Difficulty to Secure Solution to Israel-Palestine Conflict - Essay Example

Palestine-Israel conflict (the solution) Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code and Name: University Palestine-Israel conflict (the solution) The periodic bloodshed continues in the Palestine-Israel tug of war, the search for unbiased solution must be reinforced by root cause of the conflict. As it stands today, the conventional belief is that the Palestinians are irrational ‘terrorists’ and therefore lack any viewpoint worth listening to. However, the truth is that the Palestinians have a legitimate grievance, considering that their homeland was taken from them for over a thousand years, mostly by force during the creation of the State of Israeli. It is also safe to argue that subsequent acts of violence and crime inevitably spring from this original act of injustice (Bickerton & Klausner 2005, p. 4). This essay attempts to establish the core reasons that have facilitated the persistence of the Palestine-Israeli conflict over the years by going back to its historical origins and investigating the various efforts that have been made towards securing a two-state solution in the last two decades and in the past 12 months. For centuries, the land of Palestine had no wars and was inhabited by a diverse population, about 86% Muslims, 10% Christians, and 4% Jews – all living in harmony. However, in the late 1800s, a group of people from Europe came to colonize the land. This group was known as Zionists, representing an extremist minority group from the Jewish population. Their major goal was to establish a Jewish homeland, and after considering locations in the Americas and Africa, they finally settled on Palestine (Gettleman & Schaar 2003, p.177-181). Initially, the increased Jewish immigration into Palestine created no problems at all. However, an unprecedented influx of Zionists into Palestine, many of whom manifested overt wish to turn the country into a Jewish state, attracted adverse attention and resentment from the indigenous population. Nobody wants his or her rights and resources taken away and fighting eventually broke out after a prolonged period typified by escalating waves of widespread violence (Pappé 2004, p. 46). The conflict was further compounded by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, coupled with Zionists’ activities of sabotage aimed at ensuring that Jewish refugees escaping the Nazi holocaust were not resettled in camps in western countries. This led to increased inflow of Jewish population into Palestine, thereby fueling the conflict further (Bickerton & Klausner 2005, p. 4-6). In 1947, however, the United Nations intervened by taking a rather biased measure meant to restore peace in Palestine. The UN adopted the retrogressive medieval scheme in which an external power partitions other people’s land, instead of adhering to the doctrine of “self-determination of peoples”, where the affected people are accorded the right to establish their own states as well as their systems of government. In a rather flop-sided decision influenced significantly by Zionists, the UN planned to give the Jewish state 55% of Palestine’s land, despite the former constituting only 30% of the total population, and owning only 7% of the land. The move was also supported by the then U.S President, Harry S. Truman. As many as 750,000 Palestinians were driven out in what many termed as ethnic cleansing to refugee camps in Jordan (Gettleman & Schaar 2003, p. 177-181). Arab countries also drove thousands of Jews from the neighboring countries in retaliation and solidarity with their Palestinian counterparts. As such, the Palestine-Israel conflict can be termed as an extension of the wider Arab-Israel contention. Today, the most dominant issues that fuel the conflict include borders, mutual recognition, water rights, security, Israeli settlements, and control of Jerusalem. The violence that has rocked these two countries has not escaped the attention of the international community, prompting international actions aimed at restoring peace in the highly volatile regions. Vigorous attempts to reconcile the two states have dominated debates on the Palestine-Israel conflict for several decades now (Gettleman & Schaar 2003, p. 177-181). From such talks, the terminology “two-state solution” has been widely adopted to refer to the search for the Palestine-Israel conflict solution. It refers to a call for “two states shared by different peoples” (the establishment of an autonomous Palestine state alongside Israel. However, a few bottlenecks block the attainment of this noble endeavor. The principal issues of contention in this conflict that may hamper the successful and a fast peace seeking process include, among others, the Palestinian state borders, the refugee status of Palestinian refugees living outside the resultant borders, the issue of the Palestinian state ‘s citizenship as well as the condition of Arabs living in present-day Israel. Another heated topic dominating the discourse of this peace-brokering process concerns the future position of East Jerusalem (Pappé 2004, p. 32). In 1988, Palestine declared itself a free state, citing the 1947 UN Partition Plan to provide legitimacy to its Statehood. Many Israelis and Palestinians, and the Arab League, however, have categorically expressed their endorsement of a two-state solution. In 1992, Israel and Palestine began secret negotiations away from the domain of the Madrid Conference held in Washington D.C, which failed. The Norwegians sponsored these secret negotiations, whose outcome was the Oslo Declaration of Principles, and set the plat form for the Middle East Peace Process (Gettleman & Schaar 2003, p. 177-181). The finer details of this document included the recognition of people from both sides as having equal rights to live