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The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.
| Israeli–Palestinian conflict | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Arab–Israeli conflict | |||||||||
 Situation in the Israeli-occupied territories, as of December 2011[update], per the United Nations OCHA. See for a more detailed and updated map. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Israel |
Governance (PNA):  Fatah (West Bank) Hamas (Gaza Strip) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 9,694–9,763 killed | 44,321–56,207 killed | ||||||||
| More than 700,000 Palestinians displaced in 1948 with a further 413,000 Palestinians displaced in the Six-Day War. | |||||||||
The conflict has its origins in the rise of Zionism in Europe and the arrival of Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The local Arab population opposed Zionism, primarily out of fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. The Zionist movement garnered the support of an imperial power in the 1917 Balfour Declaration issued by Britain, which promised to support the creation of a "Jewish homeland in Palestine". Following the British occupation of the formerly Ottoman region during World War I, Mandatory Palestine was established as a British mandate. Increasing Jewish immigration led to tensions between Jews and Arabs which grew into intercommunal conflict. In 1936, an Arab revolt erupted demanding independence, which the British suppressed.
The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine triggered the 1948 Palestine war, which saw the expulsion and flight of most Palestinian Arabs, the establishment of Israel on most of the Mandate's territory, and the control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by Egypt and Jordan, respectively. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (which became known as the Palestinian territories), which is now considered to be the longest military occupation in modern history, and has (drawn international condemnation) for violating the human rights of the Palestinians.
The conflict has claimed many civilian casualties, mostly Palestinian, since its inception. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside efforts to resolve the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. Progress towards a negotiated solution between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was made with the Oslo Accords of 1993–1995. The majority of recent peace efforts have been centred around the two-state solution, which involves the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Public support for a two-state solution, which formerly enjoyed support from both Israeli Jews and Palestinians, has dwindled in recent years. Official negotiations are mediated by the Quartet on the Middle East, which consists of the United Nations, the United States, Russia, and the European Union. The Arab League, which has proposed the Arab Peace Initiative, is another important actor, along with Egypt and Jordan. Since 2006, the Palestinian side has been split between Fatah dominating the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas that gained control of the Gaza Strip.(Attempts to remedy this) have been repeated and continuing. Since 2019, the Israeli side has also been experiencing political crisis.(The latest round of peace negotiations) began in July 2013 but were suspended in 2014. Since 2006, Hamas and Israel have fought five wars, the most recent of which began in 2023 and is ongoing as of June 2024[update].
History
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the development of political Zionism and the arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine. The modern political Zionist movement, with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, grew out of the last two decades of the 19th century, largely in response to antisemitism in Europe. While Jewish colonization began during this period, it was not until the arrival of more ideologically Zionist immigrants in the decade preceding the First World War that the landscape of Ottoman Palestine would start to significantly change. Land purchases, the eviction of tenant Arab peasants and armed confrontation with Jewish para-military units would all contribute to the Palestinian population's growing fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. This fear would gradually be replaced by a broader sense of Palestinian national expression which included the rejection of the Zionist goal of turning the mostly Arab populated land into a Jewish homeland. From early on, the leadership of the Zionist movement had the idea of "transferring" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) the Arab Palestinian population out of the land for the purpose of establishing a Jewish demographic majority. The idea of transfer, Israeli historian Benny Morris describes, was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism". The Arab population felt this threat as early as the 1880s with the arrival of the first aliyah.
Chaim Weizmann's efforts to build British support for the Zionist movement would eventually secure the Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Weizmann would take on a maximalist interpretation of the declaration, in which negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arab representation. At the Paris Peace Conference, he would later famously share his interpretation of the declaration in his announcement of the goal "[t]o make Palestine as Jewish as England is English." Partially in response to the Zionist movement, a Palestinian national movement would develop more concretely in the interwar period. The years that followed would see Jewish-Palestinian relations deteriorate dramatically.
1920s
With the commitment to establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, the creation of the British Mandate in Palestine after the end of the first world war would allow for large-scale Jewish immigration. This would be accompanied by the development of a separate Jewish controlled sector of the economy which was supported with large amounts of capital from abroad. The more ardent Zionist ideologues of the Second Aliyah would become the leaders of the Yishuv starting in the 1920s and believed in the separation of Jewish and Arab economies and societies. During this period, the exclusionary nationalist ethos would grow to overpower the socialist ideals that the Second Aliyah had arrived with.
The return of several hard-line Palestinian Arab nationalists, under the emerging leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini, from Damascus to Mandatory Palestine marked the beginning of Palestinian Arab nationalist struggle towards establishment of a national home for Arabs of Palestine. Amin al-Husseini, the architect of the Palestinian Arab national movement, immediately marked Jewish national movement and Jewish immigration to Palestine as the sole enemy to his cause, initiating large-scale riots against the Jews as early as 1920 in Jerusalem and in 1921 in Jaffa. Among the results of the violence was the establishment of the Jewish paramilitary force Haganah. In 1929, a series of violent riots resulted in the deaths of 133 Jews and 116 Arabs, with significant Jewish casualties in (Hebron) and Safed, and the evacuation of Jews from Hebron and Gaza.
1936–1939 Arab revolt
In the early 1930s, the Arab national struggle in Palestine had drawn many Arab nationalist militants from across the Middle East, such as (Sheikh Izaddin al-Qassam) from Syria, who established the Black Hand militant group and had prepared the grounds for the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Following the death of al-Qassam at the hands of the British in late 1935, tensions erupted in 1936 into the Arab general strike and general boycott. The strike soon deteriorated into violence, and the Arab revolt was bloodily repressed by the British assisted by the British armed forces of the (Jewish Settlement Police), the (Jewish Supernumerary Police), and (Special Night Squads). The suppression of the revolt would leave at least 14% of the adult male population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. In the first wave of organized violence, lasting until early 1937, most of the Arab groups were defeated by the British, and forced expulsion of much of the Arab leadership ensued. With much of the leadership in exile and the economy severely weakened, the Palestinians would struggle to confront the Zionist movement which was growing in strength, with the support of the British.
The cost and risks associated with the revolt and the ongoing inter-communal conflict led to a shift in British policies in the region and the appointment of the Peel Commission which recommended the partitioning of Palestine. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, accepted the recommendations on the basis that it would allow for further expansion, but some secondary Jewish leaders disapproved of it. The subsequent publication of the White Paper of 1939, which sought to limit Jewish immigration to the region, was the breaking point in relations between British authorities and the Zionist movement.
