Understanding the origin & causes of the

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

3 levels of conflict1. International Level:• Outside powers have historically struggled to enhance

their influence in the region. In the 1800s Britain, France, and Russia were the major players.

• In the mid-20th century, it was the US and the USSR. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the dynamic again changed in a way not yet fully clear but probably enhancing the influence of Europeans and others (such as Germany, France, China).

• A common tactic of outside powers is to align with an ethnic or religious minority and to build a power base upon that group.

2. Regional Level:

• Within the region, countries compete against each other for influence, security, land, and water.

• Syria and Iraq are long-standing rivals, Israel and Jordan both staked historical claims to the West Bank (which Palestinians view as part of a future Palestinian state), Syria feels its security can only be assured if it has a friendly government in Lebanon, and Israel has similar concerns about the same country.

• The most serious regional crisis was the Gulf War - the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an event that ultimately brought about the introduction of 500,000 American troops into the region.

3. Local Level:

• If we conceive of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a one-hundred year long civil war, then many confusing issues are clarified.

• Alternative approaches would view it as a Western colonial intrusion into the Arab/Muslim world, a war of extermination by Arab states, a Christian-Jewish assault on Islam, or during the Cold War as a by-product of the US.-Soviet struggle.

GEOGRAPHICAL TERMS AND PLACES

• Jerusalem: Several Jerusalemsa) Ancient Jerusalem or the Old City is a small

place less than a mile square, surrounded by an ancient wall. It is the "Holy City" of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. It includes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, Al Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock. It is broken into four "Quarters," one each for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Armenians

• West Jerusalem is Jewish Jerusalem. Until 1948 it had many Palestinian communities, both Muslim and Christian. It now contains the Knesset (parliament), Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial), the King David Hotel, most Israeli government ministries, and the main commercial and industrial districts.

• East Jerusalem• Outer Jerusalem• Greater Jerusalem

Palestine

• This is the ancient name for what is today Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem)

• Today the word Palestinian refers to the Arab Palestinians be they Muslim or Christian and whether they live inside of Palestine or not.

The Mandate:

• At the end of World War I, Britain and France divided up the Arab World into what were called Mandates. There were originally two of these, called Syria and Palestine. They were quickly sub-divided with Syria becoming Syria and Lebanon, and Palestine becoming Palestine and Transjordan. The Palestine mandate included a British commitment to create a Jewish homeland inside the territory.

PARTITION AS A POLITICAL TOOL

• It was during World War I that Britain and France decided to partition and control the Arab world. Before then, most of the region was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

• At that time, the countries that we know today did not exist so we must think in terms of geographic regions. In the southwest Asian part of the Ottoman Empire there were three such regions. We can call them Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia (or Iraq).

• During the war, Britain and France decided to partition the Arab world and make the various provinces into countries. They did this through the "Mandate" system created after World War I by the League of Nations , which Britain and France controlled.• Under this system, conquered lands were placed into one of three categories (A, B, C) and were assigned to a victorious power to govern.• In 1922 Palestine (west of the Jordan River) became a Level A Mandate under British control.• The Mandate agreement specified that there would be a Jewish "homeland" inside of Palestine but that the rights of the native Palestinians would not be affected. These vague and contradictory statements were to cause much trouble.

WARTIME STATEMENTS, PLANS AND PROMISES

• There are two important wartime documents or agreements that are exceptionally helpful in understanding why things went wrong at the end of the war. Clearly, western leaders were not being honest or consistent about their true motives or intentions.

1) Sykes-Picot Agreements (1916):

• Britain and France agreed to divide up the Arab world after the war. These agreements were secret until late 1917 when the Russian Revolution occurred and the Communists released the documents to the public. (The release caused much diplomatic embarrassment since the agreements contradicted other promises.) In short, the Sykes-Picot Agreements led to these results: Britain would get what came to be known as Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine, France would get Syria (including Lebanon), and Russia would get Central Asia (currently independent republics).

2) Balfour Declaration (November 1917):

• Britain committed itself to a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. It also promised to protect the rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants, including their "civil and religious" rights.

Questions

• Do you find conflicts in what the British promised Arabs, French, and Jews? Quote specific passages that you think conflict with other passages, and why you think they conflict.

THE JEWISH SITUATION AND JEWISH NATIONALISM - Zionism

• Pogroms

• The Dreyfus Affair

• Anti-Semitism

• The Holocaust

Turning Points in the Conflict

1) 1948 – THE PARTITION OF PALESTINE

2) 1967 - THE SIX-DAY WAR

3) 1987 – THE INTIFADA

1) 1947 – THE PARTITION OF PALESTINE• In November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted

Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish (Israel), one Arab (Palestine)

• Arabs opposed this decision for three reasons:

(a)66% of the population was Arab, and Jews held only 6% of the land.

(b)Palestinians questioned the legality of Resolution 181 since the British Mandate specified that the opinions of the inhabitants must be taken into account in any decisions. Since 2/3 of the people in Palestine were Arabs, they maintained that the creation of a "Jewish" state against the will of the Arab majority could not be legal. Many Palestinians objected to being ruled by an Israeli government.

(c)Third, neighbouring independent Arab states feared that Israel would be an agent of powerful Western nations that would use it to dominate the region.

Reaction & Effect of the 1947 Partition

• The declaration of a Jewish state in May 1948 sparked a war. Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq responded with war the next day. Palestine was invaded by 30,000 neighbouring Arab soldiers.

• This war was made worse by the determination of Arab leaders to keep Palestine united and to resist a Jewish state, and by the determination of Israelis to expand the size of their state to include part of the proposed Palestinian state.

