the methods of its regulation. Israel and Palestine are two opposite sides of the armed confrontation, which took place during several decades. 2“For some, applying the words “apartheid” and “colonialism” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implies a bias against Israel, triggering an impulse to defend the legitimacy of the Jewish State. For others, the words “nationalism” and “conflict” imply a bias against the Palestinians, galvanizing an instinct to stress the victimization of the Palestinians and to deny any attempt to portray Israelis and Palestinians as parties of a symmetrical relationship”. Palestine is the territory with the ancient history. Around the XI century BC, Hebrew tribes began to penetrate into its territory, establishing there different states (Israel and Judah). Later Palestine was a province of Rome and Byzantium. Under the Romans Jewish population was subjected to harassment and, as a result, settled through the territories of other countries of the Mediterranean region, partially assimilated to the local Christian population. 3In 638 the Arabs conquered Palestine. During this period, Arab fellahin peasants began to settle the territory of the country. The dominance of Muslims in Palestine lasted for almost 1000 years. During the period of 1260-1516. Palestine was the province of Egypt. Since 1516 the area was the part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, during the First World War, Palestine was occupied by the British troops and became (from 1920 to 1947) a mandated territory of Great Britain. At the beginning of the XX century Palestine was perceived by the international Jewish community as a center of its statehood. This period was represented by a building of Jewish settlements and cities such as Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Herzliya and so forth. A sharp increase was observed in the flow of Jewish immigrants from Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Palestine, which had already been largely overcrowded, lacked free land and water resources. It led to the emerging conflicts between the Arabs entrenched in the region for almost fifteen hundred years ago, and the arriving Jews. The idea of creating a separate Arab and Jewish states in Palestine firstly emerged in 1930s. In 1937, the British Royal Commission represented the partition plan of the mandated territory into three parts. The first part covered the northern territory of Palestine, which included the area of Galilee and the coastal strip, belonged to a Jewish state. The second sector, which occupied Samaria, Negev, the southern part of the right bank of the Jordan, as well as the cities of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, served for the creation of an Arab state. Finally, the third sector, according to the Commission, was to remain under the neutral control of the mandated UK. This sector, along with the important strategic Judean Mountains, included the shrine of Muslim, Jewish and Christian culture: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. The development of World War II prevented the implementation of this plan. After the end of World War II, the question of the partition of Palestine was revived. Jewish organizations reminded the authorities about the horrors of the Holocaust, and demanded on the immediate declaration of the state of Israel. The scheme of the partition of Palestine, proposed by UNO in 1947 was very different from the pre-war political reconstruction plan. According to the resolution of 181 of UNO General Assembly, the Jewish state significantly increased its area at the expense of the Arab territories on the south. The area of the Jewish state included three territories, and Arabic - four. The UNO Resolution violated the ethnic parity. 4“In all this time then, the Palestinian people have been without any nation, and have had limited rights, while suffering from poverty. Israel continued to increase and expand their settlements into occupied territories, giving up less and less land compared to what was promised”. The territory of Jewish state was significantly increased at the expense of the Negev desert, which did not correspond to the ethnic picture of postwar Palestine. Peaceful coexistence of two mutually hostile states with different religious and cultural features on the same land was impossible. This is one of the most protracted regional conflicts, which lasts more than 60 years. In general, the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be divided into several key stages: the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 (the first war), the Suez crisis of 1956 (the second war), the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, Camp David peace process of 1978-79, the war in Lebanon in 1982 (the fifth war), the process of peaceful settlement of the 1990s (Camp David Accords of 2000) and intifada of 2000, which began on September 29, 2000 and is often defined by experts as the "sixth war" or "war of attrition". The first war broke out immediately after the declaration of the Independence of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. 5Armed contingents of five Arab countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon have occupied a number of areas in the southern and eastern parts of Palestine. Then the Arabs occupied the Jewish block in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Israeli, meanwhile, controlled the strategically important road leading from the coast to Jerusalem, passing through the Judean Hills. By the beginning of 1949, the armed groups have occupied the territory of Negev up to the Egyptian-Palestinian border, except for a narrow coastal strip of Gaza. This strip remained under the Egyptian control. The Jordanian army has managed to foothold on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The negotiations, which took place from February to July 1949 led to the armistice between Israel and Arab countries, consolidating the interim border between the opposing sides on the lines of contact forces at the beginning of 1949. The second war began seven years later. Under the pretext of protecting Egyptian government nationalized Suez Canal, Israel sent troops into the Sinai Peninsula. In five days after the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli armored columns captured Gaza, occupied most of the Sinai and came to the Suez Canal. In December, after the unification of the Anglo-French intervention undertaken against Egypt, the UNO troops were placed in the field of conflict. Israeli forces left Sinai and Gaza in March 1957. 