1940s
The renewed violence, which continued sporadically until the beginning of World War II, ended with around 5,000 causualties on the Arab side and 700 combined on the British and Jewish side total. With the eruption of World War II, the situation in Mandatory Palestine calmed down. It allowed a shift towards a more moderate stance among Palestinian Arabs under the leadership of the Nashashibi clan and even the establishment of the Jewish–Arab Palestine Regiment under British command, fighting Germans in North Africa. The more radical exiled faction of al-Husseini, however, tended to cooperate with Nazi Germany, and participated in the establishment of a pro-Nazi propaganda machine throughout the Arab world. The defeat of Arab nationalists in Iraq and subsequent relocation of al-Husseini to Nazi-occupied Europe tied his hands regarding field operations in Palestine, though he regularly demanded that the Italians and the Germans (bomb Tel Aviv). By the end of World War II, a crisis over the fate of Holocaust survivors from Europe led to renewed tensions between the Yishuv and Mandate authorities. Increased illegal immigration from Jewish refugees, along with a paramilitary campaign of resistance against British authorities by Zionist militias, would effectively overturn the White Paper and eventually lead to the withdrawal of the British.
1947 United Nations partition plan
On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 181(II) recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs were opposed to the partition. Zionists accepted the partition but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what was allocated to it by the UN. On the next day, Palestine was swept by violence. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating. The Arab League supported the Arab struggle by forming the volunteer-based Arab Liberation Army, supporting the Palestinian Arab Army of the Holy War, under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and (Hasan Salama). On the Jewish side, the civil war was managed by the major underground militias – the Haganah, Irgun and Lehi – strengthened by numerous Jewish veterans of World War II and foreign volunteers. By spring 1948, it was already clear that the Arab forces were nearing a total collapse, while Yishuv forces gained more and more territory, creating a large scale refugee problem of Palestinian Arabs.
1948 Arab–Israeli War
Following the (Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel) on 14 May 1948, the Arab League decided to intervene on behalf of Palestinian Arabs, marching their forces into former British Palestine, beginning the main phase of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The overall fighting, leading to around 15,000 casualties, resulted in cease-fire and armistice agreements of 1949, with Israel holding much of the former Mandate territory, Jordan occupying and later annexing the West Bank and Egypt taking over the Gaza Strip, where the All-Palestine Government was declared by the Arab League on 22 September 1948.
1956 Suez Crisis
Through the 1950s, Jordan and Egypt supported the Palestinian Fedayeen militants' cross-border attacks into Israel, while Israel carried out its own reprisal operations in the host countries. The 1956 Suez Crisis resulted in a short-term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and exile of the All-Palestine Government, which was later restored with Israeli withdrawal. The All-Palestine Government was completely abandoned by Egypt in 1959 and was officially merged into the United Arab Republic, to the detriment of the Palestinian national movement. Gaza Strip then was put under the authority of the Egyptian military administrator, making it a de facto military occupation. In 1964, however, a new organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was established by Yasser Arafat. It immediately won the support of most Arab League governments and was granted a seat in the Arab League.
1967 Six-Day War
In the (1967 Arab-Israel War), Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba. By the mid-1970s, the international community had converged on a framework to resolve the conflict. This included Israel's full withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for recognition by the Palestinians and other Arab nations, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and a "just resolution" of the Palestinian refugee question. These principles, known as "land for peace" and Palestinian self-determination through a two-state settlement, were endorsed by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, and international human rights organizations.
The June 1967 war exerted a significant effect upon Palestinian nationalism, as Israel gained military control of the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Consequently, the PLO was unable to establish any control on the ground and established its headquarters in Jordan, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and supported the Jordanian army during the War of Attrition, which included the Battle of Karameh. However, the Palestinian base in Jordan collapsed with the Jordanian–Palestinian civil war in 1970. The PLO defeat by the Jordanians caused most of the Palestinian militants to relocate to South Lebanon, where they soon took over large areas, creating the so-called "Fatahland".
1973 Yom Kippur War
On October 6, 1973, a coalition of Arab forces consisting of mainly Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Egyptian and Syria had crossed over the ceasefire lines that were agreed upon prior to 1973. Egypt had in particular tried to reoccupy much of the area surrounding the Suez Canal, whilst the frontline with Syria was mainly situated around the north in the Golan Heights. The war concluded with an Israeli victory, with both sides suffering tremendous casualties.
Following the end of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338, which confirmed the land-for-peace principle established in Resolution 242, initiating the Middle East peace process. The Arab defeat would play an important role in the PLO's willingness to pursue a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Additionally, many Israelis began to believe that the area under Israeli occupation could not be held indefinitely by force.
The Camp David Accords, agreed upon by Israel and Egypt in 1978, primarily aimed to establish a peace treaty between the two countries. The accords also proposed the creation of a "Self-Governing Authority" for the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, excluding Jerusalem. While it promised "full autonomy for the inhabitants," the land was to remain under Israeli control. A peace treaty based on these accords was signed in 1979, leading to Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Egyptian Sinai Peninsula by 1982. However, the specifics of the Palestinian-autonomy accords were disputed among the signatories and other Arab groups, and were never implemented.
1982 Lebanon War
(Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon) peaked in the early 1970s, as Lebanon was used as a base to launch attacks on northern Israel and airplane hijacking campaigns worldwide, which drew Israeli retaliation. During the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian militants continued to launch attacks against Israel while also battling opponents within Lebanon. In 1978, the Coastal Road massacre led to the Israeli full-scale invasion known as Operation Litani. This operation sought to dislodge the PLO from Lebanon while expanding the area under the control of the Israeli allied Christian militias in southern Lebanon. The operation succeeded in leaving a large portion of the south in control of the Israeli proxy which would eventually form the South Lebanon Army. Under United States pressure, Israeli forces would eventually withdraw from Lebanon.
In 1982, Israel, having secured its southern border with Egypt, sought to resolve the Palestinian issue by attempting to dismantle the military and political power of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon. The goal was to establish a friendly regime in Lebanon and continue its policy of settlement and annexation in occupied Palestine. The PLO had observed the latest ceasefire with Israel and shown a preference for negotiations over military operations. As a result, Israel sought to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner. Most Palestinian militants were defeated within several weeks, Beirut was captured, and the PLO headquarters were evacuated to Tunisia in June by Yasser Arafat's decision.
