Israel-Palestine Conflict FINAL
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Examination of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: A Conflict Beyond Resolution
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I.
INTRODUCTION
The Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the most long-standing conflicts and perhaps the most complex conflict that the world has ever witnessed. The conflict is unique because of the involvement of global powers who are out to protect their own interests. Principal parties to the conflict have hardline stances and incompatible opinions that have rendered any attempts to resolve the conflict fruitless. For this reason, the conflict has become unresolvable and thus management of the conflict has been left as the only option. Until 2000, there were slim hopes that the peace process would bear fruits. As the following sections will show, the conflict took a turn for the worst. Any peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts led by the UN and western countries have failed to resolve the conflict. In his commentary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hesham Youssef notes that successive Israeli Prime Ministers have expressly stated that they would not revive the peace process which was abandoned in 2000 (Youssef, 2022). This is not good news for a conflict that has resulted in untold devastation and that is ongoing to this day
with no end in sight. This essay seeks to examine the peace process and explain why the peace process has failed and why there is little hope that the conflict will be resolved. The essay will explain how the evolution of the conflict after the Second Intifada which lasted from 2000 to 2005. The feelings of xenophobia, hostility and distrust rose to the levels never seen before and this impeded any form of dialogue that is needed for a successful peace process (Bar-Tal and Oren, 2000). This essay will identify “Three No’s” adopted by Arab nations after the 1967 war and which remain the long-standing position of Palestinians as an impediment to peaceful resolution of the conflict.
The “Three No’s” as explained by Youssef (2022) are no recognition of Israel as a state, no negotiations with Israel, and therefore no peace with Israel. Although the Arab Peace Initiative of
2002 led by Saudi Arabia fully reversed the “Three No’s”, this essay will explain how extremist groups such as Hamas still maintain the hardline stances that have made peace negotiations impossible. On its part, Israel has “Six No’s” which are no two-state solution, no one-state solution, no negotiations, no Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, no freezing of settlements and no return of Palestinian refugees living in neighboring countries to Israel (Youssef, 2022). It is ironic that the Israeli leadership has taken such hardline stances at the time when most of the neighboring Arab states have softened their stance by explicitly or impliedly recognizing Israel and showing commitment to peace negotiations. This essay adopts the definition of conflict resolution as the methodological processes and procedures aimed at stopping, suspending, transforming and reducing violent conflicts through non-violent means usually led by a third party (Long and Brecke, 2003). According to Schirch (2008), conflict resolution is an umbrella term that refers to the processes and procedures that are
involved in the eradication or control of the causes of conflict. This means that conflict management is part and parcel of conflict resolution. In the case of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, eradication of the root causes of the conflict is not possible and this leaves conflict management as the only viable option. This essay will examine the failure of peace negotiations in order to identify the reasons for the failure. The second section of this paper will briefly explain the history and background of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. The third section of the essay will form the bulk of the paper and will explain peace processes that have been carried out to date and then examine the reasons for their failure. The section will then explain how conflict management can be carried out in order to ease tensions and avoid the frequent flaring of skirmishes. II.
CONFLICT OVERVIEW
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Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three major religions of the world, have their origins in the Middle East. Both Jews and Palestinians claim the same territory which is the root cause for the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. As Yiftachel (2002) explains, at the heart of the conflict are two conflicting nationalistic ambitions that claim the entire region of Palestine, which comprises of the modern Israel and Palestinian territories of Gaza Strip and West Bank, as their homeland. Jews claim that the region historically belongs to them since the biblical times. Palestinians, on the other hand, also claim that the region is their homeland having settled there for a millennium.
