Understanding the endless conflict between Israel and Palestine -By Dr Mohamed Chtatou

To understand the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we need to go back to the origins of the Zionist movement and the creation of Israel. In 1948, the proclamation of the Jewish state took no account of Palestinian territory and seized Arab towns. Since then, the conflict has continued. And attempts at peace have failed…

1917: the Balfour Declaration sets the world on fire

In 1897, the program of the First World Zionist Congress affirmed the principles of the movement, which aimed to reclaim the Promised Land for the descendants of Moses: “Zionism strives to obtain for the Jewish people in Palestine a publicly recognized and legally guaranteed home“. Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism and author of The State of the Jews, declared in 1904: “With England as our starting point, we can be sure that the Zionist idea will soar further and higher than ever before’’, and went on to say:’’It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable.’’

In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour declared that His Majesty’s Government

“Favourably consider the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the attainment of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities existing in Palestine, or the political rights and status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

The problem is that other promises were made in parallel. And they are obviously not compatible. The British had already promised to recognize and support Arab independence in exchange for their participation in the war against the Turks. And in 1916, they pledged to share the Middle East with France in the Sykes-Picot agreements.

The British writer Arthur Koestler summed it up perfectly: “One nation has solemnly promised to a second the territory of a third“. It all started there.

1947: Israel and Palestine in the UN partition plan

After the Great War, the 1920 San Remo Conference gave the British a mandate over Palestine. A promise was made and a promise kept: the British encouraged massive Jewish immigration. They came from Russia, Poland and Germany. The result: between 1917 and 1948, the Jewish population of Palestine rose from 10% to 30%. The Jewish settlers set up state structures: a Jewish army, a national radio station, a Hebrew university, a health system, etc. The Arab nationalists then rose up against the Jews. Arab nationalists then rose up and conflicts multiplied. The British appealed to the United Nations. In 1947, the UN adopted a plan to divide Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem and the Holy Places were placed under international rule. The Jewish state represented 56% of the surface area of Palestine (of which Jews at the time represented only 32% of the population and owned only 7% of the land), while an Arab state represented 44% of the surface area of Palestine. Civil war broke out immediately. Jewish forces, supported by the USA and the USSR, succeeded in seizing Arab towns.

1948: The proclamation of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war

The British Mandate officially ends on May 14, 1948. David Ben Gurion, President of the Jewish National Council, proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. The text of the declaration reads: “By virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people, and of the resolution of the United Nations, we hereby proclaim the creation of the Jewish State of Palestine, which shall take the name of Israel.” Contrary to custom, the declaration fails to specify the borders of this new state. It is based on the “Law of Return“, i.e., any Jew from anywhere in the world has the right to settle in the country. A principle that displeased the territory’s majority occupiers, the Arabs, who outnumbered the Jews two to one (1.2 million to 650,000 Jews). The first Arab-Israeli war broke out the day after the proclamation of Israel. It led to the creation of a demarcation line between Israel and Palestine, in force until 1967.

1967 and 1973: the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars

Tensions between Jews and Arabs continued unabated, leading to a series of conflicts. On May 30 1964, the Arab League created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Three years later, during the Six-Day War, Israel seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Almost all of Palestine was now occupied by the Jewish state. After the conflict, the PLO considered Jordan its main rear base for waging armed struggle against Israel. In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Israel once again faced a coalition of Arab countries led by Egypt and Syria.

1988: Palestine declares itself a country

1987 saw the outbreak of the Intifada (“uprising” in Arabic), a massive, unarmed popular insurrectionary movement, and the birth of Hamas, the Islamic organization of Palestine that some Western countries described as terrorist. On November 15, 1988, the Palestinian National Council in Algiers proclaimed the independent State of Palestine. The two Palestinian territories are the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, some 45 kilometers apart. In 2011, UNESCO recognized Palestine as an organization. The following year, the UN made it a non-member observer state. In 2017, the country is recognized by 136 states worldwide, or 70.5% of the 193 UN member states.

1993: the Oslo Accords, or the missed peace

After secret discussions and negotiations, the PLO and Israel signed the Oslo Peace Accords on September 13, 1993. The Palestinian organization renounced “violence and terrorism” and recognized Israel’s “right to exist in peace and security” (Hamas disagreed.) East Jerusalem, considered the historic capital by the Palestinians, was not included in the agreement. It is one of the most contentious issues between the two states. The Oslo Accords were never implemented, because on November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

The assassination brought the peace process to a standstill. Since then, attempts to revive the peace process – such as the one imposed in 2000 by the United States on Israel and Yasser Arafat (founder of the Palestinian Resistance Movement) – have proved fruitless. The conflict continues today, mainly around the Gaza Strip.

What future for Palestine, then?

The “Palestinian question” has long defined the geopolitics of the Near and Middle East. Over the past twenty years, however, it has gradually faded into the background, perhaps to the benefit of a new common front against Iran.

Until very recently, the end of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was an unsurpassable condition for most Arab countries to recognize and engage in dialogue with the State of Israel.But this requirement seems to have lost some of its importance in recent years, while the situation of the Palestinians has not fundamentally changed.

The decline of this sacred union between Arab countries and the Palestinian cause can be traced back to September 11, 2001.  After the attacks in New York, Arab countries became afraid of the reaction of the United States, after having been too lax, or even complicit, with Islamist terrorism and al-Qaeda.Since then, the Palestinian cause has lost importance in favor of preserving the interests of the various countries in the region.

This dynamic continued with the wave of the “Arab Spring” and the subsequent emergence of Daech. All of these threats led Arab countries to focus primarily on maintaining their hold on power, sometimes even seeking help from the United States and “forgetting” the Palestinian cause.

The real paradigm shift, according to some specialists, is the emergence of a common front against Iran, set up as an absolute threat by the United States, particularly since President Donald Trump came to power.

There is no longer any support for the Palestinian cause. Egypt and Jordan are bound by a peace agreement to Israel, as are the Emirates and Bahrain. And Saudi Arabia has been sending clear signals in the same direction for years.Support for the Palestinian cause now comes mainly from the Shiite world, which is “relatively unnatural”.

The clouds are thus gathering ever tighter over the Palestinian cause. The conditions for creating a state have gradually deteriorated since the 1960s. In the end, the Palestinians are indirectly told to go and govern Jordan, where they are in the majority. In the West Bank, strategic resources such as water and roads are no longer within their reach.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on Twitter:@Ayurinu