First Intifada (1987–1993)
The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 as a response to escalating attacks and the endless occupation. By the early 1990s, international efforts to settle the conflict had begun, in light of the success of the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty of 1982. Eventually, the Israeli–Palestinian peace process led to the Oslo Accords of 1993, allowing the PLO to relocate from Tunisia and take ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, establishing the Palestinian National Authority. The peace process also had significant opposition among radical Islamic elements of Palestinian society, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who immediately initiated a campaign of attacks targeting Israelis. Following hundreds of casualties and a wave of radical anti-government propaganda, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli far-right extremist who objected to the peace initiative. This struck a serious blow to the peace process, from which the newly elected government of Israel in 1996 backed off.
Second Intifada (2000–2005)
Following several years of unsuccessful negotiations, the conflict re-erupted as the Second Intifada in September 2000. The violence, escalating into an open conflict between the (Palestinian National Security Forces) and the Israel Defense Forces, lasted until 2004/2005 and led to approximately (130 fatalities). In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon ordered the removal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza. Israel and its Supreme Court formally declared an end to occupation, saying it "had no effective control over what occurred" in Gaza. However, the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and many other international bodies and NGOs continue to consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip as Israel controls Gaza Strip's airspace, territorial waters and controls the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea.
Fatah–Hamas split (2006–2007)
In 2006, Hamas won a plurality of 44% in the Palestinian parliamentary election. Israel responded it would begin (economic sanctions) unless Hamas agreed to accept prior Israeli–Palestinian agreements, forswear violence, and recognize Israel's right to exist, all of which Hamas rejected. After internal Palestinian political struggle between Fatah and Hamas erupted into the Battle of Gaza (2007), Hamas took full control of the area. In 2007, Israel imposed a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, and cooperation with Egypt allowed a ground blockade of the Egyptian border.
The tensions between Israel and Hamas escalated until late 2008, when Israel launched operation (Cast Lead) upon Gaza, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and billions of dollars in damage. By February 2009, a ceasefire was signed with international mediation between the parties, though the occupation and small and sporadic eruptions of violence continued.[]
In 2011, a Palestinian Authority attempt to gain UN membership as a fully sovereign state failed. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, sporadic rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air raids continued to occur. In November 2012, Palestinian representation in the UN was upgraded to a non-member observer state, and its mission title was changed from "Palestine (represented by PLO)" to "State of Palestine". In 2014, another war broke out between Israel and Gaza, resulting in over 70 Israeli and over 2,000 Palestinian casualties.
Israel–Hamas war (2023–present)
After the 2014 war and 2021 crisis, Hamas began planning an attack on Israel. In 2022, Netanyahu returned to power while headlining a hardline far-right government, which led to greater political strife in Israel and clashes in the Palestinian territories. This culminated in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, when Hamas-led militant groups launched a surprise attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and military personnel and taking hostages. The Israeli military retaliated by conducting an extensive aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza, followed by a large-scale ground invasion with the stated goal of destroying Hamas and controlling security in Gaza afterwards. Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including civilians and combatants and displaced almost two million people. South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice and called for an immediate ceasefire. The Court issued an order requiring Israel to take all measures to prevent any acts contrary to the (1948 Genocide Convention), but did not order Israel to suspend its military campaign.
The war spilled over, with Israel engaging in clashes with local militias in the (West Bank), Hezbollah in Lebanon and northern Israel, and other Iranian-backed militias in Syria. Iranian-backed militias also engaged in (clashes) with the United States, while the Houthis blockaded the Red Sea in protest, to which the United States responded with airstrikes in Yemen,Iraq, and Syria.
Attempts to reach a peaceful settlement
The PLO's participation in diplomatic negotiations was dependent on its complete disavowal of terrorism and recognition of Israel's "right to exist." This stipulation required the PLO to abandon its objective of reclaiming all of historic Palestine and instead focus on the 22 percent which came under Israeli military control in 1967. By the late 1970s, Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories and most Arab states supported a two-state settlement. In 1981, Saudi Arabia put forward a plan based on a two-state settlement to the conflict. This plan received the support of the Arab League. The PLO continued to maintain the ceasefire they had negotiated with Israel that same year. Israeli analyst Avner Yaniv describes Arafat as ready to make a historic compromise, while the Israeli cabinet continued to oppose the existence of a Palestinian state. Yaniv described Arafat's willingness to compromise as a "peace offensive" which Israel responded to by planning to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner in order to evade international diplomatic pressure.
The Peace Process
The term "peace-process" refers to the step-by-step approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Having originally entered into usage to describe the US mediated negotiations between Israel and surrounding Arab countries, notably Egypt, the term "peace-process" has grown to be associated with an emphasis on the negotiation process rather than on presenting a comprehensive solution to the conflict. As part of this process, fundamental issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such as borders, access to resources, and the Palestinian right of return, have been left to "final status" talks. Such "final status" negotiations along the lines discussed in Madrid in 1991 have never taken place.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 built on the incremental framework put in place by the 1978 Camp David negotiations and the 1991 Madrid and Washington talks. The motivation behind the incremental approach towards a settlement was that it would "build confidence", but the eventual outcome was instead a dramatic decline in mutual confidence. At each incremental stage, Israel further entrenched its occupation of the Palestinian territories, despite the PA upholding its obligation to curbing violent attacks from extremist groups, in part by cooperating with Israeli forces. At the same time, the PA repeatedly violated its obligations to curb incitement and its record on curbing terrorism and other security obligations under the Wye River Memorandum was, at best, mixed. Meron Benvinisti, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, observed that life became harsher for Palestinians during this period as state violence increased and Palestinian land continued to be expropriated as settlements expanded. Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described the Oslo Accords as legitimizing "the transformation of the West Bank into what has been called a 'cartographic cheeseboard'." Core to the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the security cooperation it would enter into with the Israeli military authorities in what has been described as the "outsourcing" of the occupation to the PA. Ben-Ami, who participated in the Camp David 2000 talks, described this process: "One of the meanings of Oslo was that the PLO was eventually Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the Intifada and cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence."
Oslo Accords (1993, 1995)
In 1993, Israeli officials led by Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leaders from the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat strove to find a peaceful solution through what became known as the Oslo peace process. A crucial milestone in this process was Arafat's letter of recognition of Israel's right to exist. Emblematic of the asymmetry in the Oslo process, Israel was not required to, and did not, recognize the right of a Palestinian state to exist. In 1993, the (Declaration of Principles) (or Oslo I) was signed and set forward a framework for future Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, in which key issues would be left to "final status" talks. The stipulations of the Oslo agreements ran contrary to the international consensus for resolving the conflict; the agreements did not uphold Palestinian self-determination or statehood and repealed the internationally accepted interpretation of (UN Resolution 242) that land cannot be acquired by war. With respect to access to land and resources, Noam Chomsky described the Oslo agreements as allowing "Israel to do virtually what it likes." The Oslo process was delicate and progressed in fits and starts.
