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ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
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This article documents a current event.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a part of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict, is an ongoing conflict between the State of Israel and Palestinian Arabs.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a simple two-sided conflict with all Israelis (or even all Israeli Jews) sharing one point of view and all Palestinians another. In both communities, some individuals and groups advocate total territorial removal of the other community, some advocate a two-state solution, and some advocate a binational solution of a single secular state encompassing present-day Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
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History
Since the Oslo Accords, the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been officially committed to an eventual two-state solution. The main unresolved issues between these two bodies are:
The refugee issue arose as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The issue of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem arose as a result of the Six-Day War in 1967.
There has been both literal prolonged violent conflict, with various levels of intensity, and the underlying conflict of ideas, goals and principles. On both sides, there have at various times been parties who differ in the degree to which they advocate or use the violent tactics, active non-violence, etc. There are people who sympathize with the goals of one or the other side, without necessarily embracing the tactics that have been used on behalf of those goals; further, there are those who embrace at least some of the goals of both sides. And to refer to "both" sides is, itself, a simplification: Fatah and Hamas are far from agreement over goals for the Palestinians; the same could be said for the various Israeli political parties, even if discussion is limited to the Jewish Israeli parties.
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| The emblems of major Palestinian organizations include a map of present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Significant populations of Palestinians and Israelis alike claim a right to the entire region). |
Those qualifications mean that any rapid summary of the nature of the conflict is bound to be very partial. That said, those who advocate violent Palestinian resistance generally justify doing so as legitimate resistance to an illegitimate Israeli military occupation of Palestine supported by military and diplomatic assistance from the United States. Many tend to view the armed Palestinian resistance within the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a right granted by the Geneva conventions and the United Nations Charter, and some extend this view to justify attacks, frequently against civilians, within Israel proper. Another popular justification is based on Islamic (some call it Islamist) religious views.
Conversely, those sympathetic to Israeli military action and other Israeli measures against the Palestinians tend to view these actions as legitimate Israeli self-defense against a campaign of terrorism perpetrated by Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and others, and supported by other states in the region and by the majority of the Palestinians, at least those Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens. Many tend to believe that the control of part or all of the territory is necessary for the security of Israel. This sharp contrast of views on the legitimacy of the actions of each party to the conflict has been a key obstacle to resolution.
One current peace proposal is the Road map for peace presented by the Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States on September 17, 2002. Israel has also accepted the road map but with 14 "reservations". The current Palestinian government rejects the proposal. Israel is currently implementing a controversial disengagement plan proposed by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. So far, Israel has removed all of its civilian and military presence in the Gaza Strip, (namely 21 Jewish settlements there, and four in the West Bank), but continues to supervise and guard the external envelope on land excepting a border crossing with Egypt, which is jointly run by the Palestinian National Authority in conjunction with the European Union. Israel also maintains exclusive control in the air space of Gaza, and continues to conduct military activities, including incursions, in the territory. The Israeli government argues that "as a result, there will be no basis for the claim that the Gaza Strip is occupied territory", while others argue that the only effect would be that Israel "would be permitted to complete the wall [that is, the Israeli West Bank Barrier] and to maintain the situation in the West Bank as is" [1] [2]. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has stated that further unilateral withdrawals from some West Bank settlements may be undertaken if the peace process continues to be stalled.
With the unilateral disengagement plan, the Israeli government's stated intent is to allow Palestinians to create a homeland with minimal Israeli interference while extricating Israel from a situation it believes to be too costly and strategically unsound to maintain over the long run. Many Israelis, including a significant portion of Sharon's former Likud Party are worried that the lack of Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip will lead to an increase in rocket launching activity towards Israeli towns around Gaza [citation needed].
Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank to become part of a (preferably contiguous) future state. Since the Gaza withdrawal, the future of the West Bank (known to many Israelis as historical Judaea and Samaria), containing several hundred thousand Israeli settlers, is yet to be determined. Israel currently plans on expanding existing large West Bank settlement blocs, and maintains the current impasse in the peace process —negotiations toward a permanent peace treaty featuring a two-state solution— cannot be restarted until the Palestinian government dismantles what Israel describes as terrorist groups. This is further complicated by Hamas's victory in the latest Palestinian legislative elections.
See History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for an account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beginning in the 1880s and continuing to the present day.
