Tim lawsonA history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
March 31st 2010 04:16
The bloodshed continues as the decades-old conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and the state of Israel descends into a seemingly endless cycle of violence. But why are they fighting? Why are we seeing images of blood stained Palestinian children and the suicide bombings of Israeli civilians on our news, year after year? In order to understand the conflict we need to look at its history.
The Jewish people claim descent from the ancient Israelites. Around 1000 B.C. King David conquered Jerusalem and established control over most of Canaan. Following his son Solomon’s reign, the kingdom was divided into two parts, with Israel in the north and Judea in the south.
Following this, the Israelite kingdoms were subjected to the rule of several foreign empires. In A.D. 135, the Roman Empire crushed the Bar Kochba Revolt, a major Jewish rebellion against Roman rule, and drove the majority of Jews out of Jerusalem and its surrounding lands. The Romans renamed the land Palestina, which became Palestine in English. In the seventh century, Muslim Arabs conquered Palestine; over time many of the inhabitants adopted Arab culture and Islam. The land was predominantly ruled by Arab empires up until 1516, when it became part of the Ottoman Empire.
A main catalyst to the modern conflict can be traced to the Zionist movement. Zionism originated in the late nineteenth century, a nationalist and political movement which asserted that Jews had a right to a Jewish state and that Israel should be in their historic homeland. The movement encouraged immigration of Jews to Palestine and tens of thousands of Jewish people migrated to the area under Ottoman and then British rule.
Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain was given control of Palestine through a League of Nations mandate. The British promised the Zionist’s a Jewish national homeland in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; this promise angered the Arabic population as they believed it contradicted promises made to them. Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s there was heavy immigration of Jewish people to Palestine; tensions between Arab and Jewish groups erupted into full scale violence.
After World War II Britain handed the issue of Palestine to the United Nations. In 1947, the U.N approved the partition of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Arab League rejected the proposal. A brief civil war erupted and on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. Immediately, troops from the surrounding Arab countries invaded Palestine. The ensuing war resulted in an Israeli victory, with Israel capturing additional territory; Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan, Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan held the West Bank. Around 726,000 Arabs fled or were driven out of Israel. Jewish minorities in the surrounding Arab countries fled or were expelled, many of them to Israel. The surrounding Arab countries refused to permanently accept the Palestinian refugees on the grounds that they had a right to return to Israel. About one million Palestinians still live in refugee camps. Debate about their right to return to Israel is one of the major issues contributing to the conflict.
The Arab countries refused to recognise Israel’s statehood, and Palestinian resistance groups were formed with the goal of liberating Palestine. Fatah was founded in 1954 under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, and the group joined the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1967.
In 1967 the Six-Day War began. Egypt formed a union with Syria, Jordan and Iraq and stationed troops along the Israeli border. Subsequently Israel attacked and conquered the Sinai Dessert and Gaza strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, as well as East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. The Six-Day War bought one million Palestinians under Israeli rule. The Palestinian resistance changed its focus to liberating the West Bank and Gaza strip. The capture of East Jerusalem eventually led Israeli Government to declare the whole city as its indivisible capital in 1980. This has become a major issue in the conflict because the Palestinians envision Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and the city is home to both Jewish and Islamic holy sites.
Hostilities continued between Israel and the Arab states and in 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty. Growing tensions between the PLO and Israel caused the 1982 Lebanon war, after much bloodshed the PLO was forced to withdraw. A general feeling of helplessness spread amongst the Palestinians and in 1987 the First Intifada occurred, a massive uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
During the intifada, Hamas was founded as a Palestinian resistance organization. Many countries, including Israel and the US consider Hamas a terrorist organization as it has carried out suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians; Hamas has gained favour with Palestinians for establishing schools, hospitals, libraries and other social services in the West Bank and Gaza strip.
The first real attempts at negotiation came with the 1993 Oslo peace process. During the process, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established under the leadership of Arafat and the PLO, and given authority to govern Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza Stip. The PNA was expected to recognise Israel, and in turn Israel was expected to begin a transfer of land and stop its settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The process ultimately failed as both parties showed no strong commitment to upholding their agreements. The bloodshed continued with the Second Intifada, another major uprising that was sparked by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial visit to The Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In 2005 Ariel Sharon initiated a disengagement plan in which Israel began to remove all Israeli civilian and military presence from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
The conflict intensified when Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections. Israel immediately sealed off the Gaza Strip and enforced a siege around it. Internal conflict between Hamas and Fatah sparked a brief civil war in which Hamas successfully took complete control of the Gaza Strip, with Fatah remaining in control of the West Bank. An increased level of Qassam rocket attacks against Israel by Palestinian militants resulted in Israel declaring Gaza as hostile territory as well as preventing the transfer or fuel, electricity and other essential supplies. Hamas increased the number of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel, and Israel conducted airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza during 2007 and 2008. In June 2008, a six-month ceasefire was established. Towards the end of the truce period, Hamas announced that it would not be extending the ceasefire, because the Israelis had not honoured their commitment to lifting the border restrictions. The Israelis countered this by saying that border restrictions would have been lifted gradually as rocket attacks were ceased.
Following repeated rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli settlements, On December 27, 2008 Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a military campaign targeting Hamas leaders and infrastructure. The Israeli army launched airstrikes in Gaza killing over 200 people and injuring more than 1000. The attack is considered to be the largest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict. The airstrikes continued over the next week, as key Hamas infrastructure was destroyed and many Hamas commanders were killed in their homes.