The process took a turning point at the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 and the election of Netanyahu in 1996, finally unraveling when Arafat and Ehud Barak failed to reach an agreement at Camp David in July 2000 and later at Taba in 2001. The interim period specified by Oslo had not built confidence between the two parties; Barak had failed to implement additional stages of the interim agreements and settlements expanded by 10% during his short term. The disagreement between the two parties at Camp David was primarily on the acceptance (or rejection) of international consensus. For Palestinian negotiators, the international consensus, as represented by the yearly vote in the UN General Assembly which passes almost unanimously, was the starting point for negotiations. The Israeli negotiators, supported by the American participants, did not accept the international consensus as the basis for a settlement. Both sides eventually accepted the Clinton parameters "with reservations" but the talks at Taba were "called to a halt" by Barak, and the peace process itself came to a stand-still. Ben-Ami, who participated in the talks at Camp David as Israel's foreign minister, would later describe the proposal on the table: "The Clinton parameters... are the best proof that Arafat was right to turn down the summit’s offers".
Camp David Summit (2000)
In July 2000, US President Bill Clinton convened a peace summit between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak reportedly put forward the following as "bases for negotiation", via the US to the Palestinian President: a non-militarized Palestinian state split into 3–4 parts containing 87–92% of the West Bank after having already given up 78% of historic Palestine. Thus, an Israeli offer of 91 percent of the West Bank (5,538 km2 of the West Bank translates into only 86 percent from the Palestinian perspective), including Arab parts of East Jerusalem and the entire Gaza Strip, as well as a stipulation that 69 Jewish settlements (which comprise 85% of the West Bank's Jewish settlers) would be ceded to Israel, no right of return to Israel, no sovereignty over the Temple Mount or any core East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, and continued Israel control over the Jordan Valley.
Arafat rejected this offer, which Palestinian negotiators, Israeli analysts and Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described as "unacceptable". According to the Palestinian negotiators the offer did not remove many of the elements of the Israeli occupation regarding land, security, settlements, and Jerusalem.
After the Camp David summit, a narrative emerged, supported by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, as well as US officials including Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright, that Yasser Arafat had rejected a generous peace offer from Israel and instead incited a violent uprising. This narrative suggested that Arafat was not interested in a two-state solution, but rather aimed to destroy Israel and take over all of Palestine. This view was widely accepted in US and Israeli public opinion. Nearly all scholars and most Israeli and US officials involved in the negotiations have rejected this narrative. These individuals include prominent Israeli negotiators, the IDF chief of staff, the head of the IDF's intelligence bureau, the head of the Shin Bet as well as their advisors.
No tenable solution was crafted which would satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian demands, even under intense US pressure. Clinton has long blamed Arafat for the collapse of the summit. In the months following the summit, Clinton appointed former US Senator George J. Mitchell to lead a fact-finding committee aiming to identify strategies for restoring the peace process. The committee's findings were published in 2001 with the dismantlement of existing Israeli settlements and Palestinian crackdown on militant activity being one strategy.
Developments following Camp David
Following the failed summit Palestinian and Israeli negotiators continued to meet in small groups through August and September 2000 to try to bridge the gaps between their respective positions. The United States prepared its own plan to resolve the outstanding issues. Clinton's presentation of the US proposals was delayed by the advent of the Second Intifada at the end of September.
Clinton's plan, eventually presented on 23 December 2000, proposed the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and 94–96 percent of the West Bank plus the equivalent of 1–3 percent of the West Bank in land swaps from pre-1967 Israel. On Jerusalem, the plan stated that "the general principle is that Arab areas are Palestinian and that Jewish areas are Israeli." The holy sites were to be split on the basis that Palestinians would have sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Noble sanctuary, while the Israelis would have sovereignty over the Western Wall. On refugees the plan suggested a number of proposals including financial compensation, the right of return to the Palestinian state, and Israeli acknowledgment of suffering caused to the Palestinians in 1948. Security proposals referred to a "non-militarized" Palestinian state, and an international force for border security. Both sides accepted Clinton's plan and it became the basis for the negotiations at the Taba Peace summit the following January.
Taba Summit (2001)
The Israeli negotiation team presented a new map at the (Taba Summit) in (Taba, Egypt), in January 2001. The proposition removed the "temporarily Israeli controlled" areas, and the Palestinian side accepted this as a basis for further negotiation. With Israeli elections looming the talks ended without an agreement but the two sides issued a joint statement attesting to the progress they had made: "The sides declare that they have never been closer to reaching an agreement and it is thus our shared belief that the remaining gaps could be bridged with the resumption of negotiations following the Israeli elections." The following month the Likud party candidate Ariel Sharon defeated Ehud Barak in the Israeli elections and was elected as Israeli prime minister on 7 February 2001. Sharon's new government chose not to resume the high-level talks.
Roadmap for Peace (2002–2003)
One peace proposal, presented by the Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States on 17 September 2002, was the Road Map for Peace. This plan did not attempt to resolve difficult questions such as the fate of Jerusalem or Israeli settlements, but left that to be negotiated in later phases of the process. The proposal never made it beyond the first phase, whose goals called for a halt to both Israeli settlement construction and Israeli–Palestinian violence. Neither goal has been achieved as of November 2015.
Arab Peace Initiative (2002, 2007, 2017)
The Arab Peace Initiative (Arabic: مبادرة السلام العربية Mubādirat as-Salām al-ʿArabīyyah), also known as the Saudi Initiative, was first proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the Beirut Summit (2002). The peace initiative is a proposed solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict as a whole, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in particular. The initiative was initially published on 28 March 2002, at the Beirut Summit, and agreed upon again in 2007 in the (Riyadh Summit). Unlike the Road Map for Peace, it spelled out "final-solution" borders based explicitly on the UN borders established before the 1967 Six-Day War. It offered full normalization of relations with Israel, in exchange for the withdrawal of its forces from all the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights, to recognize "an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a "just solution" for the Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat immediately embraced the initiative. His successor Mahmoud Abbas also supported the plan and officially asked U.S. President Barack Obama to adopt it as part of his Middle East policy.Islamist political party Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza Strip, was deeply divided, with most factions rejecting the plan. Palestinians have criticised the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement and another with Bahrain signed in September 2020, fearing the moves weaken the Arab Peace Initiative, regarding the UAE's move as "a betrayal."
