The Israel-Palestine conflict is fundamentally a conflict over land rights and identity.
The conflict is centred around the West Bank which both Israel and Palestine claim as their homeland or rightfully theirs, however, the conflict is seen throughout the world. Israel claims that they own the West Bank and can thus populate it as they like, the Palestinians, who live there, disagree.
Israel as a nation has been placed atop a ‘third-world’ nation without consultation. If a bunch of real-estate agents sold somebody else’s house while the residents were not looking, and then the new owners threw the former residents in the basement, what would be done? Palestine is the former residents, Israel the new owners and the real-estate agents are American and European Imperial powers with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Palestinian’s claim to the land is self-evident even to an ethnocentric Westerner, they lived there, had settlements there and even cultivated the land. Israel in contrast was built upon the “return” to the Ancient Jewish Temple Mount and Zionism. Israel wants Palestinian lands, not because of religious reasons, historical claim or for retribution. Israel religiously is ‘supposed’ to eradicate all other religions other than Judaism within Israel (Shoher, 2007:96). Even Israeli extremists would not comprehend destroying Christian and Arab holy places, simply due to exterior pressure. Historically, the Torah preaches patience, and that the divine land will be divinely given to Israel, there is no need for jihad or violence (Shoher,2007: 96). Retribution is a completely implausible notion, worldwide Arab nations were the most tolerant of Judaism as, “giving autonomy to Jewish dhimmis is a religious obligation in Islam, sanctioned by the centuries-old practice of capitulation, giving Westerners in Islamic countries immunity under various intergovernmental arrangements.” (Shoher, 2007:97). Jewish communities had flourished for centuries and if Jewish settlers requested cultural autonomy, the Palestinians would have undoubtedly granted it. It is a Machiavellian idea which seems the most reasonable, “…a powerful Jewish nation is respected.” (Shoher, 2007:97).
Mutual denial of each other’s identity is another prime reason for the conflict. (Kelman 2005). Judaism is considered a religion not an ethnicity or nation by Palestine, thus ‘migrating’ Jews were from the countries they came and were born from. There was and still are Jewish Palestinians, but they were not Jewish, they were Palestinians practising Judaism, like Australians practising Judaism or Islam. Migrating Jewish refugees saw Palestinians as Arab refugees from the 1948 and 1949 conflicts, not Palestinians (Kelmen, 2005) and thus saw the land as essentially ‘Terra Nullius’. Thus this mutual denial has led to both groups ‘fighting’ to keep ‘them’ off and to reclaim ‘their land’.
The reason it’s never been resolved is that there is no easy way for it to be resolved (Kelmen,2005). Israel cannot force the Palestinians out of the West Bank as that would be ethnic cleansing and the global community would condemn them for such (ironic) actions. Thus Israel is left with the option of encouraging Palestinians to leave, however they are unable to be decisively violent enough for this to be quickly achieved. Their other option is to stop violent action towards Palestine but Israel’s policies involving retaliation prevent this.
The Palestinians in contrast obviously cannot force Israel to end the war (Kelmen, 2005). They simply do not have the capability to inflict mass casualties on Israel. Thus they have no deterrent. For example, in the last war with Israel (Yom Kippur in 1973), Egypt killed several thousand Israelis, in contrast, realistically there is no way that any Palestinian group or government could do that sort of damage. Therefore there is no way for Israel to get what they want easily, but there is no way for the Palestinians to force them to stop trying.
Ideally, if both groups were able to accept each other’s identity as an ethnic group and culture and mutually live together on the same land in mutual harmony, then the Israel-Palestine conflict would be non-existent. But if a ‘cure’ like that existed, ethnic conflict and cultural prejudice would be non-existent.
References
Balfour, Arthur James. (1973) Balfour Declaration.
Kelmen In:Fisher. (2005) Paving the Way: Contribution of interactive conflict resolution to peacemaking: Interactive Problem Solving in the Israeli-Palestinian Case. Lanham, MD:Lexington Books.
Shoher, Obadiah. (2007) Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict, Obadiah Shoher, Britain, 90-104.