Impact of the 1948 War 

• Israel captured much of the territory assigned to the Arab state by the UN.

• Jordan took control of the West Bank. • The Gaza Strip was held by Egypt. Israel

captured it in 1967. Today it is part of the Occupied Territories.

• 700,000 Palestinians became stateless, homeless refugees when they lost three-quarters of their homeland

Questions• Thought Question: In 1948 there was talk of sending American

troopsinto Palestine to restore order. What arguments would people have made for this proposal? Against it? Would most Jews have supported or opposed this proposal? Most Palestinians?

1) Why did Jews want a Jewish state? 2) Why did Palestinians oppose a Jewish state? 3) Instead of a Jewish state, what did Palestinians propose? 4) In 1948 was there an alternative to war? What?

2) 1967 - THE 1967/SIX-DAY WAR• Two interpretations of why this war occurreda) Israeli aggression and the Israeli desire to control

Sinai, the West Bank, all of Jerusalem, and the Jordan river in Syria's Golan Province.

b) Arab aggression, the long-standing refusal to recognize Israel, and repeated attacks conducted across the border by Egyptians, Palestinians, and Syrians.

Immediate cause:• It was caused by the Egyptian threat to cut off shipping

to Israel through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, and fears of an Egyptian attack that gave Israel the justification for a "pre-emptive" and devastating air and land attack against Egypt and Syria.

Results of the War

• Within a week, Israel had defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Israel was in control of Egypt's Sinai peninsula, about 2/3 of Syria's Golan province (commonly called the Golan Heights by Americans), the Palestinian West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

• For the Israelis it was a spectacular success: This time they had ignored a UN order to return the captured territory; this acted as a buffer zone between Israel and the Arab states, and meant that it would be much easier to defend Israel.

• However, it brought a new problem – how to deal with about a million extra Arab Palestinians who now found themselves under Israeli rule. In one week, the population under Israeli authority went from 16% Palestinian to 36% Palestinian. Many of them were living in the refugee camps set up in 1948 on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

What was wrong with Palestinians living under the Israeli control?

• Difference between the lives of those who are Israeli citizens and those who live under military rule.

• Those who live in Israel proper had been kept under strict military rule from 1948 until the mid 1960's; today, while not fully equal and discriminated against in many ways, they can vote, join labour unions and organize political parties

• The situation in the Occupied Territories is very different. Palestinians live under military rule. They cannot vote, cannot join the powerful Histadrut labor union, cannot organize politically, can be detained without charges, can be deported from their country, and can have their property taken for Jewish settlements.

Thought Question

• Palestinians who were driven from their homes or who fled during the hostilities of 1948 were not allowed by the government of Israel to return.

• Why do you think the government of Israel took this position?

4) 1987 - THE INTIFADA

• On December 8, 1987, an Israeli vehicle crashed into a crowd of Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp, killing four. Palestinians were convinced the accident had been intentional. Israeli police concluded it was an accident with no malicious intent.

• In a sense the cause is irrelevant. • When political tension reaches a high level a small

incident can ignite an uprising. Within days, the whole of Gaza and the West Bank were in a state of rebellion. Military efforts to suppress demonstrations made matters worse. The demonstrations had become a national uprising known as the Intifada (the word in Arabic means "shaking off" or “tremor”).

What is the Intifada?

• Uprising in the Palestinian occupied territories from 1989 to 1993, in protest against the Israeli occupation and politics

How did the Palestinians use the Intifada to get the attention of the world?

• The Intifada saw civil disobedience in the form of strikes and riots grow in Gaza and the West Bank.

• The most symbolically important act of the Intifada was the stoning of Israeli security forces and civilians, often enacted by young men and boys.

• The Israeli Defence Minister announced a policy of ‘force, might and beatings’ against Palestinians who joined the uprising. Israel tried to suppress the Intifada, with more police and army forces, closing of universities, deportations and restrictions on economic activities. The severe Israeli reaction was caught on the world’s television

• There were serious US-Israeli tensions and human rights groups criticized Israeli policies.

• The revolt initiated by local residents and involving mostly low-level violence had won sympathy for the struggle of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupiers.

Effects of the Intifada

It produced new Palestinian leaders from among those living inside the occupied Palestinian territories rather than in exile.

• It brought rival factions together into an organization called the Unified Leadership of the Uprising.

• It radicalized many people who had previously been quiet: merchants, intellectuals, villagers,

middle classes. • Israel came to realize the costs of occupation:

the army spent its time patrolling Palestinian towns; financial costs soared, there were serious US-Israeli tensions; scores of Israeli soldiers protested, and human rights groups criticized Israeli policies.

Thought Question

• In 1987 Palestinians, through the Intifada, got the world's attention. Was there any alternative method that could have captured the world's attention? If so, what was it?

Thought Question

• The UN has passed many resolutions urging a two-state solution, repatriation or compensation for refugees, and Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. Why do you think these resolutions have not been enforced?

• At a time when the world community was insistent that the UN resolutions on Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait be enforced, why do you think the Israeli/Palestinian resolutions have not been enforced?

Causes of the Conflict

1. Colonial Legacy

2. Superpower rivalry

3. Israel

4. Arab powers

5. Religion

Let us look down the road 25 years. What could be the outcome of this conflict?

• Outcome One: Status Quo

• Outcome Two: Unification of Lands and Peoples

• Outcome Three: Partition into Two States

• Outcome Four: Expulsion of the Palestinians

• Outcome Five: Elimination of Israel