The Israeli government under Ariel Sharon rejected the initiative as a "non-starter" because it required Israel to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders. After the renewed Arab League endorsement in 2007, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a cautious welcome to the plan. In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed tentative support for the Initiative, but in 2018, he rejected it as a basis for future negotiations with the Palestinians.
Current status
In April 2021, Human Rights Watch released its report A Threshold Crossed, describing the policies of Israel towards Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the crime of apartheid. A further report titled Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity was released by Amnesty International on 1 February 2022.
Israel's settlements policy
Israel has had its settlement growth and policies in the Palestinian territories harshly criticized by the European Union citing it as increasingly undermining the viability of the two-state solution and running in contrary to the Israeli-stated commitment to resume negotiations. In December 2011, all the regional groupings on the UN Security Council named continued settlement construction and settler violence as disruptive to the resumption of talks, a call viewed by Russia as a "historic step". In April 2012, international outrage followed Israeli steps to further entrench the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which included the publishing of tenders for further settler homes and the plan to legalize settler outposts. Britain said that the move was a breach of Israeli commitments under the road map to freeze all settlement expansion in the land captured since 1967. The British Foreign Minister stated that the "Systematic, illegal Israeli settlement activity poses the most significant and live threat to the viability of the two state solution". In May 2012 the 27 foreign ministers of the European Union issued a statement which condemned continued Israeli settler violence and incitement. In a similar move, (the Quartet) "expressed its concern over ongoing settler violence and incitement in the West Bank," calling on Israel "to take effective measures, including bringing the perpetrators of such acts to justice." The Palestinian Ma'an News agency reported the PA Cabinet's statement on the issue stated that the West, including East Jerusalem, were seeing "an escalation in incitement and settler violence against our people with a clear protection from the occupation military. The last of which was the thousands of settler march in East Jerusalem which included slogans inciting to kill, hate and supports violence".
Israeli Military Police
In a report published in February 2014 covering incidents over the three-year period of 2011–2013, Amnesty International asserted that Israeli forces employed reckless violence in the West Bank, and in some instances appeared to engage in wilful killings which would be tantamount to (war crimes). Besides the numerous fatalities, Amnesty said at least 261 Palestinians, including 67 children, had been gravely injured by Israeli use of live ammunition. In this same period, 45 Palestinians, including 6 children had been killed. Amnesty's review of 25 civilians deaths concluded that in no case was there evidence of the Palestinians posing an imminent threat. At the same time, over 8,000 Palestinians suffered serious injuries from other means, including rubber-coated metal bullets. Only one IDF soldier was convicted, killing a Palestinian attempting to enter Israel illegally. The soldier was demoted and given a 1-year sentence with a five-month suspension. The IDF answered the charges stating that its army held itself "to the highest of professional standards", adding that when there was suspicion of wrongdoing, it investigated and took action "where appropriate".
Incitement
Following the Oslo Accords, which was to set up regulative bodies to rein in frictions, Palestinian incitement against Israel, Jews, and Zionism continued, parallel with Israel's pursuance of settlements in the Palestinian territories, though under Abu Mazen it has reportedly dwindled significantly. Charges of incitement have been reciprocal, both sides interpreting media statements in the Palestinian and Israeli press as constituting incitement.(Schoolbooks published for both Israeli and Palestinian) schools have been found to have encouraged one-sided narrative and even hatred of the other side. Perpetrators of murderous attacks, whether against Israelis or Palestinians, often find strong vocal support from sections of their communities despite varying levels of condemnation from politicians.
Both parties to the conflict have been criticized by third-parties for teaching incitement to their children by downplaying each side's historical ties to the area, teaching propagandist maps, or indoctrinate their children to one day join the armed forces.
United Nations and Palestinian statehood
The PLO have campaigned for full member status for the state of Palestine at the UN and for recognition on the 1967 borders. The campaign has received widespread support, although it has been criticised by the US and Israel for allegedly avoiding bilateral negotiation. Netanyahu has criticized the Palestinians of purportedly trying to bypass direct talks, whereas Abbas has argued that the continued construction of Israeli-Jewish settlements is "undermining the realistic potential" for the two-state solution. Although Palestine has been denied full member status by the UN Security Council, in late 2012 the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of sovereign Palestine by granting non-member state status.
Issues in dispute
The core issues of the conflict are borders, the status of settlements in the West Bank, the status of east Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugee right of return, and security. With the PLO's recognition of Israel's right to exist in 1982, the international community with the main exception of the United States and Israel has been in consensus on a framework for resolving the conflict on the basis of international law. Various UN bodies and the ICJ have supported this position; every year, the UN General Assembly votes almost unamimously in favor of a resolution titled "Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine." This resolution consistently affirms the illegality of the Israeli settlements, the annexation of East Jerusalem, and the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. It also emphasizes the need for an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and the need for a just resolution to the refugee question on the basis of UN resolution 194.
Unilateral strategies and the rhetoric of hardline political factions, coupled with violence, have fostered mutual embitterment and hostility and a loss of faith in the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement. Since the break down of negotiations, security has played a less important role in Israeli concerns, trailing behind employment, corruption, housing and other pressing issues. Israeli policy had reoriented to focus on managing the conflict and the associated occupation of Palestinian territory, rather than reaching a negotiated solution. The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has led the majority of Palestinians to believe that Israel is not committed to reaching an agreement, but rather to a pursuit of establishing permanent control over this territory in order to provide that security.
Status of Jerusalem
The control of Jerusalem is a particularly delicate issue, with each side asserting claims over the city. In 1967, Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem, in violation of international law. Israel seized a significant area further east of the city, eventually creating a barrier of Israeli settlements around the city, isolating Jerusalem's Palestinian population from the West Bank. The three largest Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—hold Jerusalem as an important setting for their religious and historical narratives. Jerusalem is the holiest city for Judaism, being the former location of the Jewish temples on the Temple Mount and the capital of the ancient Israelite kingdom. For Muslims, Jerusalem is the third holiest site, being the location of Isra and Mi'raj event, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. For Christians, Jerusalem is the site of Jesus' crucifixion and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Israeli government, including the Knesset and Supreme Court, is located in the "new city" of West Jerusalem and has been since Israel's founding in 1948. After Israel captured the Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, it assumed complete administrative control of East Jerusalem. In 1980, Israel passed the Jerusalem Law declaring "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel."[]
Many countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, with exceptions being the United States, and Russia. The majority of UN member states and most international organisations do not recognise Israel's claims to East Jerusalem which occurred after the 1967 Six-Day War, nor its 1980 Jerusalem Law proclamation. The International Court of Justice in its 2004 Advisory opinion on the "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" described East Jerusalem as "occupied Palestinian territory".
