Solution to Israel-Palestine Conflict - Essay Example

Solution to Israel-Palestine Conflict Since the creation of the Zionist of Israel in 1948 following the culmination of the Second World War, the Middle East has become the hotbed of seemingly endless armed conflicts that killed thousands of innocent civilians each year and caused political and military backlash in the Arab world. There had been countless of attempts to pacify Israel and Palestine with the help of international organizations like the United Nations and the international community as a whole, but no solution appeared to be amenable to both parties as they continue to maintain their bellicose posture against each other. Before the start of the year, Israel and Palestine resumed their armed conflict, killing thousands of innocent civilians on both sides and displacing thousands of people in Gaza Strip. Armed conflicts resumed as Israel and Palestine unleashed their military offensives to weaken each other’s hold to the embattled territory formerly occupied by the Palestinians. Both warring countries sent regular armies and launched paramilitary groups, an action that alerted the international community. As the international community clamored for the pacification of the region, the Israeli government under the regime of its current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestine Liberation Organization under the political leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, have been conducting a number of negotiations to ease the two-party conflict. Based on historical accounts, the Israel-Palestine conflict started when the United Nation intervened, giving the Jewish people the right to the war-stricken territory. This action resulted in numerous wars, which largely involved international actors, particularly the United States. There are a number of reasons why an Israel-Palestine peace accord that would probably result in the end of armed conflict in the region is hard to achieve. In order to understand why regional peace is far from being achieved in the Middle East, it is important to look at the many obstacles that hinder a final and peaceful cooperation between Israel and Palestine and conclusion to the two-party armed conflict. Intensifying Israel Lobby One of the biggest obstacles to a final and peaceful conclusion to the Israel-Palestine armed conflict is the intensifying Israel lobby in the United States. Israel Lobby is a term being used to describe an absurd alliance of groups, organizations and powerful individuals who vigorously attempt to maneuver American foreign policy that is favorable to Israel (Wittkopf & McCormick 87). Instead of bringing peace to the region, the Israel Lobby whose purpose is to create and perpetuate a pro-Israel foreign policy, steered more conflicts and brought bad image to the United States in the international community. The United States being the most powerful country in the world continues to support Israel’s action and ignore its crimes in the United Nations. The American foreign policy that favors of Israel continues to initiate aggression between Israel and Palestine. With the biased support of the United States in favor of Israel, most political analysts believed that the conclusion of Israel-Palestine armed clash is impossible to achieve. According to Mearsheimer and Walt (113), the Israel lobby, which composed of fuzzy business organizations, political groups and influential individuals, aims to support Israel, an action that only trigger intensified military backlash in the region. However, despite the fact that the United States through its foreign policy favored Israel, Wittkopf & McCormick argued that not all Jewish-Americans support the Israel Lobby. For example, a survey conducted in 2004 revealed that about 36 percent of Jewish-Americans said they were either “not at all” or “not very” expressly fond of Israel. Political disagreement Some other factors that hinder a possible Israel-Palestinian accord are sustained political conflicts that usually lead to military counterattack. Following the death of Palestine statesman Yasser Arafat in 2004, Abbas vowed to continue Palestinian’s nationhood, although many said that the current Palestine Liberation Organization chairman is being regarded as more moderate than his combative predecessor. Apart from political conflict, one of the obstacles to a peace accord is the religious and cultural differences between Palestinians and the Jewish people. Even biblical accounts point to the cultural and religious divergence between the two cultural groups. Because of the numerous armed conflicts that happened in the past that killed thousands of innocent lives, today most Palestinians think they the Jewish people do not have any plan to foster a peace accord. Most Palestinians believe that their counterparts intended to maintain control and dominance of the whole territory. This belief is based on the fact that the Jewish people have been trying to expand their settlements. On the part of Israelis, most believe that the Palestinians really intend to invade the whole Palestine region. To prove their assertion, Israelis consider the continued dominance of Hamas as a sign for Palestine’s intention to occupy the whole region by means of military force. The Jewish people also point out to the Palestinian indoctrination in schools whose purpose is to instill anger in the minds of Palestinian children and its youth. Israel’s embargo on Gaza two years ago that crashed the economy of Palestine also fueled enmity and conflict between the two warring territories. The import-export ban displaced thousands of Palestinians out of their jobs and caused severe health and economic crisis in Gaza. The international community, which includes the Europeans Union, condemned Israel’s embargo, saying it was a massive chastisement pf the Palestinians in Gaza. These are some of the reasons why peace accord between Israel and Palestine is difficult to reach, as the political actors of both territories maintain their combative stance and insist on their obstinate positions to perpetuate their control of the entire territory or their intent to expand their territory by bloody military conquest. Past solutions to Israel-Palestinian crisis There had been many solutions introduced in the past that aimed at resolving the military conflict between Israel and Palestinian. Most, if not all, of these failed as both territories continue to assert their military dominance. The first of these solutions was the Security Council Resolution 242 passed in 1967 which sought the removal of Israeli soldiers from occupied territories. The Camp David accords in 1978 focused on peace talks between Israel and Palestine with the help of the United States and other Arab countries like Egypt, resulting in the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Sinai in 1979. Several peace accords were taken in the past that not only pertained to the conflict of Israel against Palestine, but also against a number of Arab countries like the Kingdom of Jordan and Syria. In 1993 through the Oslo Agreement, Palestinians and Israelis conducted secret negotiations that led to the mutual concurrence between the political leaderships of both territories. One of the recent efforts to foster peace in the war-torn region was the 2003 Geneva accord that resulted in political concurrence between the two warring countries. However, it seems that all of these efforts failed to ensure long-lasting effect as both territories are again at war. With the presence of several factors, the political, cultural and military conflict between Israel and Palestine has been brought to worse level. This only means that peace processes conducted in the past did not work and that a future peace accord requires a deep understanding of the divergence between Israel and Palestine in order to forge an effective solution that is amenable to both parties. Mutual sharing of the land Since the root cause of Israel-Palestine conflict is land ownership, the best possible solution is to come up with an agreement to share ownership in the entire territory. Of course this is easier said than done, considering that there are shadowy groups that try to prevent the possible unification of Israel and Palestine. This setup can be achieved through the help of independent international actors and disinterested countries, which would assist in building a roadmap toward Israel-Palestine unification deal. It has been proved that a two-state system is ineffective and would only invite possible military backlash between the two warring territories. This means that the main part of this unification process is the creation of a confederation which would be participated by political actors of Israel and Palestine. This confederation would serve as the main governing body of a would-be unified Israeli-Palestinian nation under a single constitution and a single legal system. Under this system of a single bi-national state solution, the distribution of land would be the sole duty of the confederation. Those who have the resources would be allowed to buy land properties, while the poor would be allotted land by the confederation. The money used to by land would be given to the confederation, which is the highest governing body of the bi-national state. This solution, if carried out effectively without any bias and negative intention, could help end the more than half a century bloody military aggression between Israel and Palestine. One good example of peaceful unification or confederation is the United States which originally composed of 13 states. Another example is the defunct Union of Socialist Soviet Russia (USSR), although its unification was achieved by military conquest. In recent history, one good example is the confederation of several countries in Europe that led to the formation of the now powerful European Union. Although members of European Union have their own governments, political systems, and cultural and religious differences, they are still able to agree on many things through mutual political accord. This only means that the road to peace in Israeli-Palestinian border is through political and cultural maturity. List of References Mearsheimer, John & Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007 Wittkopf, Eugene & McCormick, James. The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007 Read More