What is the major conflict between Israel and Palestine (or was) ?

Question

I have to write an essay and Im using Israel vs Palestine war. What was the major conflict between them?

Answer 1

For 2,000 years there was no such conflict.

The land of Palestine was inhabited by Palestinian Arabs. In 1850 these consisted of approximately 400,000 Muslims, 75,000 Christians, and 25,000 Jews. For centuries these groups had lived in harmony: 80 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, 5 percent Jewish.
Zionism

But then in the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as "Zionists," this group consisted of an extremist minority of the world Jewish population. They wanted to create a Jewish homeland, and at first considered locations in Africa and South America, before finally settling on Palestine for their colony.

At first this immigration created no problems. However, as more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine — many with the express wish of taking over the land for an exclusively Jewish state — the indigenous population became increasingly alarmed. Eventually, there was fighting between the two groups, with escalating waves of violence.



Finally, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene. However, rather than adhering to the democratic principle espoused decades earlier by Woodrow Wilson of "self-determination of peoples," in which the people themselves create their own state and system of government, the UN chose to revert to the medieval strategy whereby an outside power arbitrarily divides up other people’s land.

Under considerable pressure from high-placed American Zionists, the UN decided to give away 55 percent of Palestine to a Jewish state — despite the fact that this group represented only about 30 percent of the total population, and owned under 7 percent of the land.
1948 War

When the inevitable war broke out the outcome was never in doubt, according to U.S. intelligence reports from the time. The Zionist army consisted of over 90,000 European-trained soldiers and possessed modern weaponry, including up-to-date fighter and bomber airplanes. The Arab forces, very much a third-world army, consisted of approximately 30,000 ill-equipped, poorly trained men. The U.S. Army, British intelligence, and the CIA all agreed: it would be no contest.

By the end of the 1948 war the Jewish state — having now declared itself "Israel" — had conquered 78 percent of Palestine — far more than that proposed even by the very generous UN partition plan. And three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees. Over 400 towns and villages had been destroyed, and a new map was being drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock would receive a new, Hebrew name. All vestiges of the Palestinian culture were to be erased. In fact, for many decades Israel — and the US, following its lead — denied the very existence of this population. Golda Meir once said, in fact: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian."

Map of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian lands occupied by Israel in 1967. The Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights are all still under occupation. Click here for larger map.
1967 Occupation
more maps
1967 War

In 1967, Israel conquered still more land. Following the Six Day War, in which Israeli forces launched a highly successful, Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on Egypt, Israel occupied the additional 22 percent of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It also occupied parts of Egypt (which since were returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).
Current Conflict

There are, then, two issues at the very core of the continuing conflict and escalating violence in the Middle East:

First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when the exclusionist entity is of largely colonial origin. As we have seen, the original population of what is now Israel was 95 percent Muslim and Christian. And yet, Muslim and Christian refugees are not being allowed to return to their homes in the current "Jewish state." Israeli peace negotiators refuse to even discuss the possibility of applying this UN guaranteed right.

Second, Israel’s continued confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza is being resisted by the Palestinian inhabitants. It is these occupied territories that, according to the Oslo peace accords of 1993, were going to become a Palestinian state. However, when Israel continued to take land in these areas and to move its citizens onto it, the Palestinian population rebelled. This uprising, called the "Intifada" (Arabic for "shaking off") began at the end of September 2000 and continues to this day.

1. 118 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 926 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.

2.1,021 Israelis and at least 4,070 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000.

3. 7,633 Israelis and 31,296 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000

4. The U.S. gives $15,139,178 per day to the Israeli government and military and $232,290 per day to Palestinian NGO’s.

5. Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none.

6. 1 Israeli is being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 9,599 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel.

7. 0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 4,170 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since September 29, 2000.

