Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Essay Example

 The protracted Israeli-Palestianian conflict could have been long solved had the Palestinian leadership adhered to the two-state solution long suggested by Israel and the community of nations. Alan Dershowitz believes that the primary agenda of the Palestinian leadership and its polity is the total destruction of Israel that is why the war rages on until now. This paper will explore this issue and outline why this is true. Israel’s Stand First, and most importantly, for most Israeli, the defensive war for Israel’s security takes priority over any war for greater Israel. The proof to this, wrote Dershowitz in his book, The Case for Israel, is that an Israeli government, almost certainly supported by a majority of its population, was prepared to end the occupation and share lands with the Palestinians for real peace and security. Israel was, in fact ready to give up its claim over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a meeting at Camp David and Taba in 2000, subject only to the kind of small territorial adjustments contemplated by the United Nations Resolution 242 to assure the state’s security. (Dershowitz, p. 241) Furthermore, if one looks at the Israeli foreign policy concerning the conflict, the establishment of a Palestinian state is a core element in Israel’s insistence to achieve peace in its war with the Palestinians. In an address delivered by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the United Nations, she laid out Israel’s position on the two state, two homelands principle: Just as Israel is homeland to the Jewish people, so Palestine will be established as the homeland and the national answer for the Palestinian people, including the refugees. (MFA 2007) For Livni, peace and security in Palestine is in Israel’s best interest. The Palestinian Point of View In a joint Israeli and Palestinian poll conducted in the last quarter of 2008, about 58% of the Palestinians preferred the two-state solution. (PSR 2008) It is a significant percentage, although smaller than the favorability in the Israelis’ perspective. The Palestinian leadership, however, is an entirely different case altogether. For instance, conflict could have been easily avoided and peace attained during the meeting brokered by US President Bill Clinton at Camp David but that the proposal was truned down by the Palestinian leadership because it would have meant leaving the Jewish state intact. Currently, the Palestinian leadership, the Hamas, is taking an even more hardline approach in its conflict with Israel. According to Mohammed Ayoob (2007), while Hamas has moved increasingly toward accepting a two-state solution, its leadersdhip is not willing to accept Israel’s legitimacy as a state unless and until it is cewrtain of what Israel has to offer in return. The problem here is that Israel has made it clear time and time again that it is willing to divide lands with the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership, on the other hand, is unwilling to fritter away its most valuable card without attaining full Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967. The willingness to compromise is the Palestinian’s serious problem here as it continues to demand unacceptable terms that make it easy to think that they are sabotaging every opportunity for peaceful resolution of the conflict. The Palestinian perspective could be illustrated best by a commentary made by Ahmed Khalidi, editor of the leading Palestinian publication, the Journal of Palestine Studies, as he volunteered a blueprint for a Palestinian state. He said it should be “sovereign, uncontested, independent state enjoying both territorial integrity and contiguity (there can be no civilian pockets under Israeli rule on Palestinian land.” (cited Klieman 2000, p. 183) What one can see here, as with the rest of the Palestinian attitude as reflected in numerous bodies of literature, is a deterministic point ofg view illustrated by a tone of language that will not entertain any semblance of partition or a territorial compromise. The reality is that Israel is a legitimate state with international support and any attempts to undermine its existence, much less destroy it, would only prolong and intensify the ongoing war. Shlomo Gazit said it best as he stressed that “the Palestinian extreme zero-sum position left them with the zero.” (cited in Klieman, p. 184) That the two-state solution has been largely unsuccessful in this dimension of the Palestinian conflict is primarily because of the lingering anti-Semitism in the Arab world. This antagonism carries over from the Jew to the Jewish nationhood. And the contempt it breeds on the side of the Palestinians cloud their wisdom, which unfortunately works to their, or at least to the civilians’ disadvantage. International Intervention It is also worth mentioning that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is aggravated not only because of the Palestinian attitude towards Israel’s existence. External intervention sometimes disrupts opportunities for stability and fuel hatred and strong antagonism in Palestine. For instance, there was the war that erupted between Fatah and Hamas, with the former supported by the United States and Israel, refusing to permit Hamas control of the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus despite the Hamas electoral victory. Attempts by the Saudi king in the form of the Mecca accord to form a unity government failed because of the external interventions such as the US arms supply to Fatah-linked militia who are fighting Hamas, then the ensuing problem of the refusal of entrenched Fatah functionaries to give up their power and privilege. (Ayoob, p. 128) As a result, the Palestinian Authority collapsed as Fatah and Hamas fight each other over its carcass. Conclusion Amid all the developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one understand this circumstance: Israel wants to uphold its sov ereignty and achieve security while the Palestinian leadership is driven by a nationalistic cause with the aim of destroying its oppressor. This is the reason why in the negotiating table the Israeli government is much more willing to compromise than the Palesatinian leadership. It is also for this reason why the Palestinian leadership refuses to give up its idealistic objective, which is the destruction of Israel, in exchange for a much more realistic goal, the achievement of stability and normalcy by establishing a Palestinian state. References Ayoob, M. (2007). The many faces of political Islam: religion and politics in the Muslim world. University of Michigan Press. Dershowitz, A. (2003). The Case for Israel. John Wiley and Sons. Klieman, A. (2000). Compromising Palestine: a guide to final status negotiations. Columbia University Press. Palestinian Survey Research (PSR). (2008). Sweeping majority of Israelis support release of Marwan Barghouti in return for Gilad Shalit; three-fourths of Palestinians back soldier kidnappings in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. 6 April 2009 Tzipi, L. (2007). The Israel-Palestinian peace process: Two states for two peoples. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 7 April, 2009 Read More