6The third War was the shortest among other conflicts and took place from 5 to 10 of June 1967. The reason of the conflict was the strengthening of bombing of Israel by the Syrian air force in early 1967. During the six-day War, Israel virtually destroyed the Egyptian air force and established its own hegemony in the air. As the result, Arabs lost control over the Eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border. Constant armed clashes that followed the six-day War led to the new aggravation of the conflict on October 6, 1973, which took place during the Jewish religious holiday of Yom Kippur. The Israeli army troops were attacked by Egypt in the area of Suez Canal. Israeli managed to break into Syria and surround the Egyptian army there. Another strategic success of Tel Aviv has become the crossing of the Suez Canal and establishing its presence on its western shore. Israel and Egypt signed the armistice agreement in November, which on January 18, 1974 was supported by peace agreements. These documents included the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai in exchange for reduction of the military presence of Egypt in the Suez Canal zone. On March 26, 1979 Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David (USA) peace treaty that ended the state of War, which had been existed between the two countries for 30 years. In accordance with the Camp David Accords, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and Egypt recognized Israels right for existence. The two states established diplomatic relations with each other. On June 5, 1982, the tensions between Israeli and Palestinians, living on the territory of Lebanon, increased. It resulted in the fifth Arab-Israeli War, during which Israel applied bombing in relation to Beirut and southern Lebanon, where the camp of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was placed. By June 14, the Army of Israel went deep into Lebanon to the suburbs of Beirut, which was surrounded by them. After the heavy shelling of West Beirut by Israeli, PLO evacuated its militias from the city. Israeli troops left West Beirut and the main part of Lebanon by June 1985. At night on May 23-24, 2000 under the pressure of international peace organizations and taking into account the opinion of its citizens, Israel completely withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon. 7The late 80s brought the real prospects to a peaceful solution of the protracted Middle East conflict. Popular uprising of the Palestinians (Intifada) on the occupied territories in December 1987 has forced the Israeli authorities to resort to compromise. On July 31, 1988 King Hussein of Jordan announced the termination of the administrative and other relations of his country with the West Bank of the Jordan. In November 1988 Palestine was proclaimed as the independent State. In September 1993, under the mediation of the United States and Russia in Washington was signed the Declaration, which represented the new ways of conflict resolution. In this document Israel gave its consent for the organization of the Palestinian National Authority (but not the state), and the PLO recognized Israels right for existence. The agreement, which appeared after the Washington Declaration predetermined the gradual introduction of the Palestinian autonomy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the five-year period. In general, five of the Arab-Israeli Wars have demonstrated that none of the parties can inflict a decisive defeat for the other. In the process of conflict resolution took place the significant positive changes, which were revealed through the Palestinian-Israeli agreements in Oslo in 1992. The agreement predetermined the gradual transfer of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian autonomy representatives. One more important peace treaty was signed in 1994 between Jordan and Israel. 8The end of the 80s and early 90s was marked by the dramatic changes in the process of peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict. Its main reason was the recognition of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people by Israel, as well as the withdrawal of the point, which denied Israels right for existence from the "Palestinian Charter". However, since 1996, the dynamics of the negotiation process as for the Palestinian-Israeli relations has changed for the worse. It was the result of internal political changes in Israel and the problematic building of Palestinian state. The culmination event in this period was represented by the visit of the leader of the opposition Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem in September 2000, where he made a provocative statement in which he stated that he would use all democratic means to prevent the division of Jerusalem as the response to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who offered to divide Jerusalem into two parts. This provocative speech predetermined the beginning of the intifada-2000, marked by the beginning of the modern Middle East crisis. The second intifada has not been formally ended, as there was no published document of its termination. Nevertheless, the most severe stage seems to be over. The unchangeable factors of the Arab-Israeli conflict are still the following issues: status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, the borders and so forth. The inability to resolve these key issues causes permanent escalation of the situation in the conflict zone. The impossibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict is predetermined by the fact that both Palestinians and Israeli set for each other the conditions, which are not beneficial for both sides. 