Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Essay Example

Since the end of the first World War, the land known as Palestine had been under British Colonial rule. In the early years of Palestine, there were a much greater amount of Muslims than Jews occupying the land at almost seven to one. (Wikipedia.com, 2006) As further persecution came in the time of the second World War, the aftermath resulted in an even larger influx of Jewish people in Palestine. Instead of the more lopsided difference in Muslims to Jews, it was now a two to one difference. In 1948, Britain pulled out of Palestine, at the same time recognizing the State of Israel and splitting the land between Jews and Arabs.

This decision was further agreed upon by the United Nations. However other Arab nations did not agree, thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israel won this war and many other conflicts after that. As a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, however, many Palestinian Arabs lost, or were forced out of, both their homes and livelihoods. The Israeli government, after the war, created the Absentee Property Law which allowed Israel to confiscate the property of the Palestinian Arab refugees who were not in the country at that time.

(Nabulsi, L., 2006) With the Palestinian Arab refugees having no home-state, this issue leads us to more current issues that face Israel and Palestinians to this day. Recent Issues Much of the recent conflicts in Israel are due to disagreements between government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority as to the future of a Palestinian state, the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the survival of an Israeli state (Wikipedia.com, 2006). Terrorist activities brought about by the formation of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah in the area have made life difficult for both Palestinian and Israeli people.

Life is a daily struggle between normality and chaos. Peace has been brokered by almost every President of the United States since the late 1970's. "Roadmaps" were written to lead the two sides to an agreement, but a terrorist attack against Israeli people by Palestinian suicide bombers would lead to retaliation by Israeli military forces, so on and so forth. Organizations such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization, now the Palestinian Authority (PA) led at one time by Yasir Arafat, did some good in leading the Palestinians to an agreement with Israel.

The Oslo Peace Accords were the most recent attempt to come to agreement. However, due to many Palestinians desire to have no Jewish state, and in turn no Israel, it is with great difficulty that any agreement may ever hold. Solution In the current setting of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it seems there will never be a solution to the problem or an end to the violence. From the street level, with violent attacks at times a daily occurrence, it is clear that an agreement is far off. "The Palestinian street has definitively rejected Oslo [Peace Accords], and top officials of the PA now say that UN resolutions must form the basis for future status talks," (Beinin & Hajjar, 2000).