Although the territorial claims between Jews and Arab Muslims date back many centuries, the current conflict started in the late 19
th
century and the beginning of the 20
th
century (Minahan, 2002). Jews who had been living in diaspora in Europe began a series of migrations back to Palestine with ambitions of re-establishing their national homeland. Palestine was under the Ottoman rule until 1917 when the region fell under the British control after Ottomans were defeated in the First World War. At this time, the Arab Muslims were the majority while Jews living in Palestine were the minority. The influx of Jews into Palestine intensified in the years following the start of the British mandate over Palestine. The Jews immigrated in order to flee persecution in Europe. Arab Muslims resisted the immigration of Jews as they considered the whole of Palestine as their rightful homeland (Minahan, 2002). After the end of the Second World War in 1945, western powers were sympathetic of the plight of Jews in Europe and committed to support an establishment of a Jewish state. In 1947, the UN passed a resolution that was intended at partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states
(Peters and Newman, 2013). In 1948, Israel declared its independence and the State of Israel was
established. The first Arab-Israeli war erupted in opposition of the establishment of the State of Israel which neighboring Arab countries did not recognize. Israel emerged victorious defeating a
coalition of Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. As a result, Palestine was divided into State of Israel and Palestinian territories of Gaza Strip and West Bank. Close to one million Palestinians were displaced by the war and became refugees in neighboring countries (Peters and
Newman, 2013). Tensions between Israel, on one hand, and Egypt, Jordan and Syria, on the other
hand, continued to escalate laying ground for the second Arab-Israeli war. The war was fought in
1967 in a span of six days when Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian forces who were preparing to attack the Jewish state. The 1967 war shaped the course of the conflict after it ended with Israel occupying Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, East Jerusalem and West Bank from Jordan and Golan Heights from Syria (Peters and Newman, 2013). Apart from Sinai Peninsula which was later returned to Egypt, Israel continues to occupy the territories it acquired in 1967 to this day and is one of the most contentious issues in the conflict. After the 1967 war, Arab countries agreed on “Three No’s” in which they vowed never to recognize Israel,
and neither to negotiate nor enter into peace agreement with the country. The third Arab-Israeli war was fought in 1973 after Egypt and Syria launched surprise simultaneous attacks on Israel during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Israel was able to reprise the attacks and the war ended without significance gains by Israel, Egypt and Syria (Peters and Newman, 2013). In the years following the third Arab-Israeli war, neighboring Arab countries have sought peace with Israel by signing different peace treaties that will be discussed in the following section. Even after relations between Israel and Arab neighbors improved over the time, the question of the independence of Palestine remained unresolved (Peters and Newman, 2013). The continued occupation of Palestinian territories and expanding Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and West Bank increased animosity that Palestinians had towards Jews. In 1987, hostilities and tensions had reached critical levels. As a result, a Palestinian uprising known as
the First Intifada started where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Gaza Strip and West Bank revolted against Israel. Peace process under Oslo Accords began in 1993 which was aimed at helping the Palestinian territories gain independence and ensure mutual recognition and peaceful coexistence between the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine. By 2000, the peace process would stall because of Israeli occupation of West Bank. Palestinian grievances resulted in the Second Intifada which lasted until 2005 (Falah, 2005). Since then, clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian groups such as Hamas, which controls Gaza Strip,
are common as part of the long-standing conflict. III.
THE PEACE PROCESS
The first attempt to resolve the Israel-Palestinian Conflict diplomatically was through Camp David Accords which was a peace treaty signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979. The treaty ended decades of hostilities between Israel and Egypt and culminated in return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt by Israel. It is to be remembered that Egypt had been Israel’s main antagonist in the series of Arab-Israeli wars. The prevailing sentiments at that time was that the Arab-
Muslim world had the responsibility to fight on behalf of Palestinians. The Egypt-Israel Treaty which was signed as part of the Camp David Accords is referred to as the Framework for Peace in the Middle East as it was aimed at ushering a peaceful settlement of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict (Matthews, 2011). However, the treaty did not address the root cause of the conflict and instead simply partially normalized political and economic relations between Egypt and Israel as Hitman and Kertcher (2018) explain. Although Camp David Accords have been able to prevent another Arab-Israeli war, the agreements did little to end Israeli occupation of West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Framework for Peace in the Middle East agreed by Israel and Egypt with the
United States mediating was rejected by the UN General Assembly because four reasons as