9In December 2001 the attempt of Europeans to reconcile Israeli and Palestinians ended in failure. The intended meeting of Ariel Sharon with Yasser Arafat did not take place. The Israeli prime minister refused to meet the Palestinian leader. Israel has repeatedly made the constructive proposals for a peaceful settlement of the conflict by means of agreeing to painful concessions, refusing vast territories, evicting the residents of settlements, the withdrawal of troops and other actions in order to give the Palestinians the opportunity to lay the foundation of autonomy. The Palestinian side responded by the campaign of terror, suicide bombings, rocket attacks on Israeli citizens and vicious incitement against Israel and Jews. Israel has always expressed a desire for compromise, and each of its governments made considerable sacrifices for the sake of the world. However, the peace process requires concessions from both sides. Israel, which recognizes the rights and interests of the Palestinians have the right to expect that their legitimate rights and interests will be also recognized by the opposite side. Nowadays, Israeli and Palestinians face the choice between negotiations and the crisis as well as the achievement of the permanent peace agreement and political stagnation. The creation of two states, which is still considered as the main purpose of the Middle East settlement, requires the impossible concessions from both sides. 10The main achievements of the negotiations can be considered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt (1979) and the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority ("Oslo Accords" 1993). Currently, the military confrontation between the parties moved to acts of terrorism and counter-terrorism operations (the most significant include "Operation Summer Rains" in 2006 and "Cast Lead" in 2008). The settlement of the conflict became the international task. It involves such mediators as the UNO, the US, Russia and the European Union. The authorities suggested several plans of peaceful regulation of the conflict, including the "Road Map", and various programs. The peaceful settlement has not yet become a reality. Each new series of negotiations were interrupted by the regular attacks, bombings and provocations. However, under the pressure of the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu indicated the agreement with the principle of "two states for two peoples" in summer 2009, which actually means the recognition of an independent Palestine within its present borders. In his turn, Netanyahu proclaimed a number of strict conditions such as: demilitarization of the new state, recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" and so forth. The last attempt to reach the final settlement through negotiations undertaken on the initiative of the US and prolonged for 9 months (July 2013 - April 2014) also ended in failure. Even the proposed plan of US Secretary of State John Kerry, which was more modest in its ambitions, was rejected by both Israeli and Palestinians. 11The plan of the secretary of State contained some new elements. In particular, the document placed emphasis on the security of Israels borders by temporary presence of foreign forces on the Palestinian territories, including their mutual exchange. Those new elements, according to the American side, were the minimum concessions that could be accepted by the Palestinians. However, this plan did not work out. This time the cause of inconclusive negotiations was predetermined by the reaction of both sides. Israel refused to release 26 Palestinians from the prisons, and the Palestinian leadership, taking advantage of the refusal of Israel, appealed to the UN with the request to join Palestine to the international conventions and covenants, including those within the jurisdiction of UNO commissions. Nowadays, Israeli leadership wants to re-introduce the principles of the peace process, putting them on the hard dependency from the normalization of the situation of terrorism. According to the position of Israel, it becomes clear that the government policy will be based on the following principles: the conflict will not be sold until the Palestinians do not recognize Israels right for existence as the Jewish state in the Middle East; the following negotiations must be hold on the international level, paying the worlds attention to the problem of the dialogue with the Palestinian Authority on the threat posed by Iran. It should be mentioned that nowadays there is no state in the Middle East, which can significantly influence on the position of the Palestinian authorities. Concluding this article, it is important to mention that the conflict between Israel and Palestine violates and makes harmful effect on the world processes. The situation still remains tensed and is characterized by the application of weapon and terroristic actions. In order to achieve piece the states must firstly resolve the contradictions between them and reach a compromise. However, the present situation represents the irreconcilable character of both states. Bibliography Bar-Simon-Tov, Y. 2010. Barriers to Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Retrieved from: http://www.jiis.org/.upload/barriers.pdf DAspremont, J. June, 2013. The International Legal Scholar in Palestine: Hurling Stones under the Guise of Legal Forms? Academic Journal Article. Retrieved from: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-348568670/the-international-legal-scholar-in-palestine-hurling Falk, A. 2004. Fratricide in the Holy Land. A psychoanalytic view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Gale, L. April, 2013. What is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Establishing a Determinative Link Between the Nature of the Conflict and its Resolution. Journal of International Relations. 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