At the Camp David and Taba Summits in 2000–2001, the United States proposed a plan in which the Arab parts of Jerusalem would be given to the proposed Palestinian state while the Jewish parts of Jerusalem were given to Israel. All archaeological work under the Temple Mount would be jointly controlled by the Israeli and Palestinian governments. Both sides accepted the proposal in principle, but the summits ultimately failed.
Holy sites and Jerusalem's Temple Mount
Israel has concerns regarding the welfare of Jewish holy places under possible Palestinian control. When Jerusalem was under Jordanian control, no Jews were allowed to visit the Western Wall or other Jewish holy places, and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was desecrated. Since 1975, Israel has banned Muslims from worshiping at (Joseph's Tomb), a shrine considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims. Settlers established a yeshiva, installed a Torah scroll and covered the mihrab. During the Second Intifada the site was looted and burned. Israeli security agencies routinely monitor and arrest Jewish extremists that plan attacks, though many serious incidents have still occurred. Israel has allowed almost complete autonomy to the Muslim trust (Waqf) over the Temple Mount.
Palestinians have voiced concerns regarding the welfare of Christian and Muslim holy places under Israeli control. Additionally, some Palestinian advocates have made statements alleging that the (Western Wall Tunnel) was re-opened with the intent of causing the mosque's collapse.
Palestinian refugees
Palestinian refugees are people who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli conflict and the 1967 Six-Day War. The number of Palestinians who were expelled or fled from Israel was estimated at 711,000 in 1949. The descendants of all refugees (not just Palestinian refugees ) are considered by the UN to also be refugees. As of 2010 there are 4.7 million Palestinian refugees. Between 350,000 and 400,000 Palestinians were displaced during the 1967 Arab–Israeli war. A third of the refugees live in recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The remainder live in and around the cities and towns of these host countries. Most Palestinian refugees were born outside Israel and are not allowed to live in any part of historic Palestine.
Israel has since 1948 prevented the return of Palestinian refugees and refused any settlement permitting their return except in limited cases. On the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and (UN General Assembly Resolution 194), Palestinians claim the right of refugees to return to the lands, homes and villages where they lived before being driven into exile in 1948 and 1967. Arafat himself repeatedly assured his American and Israeli interlocutors at Camp David that he primarily sought the principle of the right of return to be accepted, rather than the full right of return, in practice.
Palestinian and international authors have justified the right of return of the Palestinian refugees on several grounds: Several scholars included in the broader New Historians argue that the Palestinian refugees fled or were chased out or expelled by the actions of the Haganah, Lehi and Irgun, Zionist paramilitary groups. A number have also characterized this as an ethnic cleansing. The New Historians cite indications of Arab leaders' desire for the Palestinian Arab population to stay put.
The Israeli Law of Return that grants citizenship to people of Jewish descent has been described as discriminatory against other ethnic groups, especially Palestinians that cannot apply for such citizenship under the law of return, to the territory which they were expelled from or fled during the course of the 1948 war.
According to the UN Resolution 194, adopted in 1948, "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."UN Resolution 3236 "reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return".Resolution 242 from the UN affirms the necessity for "achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"; however, Resolution 242 does not specify that the "just settlement" must or should be in the form of a literal Palestinian right of return.
Historians still debate the (causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus). Notably, historian Benny Morris states that most of Palestine's 700,000 refugees fled because of the "flail of war" and expected to return home shortly after a successful Arab invasion. He documents instances in which Arab leaders advised the evacuation of entire communities as happened in Haifa. In his scholarly work, however, he does conclude that there were expulsions which were carried out. In his later work, Morris considers the displacement the result of a national conflict initiated by the Arabs themselves. In a 2004 interview with Haaretz, he described the exodus as largely resulting from an atmosphere of transfer that was promoted by Ben-Gurion and understood by the military leadership. He also claimed that there "are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing". He has been criticized by political scientist Norman Finkelstein for having seemingly changed his views for political, rather than historical, reasons.
Although Israel accepts the right of the Palestinian Diaspora to return into a new Palestinian state, Israel insists that the return of this population into the current state of Israel would threaten the stability of the Jewish state; an influx of Palestinian refugees would lead to the end of the state of Israel as a Jewish state since a demographic majority of Jews would not be maintained.
Israeli security concerns
Throughout the conflict, Palestinian violence has been a concern for Israelis. Security concerns have historically been a key driver in Israeli political decision making, often expanding in scope and taking precedence over other considerations such as international law and Palestinian human rights. The occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the continued expansion of settlements in those areas have been justified on security grounds.
Israel, along with the United States[] and the European Union, refer to any use of force by Palestinian groups as terroristic and criminal. This is in contrast to the consensus in international law which allows for Palestinians, as a people under illegal military occupation, to use lethal force against Israeli military targets and installations.
In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers have targeted civilian buses, restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and marketplaces. From 1993 to 2003, 303 (Palestinian suicide bombers) attacked Israel.[] In 1994, Hamas initiated their first lethal suicide attack in response to the (cave of the Patriarchs massacre) where American-Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire in a mosque, killing 29 people and injuring 125.
The Israeli government initiated the construction of a security barrier following scores of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in July 2003. Israel's coalition government approved the security barrier in the northern part of the green line between Israel and the West Bank. According to the IDF, since the erection of the fence, terrorist acts have declined by approximately 90%. The decline in attacks can also be attributed to the permanent presence of Israeli troops inside and around Palestinian cities and increasing security cooperation between the IDF and the Palestinian Authority during this period. The barrier followed a route that ran almost entirely through land occupied by Israel in June 1967, unilaterally seizing more than 10% of the West Bank, including whole neighborhoods and settlement blocs, while splitting Palestinian villages in half with immediate effects on Palestinian's freedom of movement. The barrier, in some areas, isolated farmers from their fields and children from their schools, while also restricting Palestinians from moving within the West Bank or pursuing employment in Israel.
