The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Over 100 years of bloodshed

By David Starr

 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new level of violence with Hamas’s deadly incursion inside of Israel, while Israel retaliates with a more deadly assault on Gaza. The conflict is seeming to go on forever with the roots causes still not resolved: Israel’s occupation and its settlements. And for now, it doesn’t look like Israel will right these wrongs.

 

A report on Secular Talk shows how insane Israel’s policies are toward the Palestinians.

 

The Palestinian situation has been treated like it’s secondary to Israel’s dominance; or blatantly ignored. The West, especially the United States, has not really followed through on its “concern” for the Palestinian people. There are assurances but they really amount to nothing where the root cause is concerned. Writing for Vox, Jonathan Guyer was spot on when he asserted, “It took Hamas’s deadly attack to remind Israel, the United States, and the world that Palestine still matters.”

 

The Biden administration’s military aid to Israel proves that the U.S. is not a neutral mediator involving this conflict. It’s been this way for decades, while attempts at making peace by the U.S. has in the long run been a failure. Successive U.S. administrations have not looked at Israel and Palestine as equals. One side is heavily favored and that is Israel. 

 

As for the Palestinians, Gaza has been an open-air prison, with Israel shutting it off from the rest of the world. More than 2 million people live in Gaza and they are going through what Guyer calls “a humanitarian nightmare.” Israel’s past and present military attacks on Gaza have been condemned by the United Nations as well as human rights groups. But the right-wing in Israel, particularly, ignores these condemnations. On the contrary, Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, depriving the population access to fuel, food and other basic essentials. International law deems this a war crime.

 

Guyer wrote that “…the ongoing reality of the occupation has not featured prominently in the U.S. or Arab leaders ‘ engagement with the region in recent years, even as circumstances for Palestinians worsened. The question must thus be asked to the Israeli government, the Biden administration, and Arab leaders: How did they forget about Palestinians? How do they so brazenly ignore Gaza?”

 

President Joe Biden has gone along with Trump in glorifying Israel while at the same time tries to establish some sort of relations between Israel and the Arab countries even as Israel’s right-wing commits its barbarism. A major example of this barbarism is the current war and a comment from an Israeli official claiming Palestinians are “human animals.” The opinion of many Israelis is basically the same. It’s characteristic of ultra-nationalism and the supremacy myths of the “Chosen People” based on religious fanaticism.

 

The history shows evidence of past rights violations by Israel, which spurred on further rights violations by both sides. The real roots of the conflict were started with the imposition of the Balfour Declaration. This was thought up to give Jews a national home in Palestine, but based on British colonial interference. 

 

A “Simple Guide” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was published by Al Jazeera. Regarding the British role, “a European power promised the Zionist movement a country where Palestinian Arab natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.” A British Mandate existed from 1923 until 1948, where Britain pushed for mass Jewish immigration. On the one hand, Jews were fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. On the other, Palestinians were alarmed by the “changing demographics” and wound-up protesting and conducting strikes.

 

In the 1930s, “tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.” An organization called the Arab National Committee declared a general strike in April 1936. “The six-month strike was brutally repressed by the British, who launched a mass arrest campaign and carried out punitive home demolitions, a practice that Israel continues to implement against Palestinians today.” Adding to the British crackdowns, there were bombings by air, curfews, and summary killings were virtually the norm.

 

So, the British sided with the Jewish settlers. The latter established the Haganah, a paramilitary unit which later become the Israeli army. The results of repressing the revolt: 5,000 Palestinian deaths, about 17,000 were wounded and 5,600 were imprisoned.

 

Eventually, the United Nations enacted resolution 181 which became a two-state solution. But the Palestinians rejected the resolution because it gave Israel 56 percent of Palestine, “including most of the fertile coastal land.” Tensions mounted and in 1948 the Nakba (Catastrophe) occurred where a total of 15,000 Palestinians were killed. There were many massacres. About “750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes.” That same year, Israel officially became a nation.

 

In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was established, along with the Fatah political party a year later. This was prompted by 150,000 Palestinians living in the newly-created Israel where they “lived under a tightly controlled military occupation for almost 20 years before they were eventually granted Israeli citizenship.”  

 

In 1967, the Six-Day war was underway with Israel up against a coalition of Arab armies. The result was Israel occupying more Palestinian land. This included “the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula…” Palestinians referred to this defeat as the Naksa, or setback.

 

From 1967 to 1977, Leftist groups took action with a series of attacks and plane hijackings. One of those groups was the “Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

 

With Israel continuing to oppress Palestinians, this kept leading to a backlash. The first Intifada was born when Palestinians took up militant tactics to fight back against the oppression. There were “popular mobilizations, mass protests, civil disobedience, well-organized strikes and communal cooperatives.”  Israel’s response wasn’t surprising. A “Break their Bones” campaign took place where there were “summary killings, closures of universities, deportations of activists and destruction of homes.” The Intifada was led primarily by youths.

 

Israel’s handiwork contributed to 1,070 Palestinian deaths. Two-hundred thirty-seven children were included in those deaths. And there were 175,000 Palestinians arrested. This was the result of Israeli oppression against the Intifada. Palestinians were beginning to get attention internationally. This prompted the Arab League to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.

 

In 1993, there was a peace agreement signed which was called the Oslo Accords. That resulted in the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the condition there would be a two-state solution, the PLO recognized Israel. However, Israel controlled 60 percent of the West Bank. 

 

The two-state solution never happened as Israel continued its fascistic policies. And the PA was a disappointment for Palestinians, with it being accused of collaborating with Israeli oppression and the Israeli military where protest and political activism were denied.

 

Then, on September of 2,000, there was a second Intifada after a former military man, the right-wing Likud Party’s leader and, yes, a fascist named Ariel Sharon outraged Palestinians by visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was a Palestinian place of worship. Inevitably, Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces clashed. This led to an armed uprising by Palestinians. Israel responded by retaking Palestinian territory and building a separation wall. (Trump would just as soon have gotten the idea from Israel.) Jewish settlers poured in to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Currently, there are about 700,000 settlers on Palestinian land.

 

The United Nations published a report of a meeting in August 2023 which detailed the crisis, showing the continuity of it. There was an attempt to be balanced, showing extremes on both sides. While this is important it’s the Palestinians who are the true victims overall because of Israel’s refusal to stop the occupation and the settlements. If it wasn’t for that, there would be the responsibility of both sides to stop the conflict.

 

Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that “This violence is fueled and exacerbated by a growing sense of despair about the future.” He did mention that the settlement expansion “continues unabated.” 

 

Dmitry Polyanskiy of the Russian Federation was a little more direct, saying that the settlements provoke a “regular, bloody eruption of violence,” and blaming the halting of peaceful negotiations on Israel’s illegal unilateral actions that create irreversible facts on the ground.

 

There was a general agreement by participants in the meeting that conditions faced by the Palestinians have to be improved overall and that a two-state solution has to become a reality. Also present was Linda Thomas-Greenfield (United States), James Kariuki (Britain), Isis Marie Doriane Jaraud-Darnault (France), Domingo Fernandes (Mozambique), among others.

 

Back in the United States, right-wingers were practically demanding genocide be conducted against the Palestinians. This was reported by Secular Talk.

 

Death and destruction continue in the latest round of conflict between Israel and Palestine. As a priority, Israel’s right-wing government is to blame for it, taking fascistic measures. This insanity must stop.