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explained by Pearlman (2009). First, treaty was agreed upon outside the auspices of the UN. Second, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was not allowed to attend the meeting to represent the interests of Palestinians. Third, the treaty did not recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced during the series of wars. Fourth, the treaty did not guarantee the right of self-governance, self-determination, national independence and sovereignty of Palestinians which is the primary cause of the conflict. The peace process of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict was initiated in 1991 at the Madrid Peace
Conference (Peters, 2010). The conference brought together the Arab countries that had been involved in the conflict with Israel and was mediated by the United States. Just like the Camp David Accords, the conference did not include the PLO or any other Palestinian group and therefore did not have significant positive outcomes towards resolution of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. According to Bell et al. (2021), peace processes at the international level have proved futile and this failure signifies the importance the space of conflict resolution being local. As a result, subsequent peace efforts have sought to bring the Israeli government and Palestinian authorities to the negotiation table in order to be able to come to a consensus. However, these efforts have not borne fruit for the reasons that will be explained in this section. Once it became clear that there would be no breakthrough with Madrid talks, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators began to meet in secret in Oslo, Norway (Waage, 2005). The result was the Oslo I Peace Accords of 1993 and 1995 between the Israeli government and Palestinians representatives which were the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. The Oslo Accords outlined the framework and conditions to be followed for the future State of Palestine. The basis of the Oslo Accords was Resolutions 242 and 338 of the UN Security Council that were passed after the 1967 and 1973 wars respectively. The Oslo I Accords resulted in transfer of power and
responsibilities from Israel to Palestinians. The entire Gaza Strip and major cities in the West Bank such as Hebron and Bethlehem achieved self-governance for the first time (Malik, 2001). Although the Oslo Accords shone a ray of hope that the conflict would ultimately be resolved, hardliners in Israel were opposed to establishment of State of Palestine and forfeiture of territories conquered after the 1967 war (Even, 2013). The hardliners expressed concerns that the
Oslo Accords would pave way for declaration of independence by Palestinians to the detriment of the Jewish Zionist ambitions. The then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tried to assure the opposition that the agreements were good for Israel as a democratic state and for peace in the Middle East to no avail (Even, 2013). The opposition was so strong to the extent that Rabin was seen as a traitor and was as a result assassinated in 1995. The assassination of Rabin was a significant event in the peace process. A right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu took over and the achievements of the Oslo Accords were reversed. Israel solidified its occupation of West Bank by doubling settlements (Even, 2013). In response, Palestinian militant groups staged attacks against Israel which prompted retaliatory actions by Israeli military (Even, 2013). Peace negotiations effectively came to a halt and any progress that had been made was reversed. Peace talks continued without any breakthrough. The most significant was the Second Camp David Summit which was held in 2000. The summit was convened by the then US President Bill Clinton and in attendance were Palestinian and Israeli leaders Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak respectively (Schulze, 2001). During the summit, Israel offered to give Palestinians 66% of the West Bank if certain conditions
were met. The conditions were that Israel was to be allowed to annex 17% of the West Bank and further 17% of the West Bank to be under Israeli control albeit not officially annexed. Israel would not cede any territory in return (Schulze, 2001). Another proposal was that Israel offered
Palestinians 91% of the West Bank if all the Jewish settlements in the West Bank were ceded to Israel. This meant that most part of East Jerusalem would be ceded to Israel. According to the proposal offered by Israel, the question of the return Palestinian refugees would be solved by Israel giving significant monetary reparations (Schulze, 2001). Arafat rejected these proposals outright without offering counter-proposals. The US blamed Arafat for the failure of these talks. The subsequent Taba summit which was held in 2001 ended in disagreement between the Israeli government and Palestinians. The proposal at the summit was that 94-96% of the West Bank would be under the Palestinian control and that 80% of settlements in West Bank would be ceded
to Israel. In return, Israel would cede some of its territories to the State of Palestine (Schulze, 2001). Although the Palestinians were agreeable with this arrangement, the Israeli side did not agree. The complexity of the conflict has increased since the Second Intifada making the resumption of the peace process unlikely under the present conditions. From the preceding paragraphs of this section, it is clear that the primary approach of the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the two-state solution. Under this approach, an independent State of Palestine would be established which would comprise of the Gaza Strip and