8. The Israeli unemployment rate is 9%, while the Palestinian unemployment is estimated at 40%.

9. 60+ new Jewish-only settlements have been built on confiscated Palestinian land between March 2001 and July 11, 2003. There have been 0 cases of Palestinians confiscating Israeli land and building settlements


I hope this helps you

Answer 2

I'm not against Palestine's independence, but I'm only saying the truth: Palestine is not YET a country. It's the same case with Taiwan and China. Taiwan wants to be independent but China won't let it. Same goes for Israel and Palestine. Also, like Taiwan, not all countries recognize Palestine as a state, but hold relations with it, like South Korea or Italy, but there are also some countries who apart from refusing to recognize Palestine, also refuse to create any kind of relations with it, such as Liechtenstein and Singapore. Hope my answer helped you. :) P.S. I hope that someday, Israel and Palestine would patch things up soon, so the meaningless violence would stop and prevent innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians from getting hurt. And I also hope that Palestine would have a friendlier, peaceful, and less extremist government, one that would be willing to maintain a healthy friendship with Israel, and would encourage its citizens to respect Israel's right to exist, while asserting its own without waging war, or without causing one of its Arab neighbors to do so. And I think Ha-mas and Fatah aren't really doing much of a good job on working towards Palestine's independence; they're focused more on destroying Israel than convincing it to finally grant them independence.

Answer 3

The main conflict is the fact that Palestine wants no Jews in the region. This started (or started to get bad) with the Grand Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni of Jerusalem, who came to power when Palestine was a British Mandate, before Israel was established. At the time he was not well thought of by many Arabs, he was a nasty piece of work. He collaborated with Nazi Germany. He wanted to have a Jew-free Palestine, and so opposed the formation of Israel.

Answer 4

Land and differing ideologies. The palestinians want a sovereign state, but Israel doesn't want to give up the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank.

Answer 5

The major points of contention are:

a) Palestinian refugees. These are people or descendents of people who were forced from their homes in the war from 1947-1949 during which Israel was founded. Previous to 1948, they were the majority of the people in what is now Israel, but Israel's zionist founders lead by David Ben-Gurion knew they could not have a Jewish state with so many non-Jews within its borders. So they carried out a campaign of massacres and terrorism to get rid of them. They destroyed well over 400 Palestinian villages, and confiscated land and property even from people who managed to stay inside Israel (of course they only confiscated land from Arabs, not Jews). Around 750,000 people fled, their descendents number over 4,000,000.

Of course, the litany of excuses the zionists used to whitewash the ethnic cleansing was amazing. For years they said that the Palestinians all left because Arab governments told them to (not because of massacres in the next village over), or that there never were any Palestinians, or that the Palestinians never had a sovereign state (and therefore it was OK to kick them out of their homes), just to mention a few.

b) Settlements. In 1967 Israel attacked the neighboring Arab states and took the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza and the Sinai (they gave the Sinai back to Egypt in a 1979 peace deal). They destroyed a bunch more villages and forced out a bunch more people, and built settlements for Jews on the territory (under international law, settling civilians from one's own country in territory occupied in a war is illegal). They have also exploited a lot of the water resources of these areas (also illegal, unless done for the benefit of the legal inhabitants). About 40% of the settlements are built on land privately owned by Palestinians (Palestinians can sue in Israeli courts to prevent land confiscation, but it's frequently done with military orders and Israeli courts usually side with Israelis). Some of the settlers are violent and have been known to kill innocent people - nevertheless the Israeli army protects them and does little to stop settler violence against Palestinians.

c) Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan when Israel conquered it in 1967. Israel enlarged its boundaries and annexed it (but didn't offer the Arab inhabitants, some of whom were refugees, citizenship). It has sites holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

One might also add that "security" for Israelis is an issue - although considering that Israelis have elected as prime minister two former terrorists, Menachim Begin and Yitzak Shamir, as well as Ariel Sharon who was responsible for the massacre of 69 people in Qibya in 1953 and held indirectly responsible for the massacre of as many as 2000 defenseless civilians in 1983, security seems to be something that Israel demands it have while denying it to Arabs. Frequently, "security" has been used as the excuse to confiscate land from Palestinians, land which somehow later ends up in the hands of Israeli settlers.

Answer 6

Basically the Arabs kicked all the jews out of their countries, and stole all their stuff, but thats ok.

The stinking jews went out and honestly bought the land that is now israel (most of it)

The rest of Israeli land was owned by the Arabs who left because they believed that the rest of the islamic world was going to attack israel and throw the jews into the ocean.

It didnt work out that way (the Israelies handed the Arabs whoopins like they were halloween candies)

Basically the Arabs got Jordan (85% of the disputed territory) and the sneaky Jews made out like bandits and got 15%.

50+ years later, all the Jewish refugees have assimilated into Israel, and the Arab countries kept their refugees (Palestinians) in tents like dogs...

The Palestinians are mad about this and blame the Jews instead of the other Arabs, if you want to know why, ask the Muslims why they blame women for getting raped, has something to do with cats and raw meat...