The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians has existed ever since the creation of the State of Israel in 1947 via the United Nations Partition Plan. The conflict has grown into a full-blown violent warfare where there are strong voices advocating for both sides. The issue is not as monochromatic as the popular media houses are showing it to be. The nuances and complexities of Israel and Palestine as nation-states can only be understood when looking at their history on this land.
1947 - 1967:
On November 27, 1947, The UN General Assembly passed a resolution with 181 votes in favour of the Palestinian land to be divided into nations - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The land had been under the administrative control of the British since 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. This resolution brought intense violence and displacement to the land, the Palestinians being the primarily displaced group, On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. This is when the first Arab-Israeli War began - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq had their force enter Palestine. The War went on for close to 10 months, and it primarily occurred in the Sinai Peninsula (peninsula in Egypt) and southern Lebanon. This conflict saw significant displacement and change in demographics throughout the Middle East. Over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes from the areas that were ‘granted’ to Israel. They became the persisting group of Palestinian refugees, and they continue to refer to this event as the Nakba, which translates to ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic. Resolution 194, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1948, called for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees. Later on, Palestinians would go on to cite Resolution 194 as proof that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a "right of return.” From June 5, 1967 to June 10, 1967, Israel and the neighbouring Arab nations fought a six-day war and had several casualties. Israel got hold over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—areas inhabited primarily by Palestinians—as well as all of East Jerusalem. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 that called for; the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, for the termination of states of belligerency and; respect for and acknowledgement of, the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area and the right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries.
1973 - 1993:
The Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Yom Kippur War, the Ramadan War, and the October War, began on October 3, 1973. This was an attempt by Egypt and Syria to reclaim land from Israel, and was heightened by virtue of the Cold War, with the Soviet Union aiding Egypt and Syria while the United States aided Israel. The OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) also played a role in the conflict, and a UN-sponsored cease-fire ended the War. The Camp David Accords (1978), which set the framework for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, were signed by both nations. The agreements also obligate other parties to future negotiations on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the governments of Egypt and Israel. On December 1, 1987, an Israeli driver killed four Palestinians in a car accident that sparked the first intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. The intifada is forever associated with the picture of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli tanks. About 200 Israelis and 1,300 Palestinians were killed over the next six years. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian theologian, established the militant group ‘Hamas’ as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas supported jihad as a means of regaining Muslim territory. On July 31, 1988, Jordan's King Hussein renounced national claims to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in favour of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) claims. Yasir Arafat, the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), denounced violence in December of that year and accepted the legitimacy of Israel, UN Security Council Resolution 242, and the idea of land for peace. By September 13, 1993, via the Oslo Accords, Israel and the PLO agreed to the creation of the Palestinian Authority to temporarily administer the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel also agreed to begin to withdraw from parts of the West Bank, though large swaths of land and Israeli settlements remained under the Israeli military’s exclusive control.
Various Israeli politicians, including controversial figures, visited the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. The Palestinians viewed the visit as an effort to change the status quo at the holy site. The subsequent protests turned violent, and that initiated the second intifada on September 28 2000. It was noticeably more violent than the first intifada and lasted until 2005. About 4,000 Palestinians and 1000 Israelis died in this period. Later, on March 27, 2002, the Israeli military reoccupied portions of the West Bank, including the city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority was located. Israel, by June 23, 2002, started constructing a security barrier in the West Bank. The barrier, which was sometimes a fence and at other times a wall, caused controversy since it occasionally went far into the West Bank area. The security barrier divided some Palestinian settlements in half, cut off the Palestinians from Jerusalem and made it impossible for some of them to travel to work or school. Hamas emerged victorious in the Palestinian elections of 2006 over Fatah, the long-reigning faction within the PLO that was created in the 1950s. Having perceived Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the United States and other nations stopped providing aid to the Palestinian Authority. Following about eight hundred rocket assaults on Israeli communities by Gaza in November and December, Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008. In addition to hundreds of fighters, the battle claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians in less than a month. Israel again invaded the Gaza Strip on July 8, 2014. Over the course of the fifty-day operation, code-named “Protective Edge”, roughly 2,000 Gazans, sixty-six Israeli soldiers, and five Israeli civilians were killed. The Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that Donald Trump's administration had proposed was developed by American and Israeli diplomats without input from the Palestinians. Following the announcement of Trump's proposal on January 28, 2020, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel's intention to annex parts of the West Bank. In the 2021 Israel-Hamas Crisis, a conflict between the two was sparked by the eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and altercations at the al-Aqsa Mosque. At least ten people died in Israel and over two hundred in Gaza. 2022 turned out to be one of the deadliest years for both Israel and Palestine, with Israel launching a ‘counterterrorism’ operation in the West Bank. And finally, on October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel, leading to an explosion of violence. Mohammed Deif, the military chief of Hamas, claimed that Hamas launched its attack in response to Israel's protracted blockade of Gaza, its annexation of Palestinian territory, and its purported crimes against Muslims, which included the destruction of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was at war with Hamas.
コメント