most of the West Bank. The rest of the territory in the larger Palestine would be recognized as belonging to Israel. Although this approach appears to be the most viable solution in theory, it has proved impossible to implement in practice. There are various barriers that have prevented the attainment of a two-state solution. The first barrier results from the hardline stances from both sides that have made any agreement almost impossible. The right-wing government in Israel, on one hand, and extremist Palestinian groups, on the other hand, have vowed not to recognize independence of each other and never to negotiate any peace agreement. For this reason, each side is always preparing for the next war. The hardline stances in the form of “Three
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No's” by Palestinians countered by “Six No’s” by Israel stem from the ideological societal beliefs
that underly the conflict. As explained earlier, both Jews and Arab-Muslims claim the land between River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea as their exclusive homeland. According to Bar-
Tal and Oren (2000), there are two sources of these beliefs. The first source is religious-national which stems from religious and historical discourse. The two sides refuse to accept any compromise to divide the land because they feel that is contrary to their religion and national history. The second source is security and national considerations as each side perceives each other as an existential threat that they cannot live alongside each other. For this reason, each side considers itself a victim of the other side and that is why violence against each other is justified thus making the conflict difficult to resolve. The second barrier is the role of third parties in the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The US remains the dominant player in the peace process as the major processes have been initiated by the US government. The neutrality of the US in the talks has always been a matter of contention. Palestinians have always accused the US and the West of favoring Israel by not doing enough to stop the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and what they consider to be “Israeli apartheid”. It is known that the US has vested interests in the Middle East and its priority is therefore to safeguard those interests and not to necessarily resolve the Israel-
Palestinian Conflict. The US invasion of various Middle eastern countries has oftentimes been likened to the Israeli attacks and occupation of Palestinian territories. Furthermore, the recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel by the former US President Donald Trump has eroded the trust that Palestinians have on the US as the mediator in the conflict (Viveash, 2021). Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have since made peace with Israel and appear to favor Israel. This has resulted in feelings of
abandonment among Palestinians who are now left with no option but to take matters in their own hands instead of committing to the peace process. This is why militant groups such as Hamas have been able to come to power with the support of Palestinians because they are seen as acting in the interests of Palestinians.
Connected to the second barrier is the issue of the negotiation strategy that has been applied during the peace talks. As Even (2013) explains, Israel has adopted the “from the beginning to end” approach while Palestinians have favored the “from end to beginning”. The first approach is
based on the idea that negotiations advance progressively step by step where the beginning is known but the end is unknown. Each progress made dictates the next level of negotiations. Israel favors this approach because of the erroneous assumption that it remains in control of the peace process from the start to the end (Even, 2013). The second approach is based on the idea of ascertaining the goals at the beginning of the negotiations and then working backwards to realize
those goals. Palestinians have favored this approach in order to avoid agreeing to anything that would compromise their goals (Even, 2013). This explains why Arafat refused the offer by Israel during the Second Camp David Summit as this would have placed most of East Jerusalem under Israeli control. The opposing negotiating strategies adopted by the parties have made it impossible to have a common ground that is essential for conflict resolution. IV.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the root cause of the failure of the peace process in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict stems from the hardline stances that have made it impossible to compromise on key issues such as security, borders, status of refugees, status of Jerusalem and settlements. Each side
sees itself as the legitimate occupier of the Palestine and the claims of the other as illegitimate. The goals, needs and wants of each party in the conflict are opposing to the extent that war is a
favorable option as opposed to making any compromises. The Israel-Palestinian Conflict has resulted in three inter-state conflicts and numerous skirmishes between Jews and Arab-Muslims. Despite the magnitude of the conflict, it is clear that Western peace brokers led by the US did not
fully understand the conflict. During the Camp David agreements of 1978, the assumption made was that Egypt would persuade Palestinians to also pursue peace with Israel. However, this proved not to be the case as the conflict kept on evolving. For this reason, it can be said that the failure of third-party mediators during the initial stages of the conflict has made the situation worse and the conflict more complex. It is clear that a two-state resolution has failed. It will be seen what the future holds. There are suggestions that one-state resolution is the only viable solution considering the politics and demographics of Palestine today. This suggestion gives rise to weighty question of who will be in control of the single state, the Jews or Palestinians? REFERENCES
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