On January 3, Israeli troops entered Gaza; heavy fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army ensued for many days. On January 15, Israeli artillery started bombing the city while fighting was still going on in the streets. During the conflict Hamas substantially increased its rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities. Hostilities subsided with Israel declaring a unilateral ceasefire.
The Jewish people claim descent from the ancient Israelites. Around 1000 B.C. King David conquered Jerusalem and established control over most of Canaan. Following his son Solomon’s reign, the kingdom was divided into two parts, with Israel in the north and Judea in the south.
Following this, the Israelite kingdoms were subjected to the rule of several foreign empires. In A.D. 135, the Roman Empire crushed the Bar Kochba Revolt, a major Jewish rebellion against Roman rule, and drove the majority of Jews out of Jerusalem and its surrounding lands. The Romans renamed the land Palestina, which became Palestine in English. In the seventh century, Muslim Arabs conquered Palestine; over time many of the inhabitants adopted Arab culture and Islam. The land was predominantly ruled by Arab empires up until 1516, when it became part of the Ottoman Empire.
A main catalyst to the modern conflict can be traced to the Zionist movement. Zionism originated in the late nineteenth century, a nationalist and political movement which asserted that Jews had a right to a Jewish state and that Israel should be in their historic homeland. The movement encouraged immigration of Jews to Palestine and tens of thousands of Jewish people migrated to the area under Ottoman and then British rule.
Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain was given control of Palestine through a League of Nations mandate. The British promised the Zionist’s a Jewish national homeland in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; this promise angered the Arabic population as they believed it contradicted promises made to them. Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s there was heavy immigration of Jewish people to Palestine; tensions between Arab and Jewish groups erupted into full scale violence.
After World War II Britain handed the issue of Palestine to the United Nations. In 1947, the U.N approved the partition of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Arab League rejected the proposal. A brief civil war erupted and on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. Immediately, troops from the surrounding Arab countries invaded Palestine. The ensuing war resulted in an Israeli victory, with Israel capturing additional territory; Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan, Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan held the West Bank. Around 726,000 Arabs fled or were driven out of Israel. Jewish minorities in the surrounding Arab countries fled or were expelled, many of them to Israel. The surrounding Arab countries refused to permanently accept the Palestinian refugees on the grounds that they had a right to return to Israel. About one million Palestinians still live in refugee camps. Debate about their right to return to Israel is one of the major issues contributing to the conflict.
The Arab countries refused to recognise Israel’s statehood, and Palestinian resistance groups were formed with the goal of liberating Palestine. Fatah was founded in 1954 under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, and the group joined the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1967.
In 1967 the Six-Day War began. Egypt formed a union with Syria, Jordan and Iraq and stationed troops along the Israeli border. Subsequently Israel attacked and conquered the Sinai Dessert and Gaza strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, as well as East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. The Six-Day War bought one million Palestinians under Israeli rule. The Palestinian resistance changed its focus to liberating the West Bank and Gaza strip. The capture of East Jerusalem eventually led Israeli Government to declare the whole city as its indivisible capital in 1980. This has become a major issue in the conflict because the Palestinians envision Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and the city is home to both Jewish and Islamic holy sites.
Hostilities continued between Israel and the Arab states and in 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty. Growing tensions between the PLO and Israel caused the 1982 Lebanon war, after much bloodshed the PLO was forced to withdraw. A general feeling of helplessness spread amongst the Palestinians and in 1987 the First Intifada occurred, a massive uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
During the intifada, Hamas was founded as a Palestinian resistance organization. Many countries, including Israel and the US consider Hamas a terrorist organization as it has carried out suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians; Hamas has gained favour with Palestinians for establishing schools, hospitals, libraries and other social services in the West Bank and Gaza strip.
The first real attempts at negotiation came with the 1993 Oslo peace process. During the process, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established under the leadership of Arafat and the PLO, and given authority to govern Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza Stip. The PNA was expected to recognise Israel, and in turn Israel was expected to begin a transfer of land and stop its settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The process ultimately failed as both parties showed no strong commitment to upholding their agreements. The bloodshed continued with the Second Intifada, another major uprising that was sparked by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial visit to The Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In 2005 Ariel Sharon initiated a disengagement plan in which Israel began to remove all Israeli civilian and military presence from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
The conflict intensified when Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections. Israel immediately sealed off the Gaza Strip and enforced a siege around it. Internal conflict between Hamas and Fatah sparked a brief civil war in which Hamas successfully took complete control of the Gaza Strip, with Fatah remaining in control of the West Bank. An increased level of Qassam rocket attacks against Israel by Palestinian militants resulted in Israel declaring Gaza as hostile territory as well as preventing the transfer or fuel, electricity and other essential supplies. Hamas increased the number of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel, and Israel conducted airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza during 2007 and 2008. In June 2008, a six-month ceasefire was established. Towards the end of the truce period, Hamas announced that it would not be extending the ceasefire, because the Israelis had not honoured their commitment to lifting the border restrictions. The Israelis countered this by saying that border restrictions would have been lifted gradually as rocket attacks were ceased.
Following repeated rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli settlements, On December 27, 2008 Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a military campaign targeting Hamas leaders and infrastructure. The Israeli army launched airstrikes in Gaza killing over 200 people and injuring more than 1000. The attack is considered to be the largest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict. The airstrikes continued over the next week, as key Hamas infrastructure was destroyed and many Hamas commanders were killed in their homes.
On January 3, Israeli troops entered Gaza; heavy fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army ensued for many days. On January 15, Israeli artillery started bombing the city while fighting was still going on in the streets. During the conflict Hamas substantially increased its rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities. Hostilities subsided with Israel declaring a unilateral ceasefire.
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