within the Palestine/Israel borders, and a commitment to seeking a permanent settlement, while improving the relations of the two peoples. The Peace Accord also provided for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from certain parts of the Gaza Strip and Jericho to pave way for elections of the Palestinian government. Yasser Arafat also repealed the PLO Charter, which had endorsed Israel’s destruction (Slater 2007, p. 96-8). The 2000 and 2001 follow-ups of the Oslo GOP did not bear fruits. Pro-Palestinian critics dismissed the treaty as favoring Israel because, for one, the Oslo GOP, and the ensuing agreements failed to mention the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in Palestine. The violent 2000 Second Intifada was a clear manifestation of Palestinian’s disillusionment and affirmation of failed negotiations. Between 1996 and 2003, under the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli settlements extended deep into the Palestine territory, making the separation of the people even more difficult. Additionally, because of security concerns, Israelis are criss-crossing most Palestinian territories with by-pass roads for aiding more settlements, reducing the dream of a viable Palestinian state to a distant mirage (Morris & Benny 2009, p. 17).The then United States President, George W. Bush, also voiced his backing for an independent Palestinian state, which established the UN Security Council Resolution 1397. Although a 2007 poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre in the West bank and the Gaza strip revealed that 47% favored a two-state solution, and that 26.5% favored a binational state, the majority of younger people do not support this option. Consequently, this portends rejuvenated, prolonged violence between Israel and Palestine, and inhibits progress towards regional peace. Since entering office, President Barrack Obama, reiterated that, the U.S supported a two-state solution in the Palestine-Israel conflict in his address to the Muslims in Cairo. In his 2009 speech at Bar IIan University, the Israeli Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, endorsed the Palestinian state West of the River Jordan. However, he warned that the created state had minimal to no control of its borders, airspace, military, or foreign relations, and that no Palestinian would recover property falling on the Israeli territory. Netanyahu also declared Jerusalem as the Jewish people’s and Israel’s capital, and that “Israel’s control over Jerusalem was indisputable”. In his response, Saeb Erekat, Palestine’s negotiator, contended that peace would never prevail between Israelis and Palestinians, if East Jerusalem were not handed to Palestine’s. Netanyahu’s statement, supported by other reinforcing situations, portrays Israel’s reluctance to strike a consensus on a two-state solution. The ensuing pressures have prompted Hamas and Fatah to initiate negotiations focused on a reconciliation agreement with a view of forming a unity government. However, Israel has expressed its disinterest in initiating statehood negotiations with Hamas and Fatah (Slater 2007 p. 118). The idea is to divide Israel and Palestine into sovereign states, despite their scattered configuration. Evidently, sovereignty plays a central role in the two-state discourse, mostly hindering progress (Pienaar). Sovereignty is also fundamental to two principal International Relations domains – Realism and Liberalism – that can be used to explain the state of contention between the Palestinians and Israelis. Realism dictates that no specific moral standard ought to be used as reference in determining how states relate with one another. There is no structured, overriding interstate behavioral or ethical code, hence no anarchy. Therefore, power is the sole determinant of how the various states interact. This creates a feeling of mistrust between or among states, prompting them to forge ties with only those other states that have similar agendas as theirs. A two-state solution would, therefore, not work in the Palestine-Israel case because the two parties share their sovereignty largely, which undermines the successful implementation of the solution (Pienaar). The conflict underscores the prevalence of lack of critical thinking suitable for settling land disputes. States should not be the foundation of International Relations, and the state is hegemonic regardless of whether other structures of order exist. A “post-state” system could include understandings of order as not being the state priority that controls the society. A “post-state” system, however, may fail to work out in Palestine and Israel because it fails to offer a practical resolution to their problem. There is no foreseeable date for the abolition of the state, yet the Palestine-Israeli conflict requires urgent solution. Similarly, a two-state solution is most unlikely because of the rampant practical difficulties – Palestinians still living in Israel, contention over Jerusalem, and Israeli settlers occupying the West Bank, among others (Morris 2009, p. 17). List of References Bickerton, J. I., Klausner, L., & Carla, A 2005, Concise History of the Arab-Israel Conflict, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Gettleman, E. M., & Schaar, Stuart 2003, The Middle East and Islamic world reader, Grove Press, New York. Morris, B 2009, One state, two States: Resolving the Israeli/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, New Haven. Pappé Ilan 2004, A History of modern Palestine: one Land, two Peoples, Cambridge University Press, New York. Pienaar, M. A 2010, Israel and Palestine: Some Critical international Relations Perspectives on the ‘Two-State’ Solution, viewed 14 March 2012, Slater, J 2007, Muting the Alarm Over the Israel-Palestine Conflict, International Security, 32(2), pp. 84-120. Read More