The recent and ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine isn’t anything new. But what many fail to realize is that in the formation of Israel as a country, Palestine and its people lost their homes, their country and their pride. It began decades ago with the forced ‘manifest destiny’ by the Israeli’s to form their own nation.
Beginning after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of World War I Palestine was under British control. Under the League of Nations, Palestine would remain under British control from 1920 until 1948. The Palestinians that occupied the area, had the land promised to them in the McMahan Agreement for helping the Allies defeat the Turkish during the war. The land that we are talking about sits between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. However the British claim that no deal was ever made. The same area of land that was promised to the Palestinians was also promised to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration after 1920. After this many Jews flocked to the area and began to set up settlements. In the beginning there was harmony with the Palestinians, Jews and British living all together. But the Palestinians were still under the impression that the land belonged to them just as the Jews believed it was theirs.
In August of 1929 relations between the Jews and the Palestinians would break down over Jerusalem. The main concern was the number of Jews that had gathered in the area, which had nearly doubled in 10 years. The area of Jerusalem held religious significance to both the Jews and the Palestinians which housed Solomon’s Temple and the Dome of the Rock. Violence was going to erupt in the region but it didn’t deter the Jews from emigrating to the area. In 1931, 4,075 Jews entered the area and in 1935 the number grew to 61,854. The Mufti (Islamic Scholar) of Jerusalem warned the numbers would just grow in 1940’s and that the Palestinians would lose political power based on those numbers alone. In May of 1936 the British were able to restore some sort of control by using military force. However this only lasted for a short period of time and in November of that same year the violence escalated. In the eyes of the Palestinians and the Jews, the British were the enemy. Seeing this conflict from both sides the British decided to put a quota on how many Jews could enter the region. They hoped that this would cause the Palestinians to see that the British would limit the number of Jews, but also hoped that the Jews could see that they were still letting them into the ‘promised’ land. This caused the British to get attacked on both fronts. By the Palestinians because they believed the British to be reneging on their promise in the McMahan Agreement and by the Jews because they believed the quota to be unfair.
During World War II many Jews fought for the Allies. It was during this time that they were able to develop their military skills. The New Labour Government that was formed by the British had given the Jews hope that after the war they would receive more rights in the region. Plus, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, many in Europe were sympathetic to the horrors that had just occurred to the Jewish people. However everyone in the situation was unhappy and the British began to look for a way out of it completely. In 1947, the United Nations, which was still new at the time, proposed partitioning the Palestinian land and creating an area for the Jews and the Palestinians. The United States also took up the Zionist cause and rallied for an Israeli state. The new nation was going to possess more take half of Palestine, even though they did not have the most people. Again, the new state of Israel was going to take up half of Palestine.
The British finally were able to withdraw from the region on May 14, 1948. War broke out immediately with the Palestinians refusing to recognize the newly formed Israel, but the United States immediately recognized the new state. Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the area. The Israelis were ill-equipped but they managed to fend off attack and in the process they seized more territory that belonged to the Palestinians including Galilee, the Palestinian coast and a strip of land that connected the coastal region to western Jerusalem. After a UN negotiated cease-fire, it was concluded that the newly seized area would remain in Israeli control. This now left more than half the country under Israeli control. Another major eruption of violence would break out in 1967 during the Six Day war when Israel would once again increase its borders by claiming the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and they managed to push out the Jordanian forces from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This particular conflict displaced around 500,000 Palestinians. While the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1979, Israel has yet to return any of the seized Palestinian land.
After the 1967 war, settlements began to pop up in the West Bank separating Palestinian communities and making it increasingly hard for the Palestinians to have any claim to the land. The settlements actually helped to blur any real borders that would help to make Palestine a country. For Palestinians who live in the area many daily activities were made extremely difficult. Many roads that were set up in the Jewish settlements were Israeli only roads and the Palestinians were forced to have to go thru security checkpoints. The Palestinians were being confined to certain areas. The legality of the settlements has been called into question and many international lawyers have stated that the settlements actually violate part of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states that a population cannot transfer to an occupied territory. This means basically that because the West Bank was seized and became an occupied territory, it cannot be populated by the Israeli people. To this day Israel is disputes that fact.
