There are lots of land occupation conflicts in the world, that have not been resolved although after several years. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of those conflicts. This conflict has not been resolved since 1947. Despite various attempts to resolve the conflict, the conflict has not been resolved and Israel and Palestine have been involved in various wars. The given picture is mostly used to describe the oppressed Palestinians. But there are both sides of views regarding the conflict but whatever the view you can look the Palestinian always remain oppressed. The conflict is not just regarding the occupation of the land but the occupation of Jerusalem also. Jerusalem is a holy place for Jews and as well as Muslims and none of them want to seize their holy place. That’s the reason the majority of Muslims are inclined in favor of Palestine and the majority of Jews are favoring the actions of Israel. We would be focusing on both views at the end but let’s look into the brief history of conflict to get to know the matter in detail.
Although the conflict is seeming to be 74 years old, yet the roots of this conflict were paved in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with upraise in nationalist movement among the Arabs and Jews. Those nationalists were striving for the sovereignty of their people in the Middle East. In 1917, the British government issue a public statement. That statement is known as the Balfour statement, which was supporting the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine. This statement supported the Jews nationalist movement and their activities increased, along with the immigration of Jews to Palestine. Those actions were regarded as the sole enemy of the cause of Palestinian Arab nationalists, who were struggling towards the establishment of a national home for Arabs of Palestine. As a result of these, a giant scale riot was initiated in Jerusalem against Jews in early 1920. This riot initiated the thoughts of establishing a paramilitary force by Jews and the Haganah force was established. After the riot of 1920, another riot was initiated against Jews in 1929. That resulted in massive causalities of Jews and force Jews to evacuate from Gaza and Hebron. The British government tried for the partition of Palestine in 1937 after the revolt of Arabs against Jews and the British Government but that was rejected by Palestinian Arabs and as well as by some Jewish leaders. Tension in the region remained high till world war II and at the end of world war II situation in Palestine calmed down.
In the pre-Holocaust, Jews strived to gain the support of the international community to overcome the Arab opposition in the land of Zionist but during the Holocaust when around six million Jews were genocide by German Nazis. At that time lots of Jews fled to Palestine and in order to take refuge. With the continuous immigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, Jews population was increasing in the area. Looking in to issue British government tried to resolve the issue between Jews and Arabs but were not able to do this peacefully. Later on, this issue was handed over to United Nations and on 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, later are known to be a partition plan. That resolution recommended the division of Palestine into three parts; the Arabs region, the Jews region, and an international trusteeship regime in Jerusalem. That was put down by the Arabs as they claimed that United Nations has no right to give away their area to Jews. With the extreme reaction from Arabs war broke out. In early 1948, it was clear that Arabs were losing the war and very near to collapse.
After the war, on 14th May 1948, the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed. Israelian government announced Israel as a safe heaven for Jews all over the world. After the 1948 war, due to strong support for Palestine in The Islamic world, violence against Jews grew in Islamic Countries. That lead Jews to flee to Israel and from 1948 to 1951, lots of Jews migrated to Israel that counts for 56% of the total immigration to the newly founded state. The Declaration of the establishment of Israel sparked the first Arab-Israel war. This war is important as its resulted in Israel gaining control of all the undecided area excluding the three areas: the West Bank, Jerusalem’s eastern quarter those were controlled by Jordan and the Gaza Strip that was controlled by Egypt. This war ended in 1949 resulting in 0.75 million Palestinians were forcefully displaced from their homes. The population of those have been grown to 4.5 millions and have been living in refugee camps since then.The Palestinians’ have been demanding peace talks in order to give the “right of return” to the descendants of 0.75 million who were forcefully displaced from their’s homes in 1948. That is one of the reasons that ongoing conflict has not been resolved as Palestines’ state they were forcefully displaced. Whereas the Israelis’ state that those have voluntarily left the region by the influence of some Arab leaders.
In June 1967, another major war broke between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. This war lasted only for 6 days and resulted in the defeat of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria by Israel. At the end of this war Israel gained control over the areas of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. The conflict between Egypt and Israel ended after they signed an accord named as Camp David Accords, which ended the thirty-year conflict.
In 1987, Palestinians rose up at Gaza and West bank against the Israeli government, in that rose up hundreds of thousands of Palestinians participated. This was later called the first intifada. In 1993, Israel and Palestine reached a deal of mutual recognition and giving some limited self-governance powers at Gaza and West bank. That is known as Oslo I Accords. In 1995, the Oslo I Accords was expended by the Oslo II Accords in which a complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank were mentioned. Oslo Accords was an interim agreement ahead of what was supposed to be a comprehensive peace deal within five years. That didn’t happen and in the coming years some escalations happened between Israel and Palestine forces and resulted in deaths from both sides but always the death count of Palestinians is always greater than that of Israelians.
At this point, we clearly are aware of the history of conflict and can give make some remarks on this conflict. Jerusalem is the holiest for Muslims, Christians, and Jews and throughout history, they have fought to rule over that area. Only mighty one seems to have control over that holy city in their respective times. So, saying Palestinian have full rights to own the area can be wrong. As we have witnessed in history about changing rulers and only following the single principle of “might is right”. The very same thing is happening here. Jews have been forced to exile from Europe as well as Muslim countries in past, they too surely needed their own land for the protection of their rights. Whereas being oppressed by others doesn’t give you the right of oppressing others. Jews have been treated ill but this does not justify the way they are treating Palestinian people. Palestinian also reserve their right of justice that the whole world is slowly started to recognizing and with time the number of Palestinian supporting countries is rising. As the world is recognizing Israeliann oppression against poor Palestinians.
