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Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a part of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict, is an ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

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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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.

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 that as legitimate resistance to an illegitimate Israeli military occupation of Palestine supported by military and diplomatic assistance from the U.S. 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.

PLO Fatah Hamas PIJ
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 do claim a right to the entire region).

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.

A peace movement poster: Israeli and Palestinian flags and the words Salaam in Arabic and Shalom in Hebrew. Similar images have been used by several groups proposing a two-state solution to the conflict.
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A peace movement poster: Israeli and Palestinian flags and the words Salaam in Arabic and Shalom in Hebrew. Similar images have been used by several groups proposing a two-state solution to the conflict.

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". Israel is currently implementing a controversial disengagement plan proposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. According to plans submitted to the United States, Israel has stated that it will remove its entire "permanent ... civilian and military presence" in the Gaza Strip, (namely 21 Jewish settlements there, and four in the West Bank), but will "supervise and guard the external envelope on land, will maintain exclusive control in the air space of Gaza, and will continue to conduct military activities in the sea space of the Gaza Strip." 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, should the disengagement happen, 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].

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 own 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. A specific concern is that Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or the PFLP may emerge from the power vacuum of a post-disengagement Gaza as the political powers in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank to become part of a (preferably contiguous) future state. Gaza has been forcibly evacuated of all Jewish settlers due to the withdrawal ordered by Ariel Sharon, however the future of the West Bank, comprising a large chunk of land in Israel, historical Judaea, 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 terrorist groups.

History

See History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for an account of events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beginning in the 1880s and continuing to present day.

See also

Ethnicity

Religion

Geography

Places

History

Until 1949

1949-1967

1967-1993

1993-present

Ideology and ideas

Media coverage

Elements of the conflict

Organizations and armed forces

People

Israeli

Palestinian

Others

Related conflicts

Further reading

  • Bard, Mitchell. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict, ISBN 0028644107
  • Bickerton, Ian J. and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab–Israeli Conflict. 4th ed. (Prentice Hall, 2001), ISBN: 0130903035
  • Chomsky, Noam. The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. Rev. ed. (South End Press, 1999), ISBN 0896081877.
  • David, Ron. Arabs & Israel for Beginners (Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc. 1996), ISBN: 0863161618
  • Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Israel, 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
  • Fraser, T. G. The Arab–Israeli Conflict. 2nd ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), ISBN: 1403913382
  • 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
  • Khouri, Fred J. The Arab–Israeli Dilemma. 3rd ed. (Syracuse University Press, 1985), ISBN: 0815623402
  • Maniscalco Fabio. Protection, conservation and valorisation of Palestinian Cultural Patrimony (Massa Publisher, 2005), ISBN: 8887835624
  • Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (Vintage Books, 2001), ISBN: 0679744754
  • Pearlman, Wendy. Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, ISBN 1560255307.
  • Reinhart, Tanya. Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (Seven Stories Press, 2002), ISBN: 1583225382
  • Safran, Nadav. The United States and Israel, ISBN 0674924908.
  • Ross, Dennis. "The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the fight for Middle East Peace", ISBN 0374199736
  • Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab–Israeli Conflict. 5th ed. (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), ISBN: 0312404085
  • Swisher, Clayton E. The Truth About Camp David (Nation Books, 2004), ISBN: 1560256230
  • 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

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