See also
Ethnicity
Religion
Geography
History
Until 1949
1949-1967
1967-1993
1993-present
Ideology and ideas
Media coverage
Elements of the conflict
Organizations and armed forces
Peace Organizations
There are numerous organizations, both in Israel and Palestine, and around the world, that work toward a just peace by social, cultural, economic and political means. Some of these groups are:
People
Israeli
Palestinian
Others
Related conflicts
Further reading
General History
- Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415287162
- Bard, Mitchell. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. 2nd ed. (Alpha, 2002), ISBN 0028644107
- Bickerton, Ian J. and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab–Israeli Conflict. 4th ed. (Prentice Hall, 2001), ISBN 0130903035
- Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. The Palestine-Israeli Conflict: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2003), ISBN 1851683321
- David, Ron. Arabs & Israel for Beginners (Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc. 1996), ISBN 0863161618
- Dowty, Alan. Israel/Palestine (Polity, 2005), ISBN 0745632025
- Fraser, T. G. The Arab–Israeli Conflict. 2nd ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), ISBN 1403913382
- Gelvin, James L. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 0521618045
- Harms, Gregory with Todd M. Ferry. The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction (Pluto Press, 2005), ISBN 0745323782
- Hirst, David. The Gun and the Olive Branch. 3rd ed. (Nation Books, 2003), ISBN 1560254831
- Hurewitz, J. C. The Struggle for Palestine (Shocken Books, 1976), [out of print]
- Khouri, Fred J. The Arab–Israeli Dilemma. 3rd ed. (Syracuse University Press, 1985), ISBN 0815623402
- Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (Vintage Books, 2001), ISBN 0679744754
- Mandel, Neville J. The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I (University of California Press, 1976), [out of print]
- Roraback, Amanda. Palestine in a Nutshell or Israel in a Nutshell (Enisen Publishing, 2004), ISBN 0970290845
- Safran, Nadav. Israel: The Embattled Ally (The Belknap Press, Harvard, 1978), [out of print]
- Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab–Israeli Conflict. 5th ed. (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), ISBN 0312404085
- Sykes, Christopher. Crossroads to Israel (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1965), [out of print]
- Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict (Indiana University Press, 1994), ISBN 0253208734
- Thomas, Baylis. How Israel Was Won (Lexington Books, 1999), ISBN 0739100645
- Wasserstein, Bernard. Israelis and Palestinians (Yale University Press, 2003), ISBN 0300101724
Analytical / Focused
- Carey, Roane, ed. The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid (Verso, 2001), ISBN 1859843778
- Chomsky, Noam. The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. Rev. ed. (South End Press, 1999), ISBN 0896081877.
- Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Israel (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), ISBN 0471679526
- Enderlin, Charles. Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, 1995-2002 (Other Press, 2003), ISBN 1590510607
- Finkelstein, Norman. Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. 2nd ed. (Verso, 2003), ISBN 1859844421 2nd ed. introduction
- Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel: Myth and Realities (Pantheon Books, 1987),[out of print]
- Flapan, Simha. Zionism and the Palestinians (Croom Helm, 1979), [out of print]
- Green, Stephen. Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel (William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1984), [out of print]
- Maniscalco, Fabio. Protection, conservation and valorisation of Palestinian Cultural Patrimony (Massa Publisher, 2005), ISBN 8887835624
- Pappe, Ilan, ed. The Israel/Palestine Question (Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0415169488
- Pearlman, Wendy. Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003), ISBN 1560255307
- Quandt, William B. Peace Process. 3rd ed. (Brookings Institution Press, 2005), ISBN 0520246314
- Reinhart, Tanya. Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (Seven Stories Press, 2002), ISBN 1583225382
- Ross, Dennis. The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), ISBN 0374199736
- Safran, Nadav. The United States and Israel, ISBN 0674924908 [out of print]
- Said, Edward W. The Question of Palestine (Vintage Books, 1992), ISBN 0679739882
- Shipler, David K. Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. Rev. ed. (Penguin Books, 2002), ISBN 0142002291
- Swisher, Clayton E. The Truth About Camp David (Nation Books, 2004), ISBN 1560256230
Peace proposals
- A Comparison Of Three Drafts For An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement [3], by Adam Keller [4]
External links
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