Israel and Palestine have been well known to have a long history filled with conflicts and violence. In the past few days, however, the Israel-Palestine conflict has turned into a full-blown war, resulting in innumerable casualties.
Before, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish people coexisted peacefully in the Ottoman Empire (including today’s Israel, Gaza, and West Bank). However, this changed in WWI when the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the British gained control of that territory. Around the same time, Hilter came to power in Germany and exploited the Jewish population. Many Jew’s migrated to America, while others migrated to the British-ruled Ottoman Empire. However, the British later denied refugee status to them.
This, along with the discrimination faced by Jew’s in Germany, motivated them to demand a separate state for themselves. In addition to this, the Arab population also pressured for a separate nation, giving rise to the Palestine nationalist movement. The British failed to resolve this issue. Thus, violence between the Jews and the Arabs grew alongside protests against British rule leading to the termination of British rule.
In 1947, the UN released a partition plan, assigning 55% of land for Jews and 45% for Arabs. According to this, the West Bank and Gaza were given to Palestinians and the rest to Jew’s while keeping Jerusalem under international control due to its significance for the three religions. Jew’s accepted the plan and named their country Israel, but Arab-Palestinians were not pleased by this arrangement.
( UN Partition Plan)
This disagreement triggered a war, namely the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. The war was fought by five Arab countries against a newfound state of Israel. Surprisingly, Israel won the war, expanding its borders in the process. As a result, Palestinians were stateless and became refugees in the neighbouring countries.
In 1967, the second Arab-Israeli war took place and was again won by Israel in just six days. Now, Israel had political authority over Gaza, the West Bank, and a large portion of Egypt.
Palestinians had no land, they wanted their own country. Hence, they founded Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. The USA and Israel identified them as a terrorist organization. However, PLO was recognized as a Palestinian representation by the UN.
From 1967 to the 1980s, the West Bank and Gaza were under Israeli rule. During this period, many Israeli’s established their colonies in West Bank. More than 250 permanent settlements with 620,000 Israeli’s residing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory(The West Bank). These settlements were deemed illegal by the international communities as they were against the UN partition plan of 1948. The Palestinians saw them as colonizers.
In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin was elected Prime Minister (PM) of Israel. He said that PLO isn’t a terrorist organization. He believed that they just wanted a place for themselves and said Israel should give them that. Under him, Israel officially recognized PLO. For the first time, both sides came together to divide the land peacefully and fairly. This was known as the 1993 Oslo Accords. Subsequently, the Palestinian Government was established for the first time in 1994.
At this point, however, Israeli’s had already settled down in West Bank, and Palestinian’s were scattered all over. Therefore, the West Bank was divided into three parts - A, controlled by the Palestine Government, B, controlled by both the authorities, C, controlled by Israel. The Palestine-controlled area was pieces of land spread all over the West Bank, which created difficulty for the functioning of the government.
The PM of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and President of Palestine, Yasser Arafat received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for reaching this agreement. But, the entire situation quickly went downhill. Some extreme right-wing Jews assassinated their PM, Yitzhak Rabin. They were angered by the compromise with Palestine.
Simultaneously, unhappy with PLO, some Islamic extremists in Palestine formed another group called HAMAS. They felt PLO was too secular. Their mission was the complete eradication of Israel. They carried out suicidal bombings on Israel. This caused extreme polarization between the two sides.
In 2006, HAMAS won the Palestinian legislative elections defeating PLO. The two groups had clashing principles that caused an internal war between them in 2007. This was called the Battle of Gaza. As an outcome of the war, Palestine was divided into 2 parts- the Gaza region, occupied by HAMAS, and the West Bank region, governed by PLO(Fatah).
The attacks we are witnessing today are being launched by HAMAS in the Gaza region and Israel. The situation escalated in April 2021 when the Israeli government threatened the eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem which further led to protests, rallies, and fights. Rockets and airstrikes were carried out killing many innocent lives.
So, who is right?
Both the parties are fighting over the same piece of land whilst involving religion. There is no doubt that if given a chance, both countries would give endless reasons to justify their actions. The problem is that they don’t understand the effects of these on the decent victims. They are putting so many lives at stake. Not all Palestinian’s support HAMAS and not all Israeli’s justify the actions of their government. There are living breathing people who are suffering on either side of the border. Now, there is so much hatred between the people on both sides that they can’t see each other with compassion or respect. The unfortunate reality is that people are obsessed with labelling others based on colour, gender, region, and religion. Why can’t we just see each other as humans, as equals? We need to take a step back and retrospect. We cannot change what’s already happened, but we can learn from them and pave way for a better future.
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