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Fighting for a homeland
Newspapers and TV channels are carrying daily reports about the grim situation in the Middle East; i.e. Palestine and now Lebanon. We hear of raids on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the Israeli attack on Lebanon. There is continuous unrest in the region and it is important to take a trip back in history and see how it all started.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has its roots in the 1880s when the Zionist movement gained strength in Europe. This movement advocated the idea of a separate Jewish state in the area that comprised Palestine, which Jews believed to be their ‘Promised Land’. The Jewish community bought land in Palestine. This area was under the Ottoman Empire. Ninety-five per cent of the local population at that time were Arab Muslims and Christians. Only five per cent comprised the Jews.
In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration that legitimised the formation of a Jewish state. It also pledged to uphold the rights of the non-Jewish people in that area. However, the Arabs opposed this idea.
In 1920, the British were given provisional mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. In 1929, the Jewish Agency for Palestine was created. The Arabs opposed the mandate fiercely and fighting began in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa and Haifa. The British responded to the violence and attempted to curb further Jewish immigrations. This, however, was opposed fiercely by the Zionist movement.
In the 1930s, the number of Jewish immigrations increased greatly as a result of the persecutions that the Nazi regime had carried out. The British government found themselves in a situation that they could neither control nor extricate themselves from. They finally decided to withdraw and leave the problem to the United Nations that came up with a partition plan. According to the UN Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, the Arabs were to get 44 per cent of the territory and the Jews 54.5 per cent, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem under international stewardship.
The Arabs, who were in the majority, rejected the plan and an open war ensued between them and the Jews. Many Arab countries such as Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq became involved. The British withdrew on May 15, 1948; a day earlier the establishment of the State of Israel had been proclaimed. The Arab world declared its intention of establishing a United State of Palestine. The fighting ended with the signing of the Rhodes Armistice which officially handed over to Israel the control of the areas allotted to the Jews as well as more than half the territory allotted to the Arab state. Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank.
In 1967, the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran resulted in an attack carried out by the Israeli forces that led to the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula by Israel. In response to Syrian and Jordanian shelling, Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. This war is also known as the six-day war.
In 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a joint attack in Sinai and the Golan Heights. During the first 24-48 hours, the Egyptians and the Syrians advanced successfully. But by the second week of the war, the Golan Heights were captured by the Israeli forces and in Sinai the Egyptain forces were cut off as the Israeli military crossed the Suez Canal and the UN ceasefire came into effect.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has given rise to various points of views amongst those affected by it. Some advocate the bi-national solution; some favour the two-state solution while some support the complete elimination of the other community. The bi-national solution promotes the idea of both communities co-existing with equal rights, whereas the two-state solution supports the idea of two separate nation-states (Jewish and Arab). According to this idea, the Arab inhabitants would be given citizenship by the state of Palestine whereas Arab citizens of present-day Israel could either opt to live there or become citizens of the new Palestinian state. A number of accords and agreements were signed in an attempt to bring about peace in the region, but unfortunately, no permanent solution has been found.
The Oslo Accords, that were the result of the efforts of the Madrid Conference of 1991, were signed in 1993 and represented a landmark peace move as the Palestinians and Israelis recognised each other’s right to exist. But it was opposed by hardliners. It involved the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organisation headed by Yasser Arafat. However, nothing has gone according to plan. Israel accuses the Palestinians of being terrorists because of the attacks they have carried out on Israeli territory, while Palestinians are unhappy with Israel for creating Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli atrocities against Palestinian civilians also continue unabated.
Neither side wants to give up Jerusalem as their capital in the future. The right of return of Palestinian refugees has also been a bone of contention. Many summits have been held under international, especially American, monitoring but to no avail. The Palestinians started the Intifada in the 1980s to protest against Israeli policies. Militant Islamic groups all over the world cite Israeli injustices to the Palestinians as one of the reasons for their resentment against the West that is seen to support Israel.
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