In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the barrier violated the Palestinian right to self-determination, contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention, and could not be justified as a measure of Israeli self-defense. The ICJ further expressed that the construction of the wall by Israel could become a permanent fixture, altering the status quo. Israel's High Court, however, disagreed with the ICJ's conclusions, stating that they lacked a factual basis. Several human rights organizations, including B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, echoed the ICJ's concerns. They suggested that the wall's route was designed to perpetuate the existence of settlements and facilitate their future annexation into Israel, and that the wall was a means for Israel to consolidate control over land used for illegal settlements. The sophisticated structure of the wall also indicated its likely permanence.
Since 2001, the threat of Qassam rockets fired from Palestinian territories into Israel continues to be of great concern for Israeli defense officials. In 2006—the year following Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip—the Israeli government claimed to have recorded 1,726 such launches, more than four times the total rockets fired in 2005. As of January 2009, over (8,600 rockets have been launched), causing widespread psychological trauma and disruption of daily life. As a result of these attacks, Israelis living in southern Israel have had to spend long periods in bomb shelters. The relatively small payload carried on these rockets, Israel's advanced early warning system, American-supplied anti-missile capabilities, and network of shelters made the rockets rarely lethal. In 2014, out of 4,000 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, only six Israeli civilians were killed. For comparison, the payload carried on these rockets is smaller than Israeli tank shells, of which 49,000 where fired in Gaza in 2014.
There is significant debate within Israel about how to deal with the country's security concerns. Options have included military action (including targeted killings and (house demolitions) of terrorist operatives), diplomacy, unilateral gestures toward peace, and increased security measures such as checkpoints, roadblocks and security barriers. The legality and the wisdom of all of the above tactics have been called into question by various commentators.[]
Since mid-June 2007, Israel's primary means of dealing with security concerns in the West Bank has been to cooperate with and permit United States-sponsored training, equipping, and funding of the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which with Israeli help have largely succeeded in quelling West Bank supporters of Hamas.
Palestinian violence outside of Israel
Some Palestinians have committed violent acts over the globe on the pretext of a struggle against Israel.
During the late 1960s, the PLO became increasingly infamous for its use of international terror. In 1969 alone, the PLO was responsible for hijacking 82 planes. (El Al Airlines) became a regular hijacking target. The hijacking of Air France Flight 139 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine culminated during a hostage-rescue mission, where Israeli special forces successfully rescued the majority of the hostages.
However, one of the most well-known and notorious terrorist acts was the capture and eventual murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence
Fighting among rival Palestinian and Arab movements has played a crucial role in shaping Israel's security policy towards Palestinian militants, as well as in the Palestinian leadership's own policies.[] As early as the 1930s revolts in Palestine, Arab forces fought each other while also skirmishing with Zionist and British forces, and internal conflicts continue to the present day. During the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian baathists broke from the Palestine Liberation Organization and allied with the Shia Amal Movement, fighting a bloody civil war that killed thousands of Palestinians.
In the First Intifada, more than a thousand Palestinians were killed in a campaign initiated by the Palestine Liberation Organization to crack down on suspected Israeli security service informers and collaborators. The Palestinian Authority was strongly criticized for its treatment of alleged collaborators, rights groups complaining that those labeled collaborators were denied fair trials. According to a report released by the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, less than 45 percent of those killed were actually guilty of informing for Israel.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas officials have tortured and killed thousands of Fatah members and other Palestinians who oppose their rule. During the Battle of Gaza, more than 150 Palestinians died over a four-day period. The violence among Palestinians was described as a civil war by some commentators. By 2007, more than 600 Palestinian people had died during the struggle between Hamas and Fatah.
Overriding authority and international status
This section does not any . (September 2018) |
As far as Israel is concerned, the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority is derived from the Oslo Accords, signed with the PLO, under which it acquired control over cities in the Palestinian territories (Area A) while the surrounding countryside came either under Israeli security and Palestinian civil administration (Area B) or complete Israeli civil administration (Area C). Israel has built additional highways to allow Israelis to traverse the area without entering Palestinian cities in Area A. The initial areas under Palestinian Authority control are diverse and non-contiguous. The areas have changed over time by subsequent negotiations, including Oslo II, Wye River and (Sharm el-Sheik). According to Palestinians, the separated areas make it impossible to create a viable nation and fails to address Palestinian security needs; Israel has expressed no agreement to withdrawal from some Areas B, resulting in no reduction in the division of the Palestinian areas, and the institution of a safe pass system, without Israeli checkpoints, between these parts.
Under the Oslo Accords, as a security measure, Israel has insisted on its control over all land, sea and air border crossings into the Palestinian territories, and the right to set import and export controls. This is to enable Israel to control the entry into the territories of materials of military significance and of potentially dangerous persons.
The PLO's objective for international recognition of the State of Palestine is considered by Israel as a provocative "unilateral" act that is inconsistent with the Oslo Accords.
Water resources
In the Middle East, water resources are of great political concern. Since Israel receives much of its water from two large underground aquifers which continue under the Green Line, the use of this water has been contentious in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Israel withdraws most water from these areas, but it also supplies the West Bank with approximately 40 million cubic metres annually, contributing to 77% of Palestinians' water supply in the West Bank, which is to be shared for a population of about 2.6 million.
While Israel's consumption of this water has decreased since it began its occupation of the West Bank, it still consumes the majority of it: in the 1950s, Israel consumed 95% of the water output of the Western Aquifer, and 82% of that produced by the Northeastern Aquifer. Although this water was drawn entirely on Israel's own side of the pre-1967 border, the sources of the water are nevertheless from the shared groundwater basins located under both West Bank and Israel.
In the Oslo II Accord, both sides agreed to maintain "existing quantities of utilization from the resources." In so doing, the Palestinian Authority established the legality of Israeli water production in the West Bank, subject to a (Joint Water Committee) (JWC). Moreover, Israel obligated itself in this agreement to provide water to supplement Palestinian production, and further agreed to allow additional Palestinian drilling in the Eastern Aquifer, also subject to the Joint Water Committee. The water that Israel receives comes mainly from the Jordan River system, the Sea of Galilee and two underground sources. According to a 2003 BBC article the Palestinians lack access to the Jordan River system.