In recent years many Palestinians have been confined to the area known as Gaza, where in order to travel one would need a special pass from the Israeli government. The area was under Israeli control until the military pulled out in 2005. The area is governed by a political party called Hamas. Hamas is an Islamist group that formed as a resistance to Israel in 1987. In 2006 the group won political power in an election that the United States oversaw. When this happened, Israel put the entire area of Gaza under a blockade cutting of basic supplies to the area and endangering the lives of innocent civilians. The Israelis claimed that the goods could be used as weapons against Israel. We’re talking about basic goods here. The legality of the blockades has been questioned and opponents argue that the blockades lead to a humanitarian crisis. The United Nations Human Rights Council has ruled that the blockade put in by the Israeli’s is, in fact, illegal. Israel controls the coast of Gaza and every entrance from the border that crosses into Israel. Businesses are constantly failing in Gaza because they can’t get their goods out. Food is allowed into the country, but millions of Palestinians aren’t getting enough fresh meat, fruit and vegetables.
The current conflict started June 10, 2014 with the disappearance of three Israeli students. On June 30th their bodies were found. It is assumed that the culprits were Hamas, however this has not been proven. But based on this lack of evidence Israel responded with a large bombing campaign in which they were targeting areas where Hamas was thought to be, including UN shelters and schools. Gaza responded with a bombing of their own that was carried out by Palestinian militant groups other than just Hamas. On July 2nd the body of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was found near his home in Jerusalem. It appeared that he had been burned to death. The police arrested six Israelis for the murder who claimed that they did in retaliation for the three murdered Israeli students. Following this violence erupted between the two sides. Then on July 5th a video came to light showing a 15-year-old Palestinian-American boy being brutally beaten while being detained by Israeli police officers. This is an American boy who just happens to be Palestinian being beaten by Israeli police. Yet the United States continues to support the occupation and almost genocide of the Palestinian people.
On July 17 Israel invaded Gaza. This is the first invasion since 2009. They have vowed to destroy all tunnels used by Hamas to enter in to Israel. Instead they have left Gaza in completely ruins. Yes, rockets have been sent into Israel by Hamas. But let’s be real here, this conflict was started way before June 10 and it wasn’t started by Palestine. Israel in this case, is the aggressor. Today the killing continues with the Palestinian death toll standing at nearly 2,000 civilians being murdered. The Israeli death toll stands at 67 deaths with only 3 being civilian deaths, so most have been Israeli military.
The fighting continues today and will probably not stop until the extremely reasonable requests of Gaza are met. Currently they are asking for the economic blockade put in place by Israel to be lifted. They also want the Israeli occupation to end and to be recognized as their own country. Currently the United Nations has recognized the nation of Palestine. And of the 139 nations that make up the UN, 134 have recognized Palestine. The United States currently does not recognize them. It seems that this conflict is never going to end until we realize that it isn’t the Palestinians at fault here. Israel has done a great job at convincing the world that they are the victims when in fact they have the strongest military that the United States can provide versus guerilla fighters with unguided rockets. Israel is not the victim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has justified the Palestinian civilian deaths by blaming Hamas. But I’m sorry Mr. Netanyahu, it is your country that is firing repeatedly into a largely civilian territory, with a population per square kilometer of around 4,500 people, in comparison with New York who only has around 2,500 people per square kilometer. How are you not going to hit civilians? These deaths lay solely on you. They are the result of your actions. You pen everyone in, won’t let anyone leave and then condemn them for hiding behind women and children. All of whom are stranded and at your mercy. The rockets are a resistance your occupation. Standing on the memory of the Holocaust does not give Israel the right spit in the face of the Palestinians who just want their own country. In fact, it disgraces the memory of those who died at Auschwitz because what is happening now, keeping an entire people locked up and then randomly bombing them, echo’s of your own past oppression.
Sources:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/palestine_1918_to_1948.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/state-of-israel-proclaimed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/
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