Israeli – Palestinian Conflict
The historic legacy of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict is one bathed in blood, formed from the trampling of refugee feet and marked by years of repression and terror on both sides. Initially the conflict was due to the partitioning of the area that was known as Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. This was due to an influx of Jewish migrants to the area who claimed part of the land by right of ancestral heritage. It must be noted that this ancestral heritage is due historical records indicating that the area known as Palestine was originally the home of the Jewish people before the creation of the Roman Empire.
It was only after the area was occupied by Roman troops that it was renamed as Palestine. It was after the Roman era that Palestine was then conquered by the Arabs resulting in Arab rule over the area for well over a thousand years. By 1917 the area was granted to Britain as a protectorate area to help create a settlement for the displaced Jewish people. It was from this that the conflict between the Arab population and the immigrating Jewish population started to heat up due to the resentment of the local Arab populace over the arrival of the Jews who claimed the land as their own.
Following the mass exodus of Jews from Germany due to the Nazi Holocaust the need to create a Jewish state became imperative due to the strain on the local economy that these refugees represented. As such by 1947 the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two separate Arab and Jewish states. With this came an influx of eager Jewish settlers who effectively kicked out local inhabitants from the area that was partitioned off for them. Angry with the U. N’s decision and the actions of the Jewish settlers war broke out however due to the intervention of the U. S.
the Jewish population in the area was able to win a decisive victory over the Arabs and were able to expand their territory even more effectively displacing and creating several hundred thousand Palestinian refuges (Pliger 2003). From this point several wars broke out between Israel and the Arab states resulting in numerous acts of terrorism and reprisals from Israel effectively cementing a mutual hatred between Arabs and Israeli’s in the region. Efforts to create an effective two state solution to the Israeli – Palestinian are all dependent on both parties involved expressing good faith in proceedings.
Unfortunately due to the increased enmity between the two parties and recent news reports regarding the increasingly harsh methods of Israel in denying food aid to the Gaza strip indicates that this conflict won’t be resolved anytime soon and the creation of an effective and peaceful two state system seems far off. What this paper will discuss is why the quartet to peace roadmap is a failure in effectively resolving the Israeli – Palestine conflict as well as what methods would be more effective in creating an effective two state solution to the continuous amount of conflict happening in the region.
Why is the roadmap to peace a failure? When examining the quartet roadmap to peace and the different phases involved it becomes immediately obvious that it addresses possible solutions to the conflict by way of mediation, economic support and cooperation, unfortunately it does not address the direct cause of the problem between Israel and Palestine (BBC News 2003).
Delving deeper it becomes obvious that instead of just mere enmity between the two sides over past atrocities the real problem is that it is the conviction of people in both parties involved that all of the land of Palestine belongs exclusively to them and that no other party has the right to it and that the presence of the other party on their land is not only trespassing but also historically illegitimate (Platt 2009). Both parties are laying claim to the land and neither side wants to budge resulting in the present conflict between the two.
Past and current methods of resolution between the two have always focused on establishing peace and have not tried to resolve the issue of rightful claim to the region. As such it doesn’t come as a surprise that previous methods of peaceful resolution have failed since they only addressed the problems on the surface and not the underlying issue (Glick 2009). This particular situation can be compared to a person putting a bandage over a gaping wound. Sure the wound appears to be fine on the surface but underneath matters are still as problematic as ever as the wound grows worse and infection starts to set in.
The infection in the case of Israel and Palestine is the growing cycle of violence between the two wherein terrorist attacks are responded to by Israeli reprisals which leads to greater enmity and results in even more terrorist reprisals. In the end if the primary cause of the conflict isn’t resolved and is continuously being bandaged over by the groups attempting to resolve the conflict then this conflict will see no end till either the party chooses to give up their supposed ancestral claim which, as current events have shown, seems highly unlikely.
Possible Solutions So long as the original problem regarding land rights is not solved the conflict between Israel and Palestine will stand. Both populations cannot effectively integrate into one state since the effects of cultural and historical differences is a large a gap to bridge at the moment. On the other hand the creation of a two state system that does not address the main issue of land rights will continue to be a source of contention between the two.
Displacing either population to a different location is also not a possibility due to their conviction of ownership of the land. In order to find a more effective solution a look at the past is in order to a similar situation that happened in North America. It must be noted that when early American settlers first colonized the U. S. there was already a native population present at the time. As historical records have shown there was enmity between the two populations resulting in a great amount of violence and bloodshed similar to what is going between Israel and Palestine.
One of the solutions that was created in order to deal with local Indians was to creates local Indian reserves specifically designated for the Indian population. Unfortunately this led to the eventual decline of the indigenous people this is similar to the designated areas in the Gaza strip where due to the harsh conditions involved and the continuous repression by Israeli troops the people in the area are starting to decline in a similar fashion to the American Indian population that was starved due to a lack of resources.
There was an effective solution though that presented itself at time. Present day Manhattan Island was actually bought by Peter Minuit in 1624 from local American Indians to prevent the local settlers from being attacked. Such a solution could be created in the Israeli – Palestine conflict wherein Israel would buy the rights to the land from the Palestinian people at a reasonable rate and the financially enriched Palestinian people could be absorbed into the different Arab states.
With this solution not only would both parties be satisfied but it would address the primary issue regarding ownership rights to the land. Conclusion The current methods of resolution are ineffective in addressing the main problem behind the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. If true peace is to be created a means of addressing the problem regarding land rights must be created in order to fully resolve the issue without merely bandaging the problem. List of References BBC News. (2003). Road map to peace. Retrieved on June 07, 2010, from http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/2989783.
stm Glick, Caroline B. “The Stabilization Plan. ” Commentary 127, no. 6 (June 2009): 34-38. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed June 7, 2010). Platt, Edward. 2009. “Settlers or squatters?. ” New Statesman 138, no. 4950: 28-32. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed June 7, 2010). Pilger, John. “Every war Israel has waged since 1948 has had the same objective: expulsion of the native people and theft of more land. But why are we in the west silent on this truth?. ” New Statesman 12 Jan. 2009: 10+. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 7 June 2010.
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