Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

1. Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Can it be solved?

2. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has its roots all the way back into the early days of Judaism. According to Jewish teachings, God promised Abraham and his descendents that the land of Canaan would be theirs. With the coming of the Roman Empire, the Jewish people were spread throughout Europe from around 300AD/CE until the early 1900’s.

3. In 1897 the Zionist Conference was created and held its first meeting. This was a group of Jewish leaders who desired to have a new Jewish nation created in the Middle East. The group did not receive all that much world-wide recognition until 1917 when the British made the Balfour Declaration. This declaration stated that the English had the goal of creating a Jewish nation in the area known as Palestine, in the Middle East. Once a powerful nation such as England made this statement, the Arabs living in the region were angered and Arab vs Jewish violence spread throughout the Middle East and Europe.

4. The idea of the Balfour Declaration did not gain much steam until the end of World War II. When the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps were discovered, other European powers as well as the United States got behind the idea of creating a Jewish State. By 1948 the United Nations had created the country of Israel in the area of Palestine. Violence between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations increased. On May 15 1948, the second day of Israeli existence, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan attacked Israel. Israel won a war that lasted for 13 months.

5. When the war was over, waves of Palestinians (those who had or claimed to have lived in the area of Palestine prior to Israel’s creation), moved into Israel. Some of them brought violence with them as they fought, shot, and bombed many Israeli neighborhoods or government buildings. By 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization or PLO was created. Its goal was the “destruction of Israel” and the creation of a new Palestinian nation in the region.

6. In 1964 another war broke out between Israel and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. In this Six Days War, Israel again won and was able to take over the new territories of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. Israel used these new territories as a buffer zone against further attacks.

7. The modern form of terrorism began in 1972 at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. At the Olympics, 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were taken hostage by a Palestinian group known as “Black September”. Eventually all 11 of the hostages were killed.

8. In 1979, a major break occurred in Arab-Israeli relations. US President Jimmy Carter invited Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to meet. In the Camp David Accords, the two signed a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which promised Peace Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Palestinians angry about the agreement

9. Since Camp David, many negotiations have been held to try to keep the peace in the region. Typically it is expected that Israel will give some of its land up in exchange for peace. It seems that whenever negotiations are going well, a terrorist attack takes place and the Israelis respond by killing many in return. This eventually ends the peace talks. One advance occurred in 1991 when the PLO changed its charter and officially recognized that Israel has a “right to exist”. The PLO also has a seat as an observer in the United Nations. They do not have a vote.