According to a report of 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, water resources were confiscated for the benefit of the Israeli settlements in the Ghor. Palestinian irrigation pumps on the Jordan River were destroyed or confiscated after the 1967 war and Palestinians were not allowed to use water from the Jordan River system. Furthermore, the authorities did not allow any new irrigation wells to be drilled by Palestinian farmers, while it provided fresh water and allowed drilling wells for irrigation purposes at the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A report was released by the UN in August 2012 and (Max Gaylard), the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, explained at the launch of the publication: "Gaza will have half a million more people by 2020 while its economy will grow only slowly. In consequence, the people of Gaza will have an even harder time getting enough drinking water and electricity, or sending their children to school". Gaylard present alongside Jean Gough, of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Robert Turner, of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The report projects that Gaza's population will increase from 1.6 million people to 2.1 million people in 2020, leading to a density of more than 5,800 people per square kilometre.
Future and financing
Numerous foreign nations and international organizations have established bilateral agreements with the Palestinian and Israeli water authorities. It was estimated that a future investment of about US$1.1bn for the West Bank and $0.8bn for the Gaza Strip Southern Governorates was needed for the planning period from 2003 to 2015.
In late 2012, a donation of $21.6 million was announced by the Government of the Netherlands—the Dutch government stated that the funds would be provided to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), for the specific benefit of Palestinian children. An article, published by the UN News website, stated that: "Of the $21.6 million, $5.7 will be allocated to UNRWA's 2012 Emergency Appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory, which will support programmes in the West Bank and Gaza aiming to mitigate the effects on refugees of the deteriorating situation they face."
Israeli occupation of the West Bank
Occupied Palestinian Territory is the term used by the United Nations to refer to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip—territories which were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, having formerly been controlled by Egypt and Jordan.
In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem. Israel has never annexed the West Bank, apart from East Jerusalem, or Gaza Strip, and the United Nations has demanded the "[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" and that Israeli forces withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict" – the meaning and intent of the latter phrase is disputed. See Interpretations.
Some Palestinians say they are entitled to all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Israel says it is justified in not ceding all this land, because of security concerns, and also because the lack of any valid diplomatic agreement at the time means that ownership and boundaries of this land is open for discussion. Palestinians claim any reduction of this claim is a severe deprivation of their rights. In negotiations, they claim that any moves to reduce the boundaries of this land is a hostile move against their key interests. Israel considers this land to be in dispute and feels the purpose of negotiations is to define what the final borders will be. In 2017 Hamas announced that it was ready to support a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders "without recognising Israel or ceding any rights". Hamas has previously viewed the peace process "as religiously forbidden and politically inconceivable".
Israeli settlements
According to the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA), "In the years following the Six-Day War, and especially in the 1990s during the peace process, Israel re-established communities destroyed in 1929 and 1948 as well as established numerous new settlements in the West Bank." These settlements were, as of 2009, home to about 301,000 people. DEMA added, "Most of the settlements are in the western parts of the West Bank, while others are deep into Palestinian territory, overlooking Palestinian cities. These settlements have been the site of much inter-communal conflict." The issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, until 2005, the Gaza Strip, have been described by the UK and the (WEU) as an obstacle to the peace process. The United Nations and the European Union have also called the settlements "illegal under international law."
However, Israel disputes this; several scholars and commentators disagree with the assessment that settlements are illegal, citing in 2005 recent historical trends to back up their argument. Those who justify the legality of the settlements use arguments based upon Articles 2 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 242.[] On a practical level, some objections voiced by Palestinians are that settlements divert resources needed by Palestinian towns, such as arable land, water, and other resources; and, that settlements reduce Palestinians' ability to travel freely via local roads, owing to security considerations.[]
Former US President George W. Bush has stated that he does not expect Israel to return entirely to the 1949 armistice lines because of "new realities on the ground". One of the main compromise plans put forth by the Clinton Administration would have allowed Israel to keep some settlements in the West Bank, especially those which were in large blocs near the pre-1967 borders of Israel. In return, Palestinians would have received some concessions of land in other parts of the country.[] The Obama administration viewed a complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank as a critical step toward peace. In May and June 2009, President Barack Obama said, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements", and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stated that the President "wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions." However, Obama has since declared that the United States will no longer press Israel to stop West Bank settlement construction as a precondition for continued peace-process negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
As of 2023, there were about 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, with another 200,000 living in East Jerusalem. In February 2023, Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich took charge of most of the (Civil Administration), obtaining broad authority over civilian issues in the West Bank. In the first six months of 2023, 13,000 housing units were built in settlements, which is almost three times more than in the whole of 2022.
Blockade of the Gaza Strip
The Military Advocate General of Israel said that Israel is justified under international law to impose a blockade on an enemy for security reasons as Hamas "turned the territory under its de facto control into a launching pad of mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages in southern Israel." Media headlines have described a United Nations commission as ruling that Israel's blockade is "both legal and appropriate." However, Amnesty International has stated that this is "completely false," and that the cited UN report made no such claim. The Israeli Government's continued land, sea and air blockage is tantamount to collective punishment of the population, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to Oxfam, because of an import-export ban imposed on Gaza in 2007, 95% of Gaza's industrial operations were suspended. Out of 35,000 people employed by 3,900 factories in June 2005, only 1,750 people remained employed by 195 factories in June 2007. By 2010, Gaza's unemployment rate had risen to 40% with 80% of the population living on less than 2 dollars a day.
In January 2008, the Israeli government calculated how many calories per person were needed to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and then subtracted eight percent to adjust for the "culture and experience" of the Gazans. Details of the calculations were released following Israeli human rights organization (Gisha)'s application to the high court. Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, who drafted the plan, stated that the scheme was never formally adopted, this was not accepted by Gisha.
Starting in February 2008, the Israeli Government reduced the electricity it sells directly to Gaza. This follows the ruling of Israel's High Court of Justice's decision, which held, with respect to the amount of industrial fuel supplied to Gaza, that, "The clarification that we made indicates that the supply of industrial diesel fuel to the Gaza Strip in the winter months of last year was comparable to the amount that the Respondents now undertake to allow into the Gaza Strip. This fact also indicates that the amount is reasonable and sufficient to meet the vital humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip." Palestinian militants killed two Israelis in the process of delivering fuel to the Nahal Oz fuel depot.
With regard to Israel's plan, the Court stated that, "calls for a reduction of five percent of the power supply in three of the ten power lines that supply electricity from Israel to the Gaza Strip, to a level of 13.5 megawatts in two of the lines and 12.5 megawatts in the third line, we [the Court] were convinced that this reduction does not breach the humanitarian obligations imposed on the State of Israel in the framework of the armed conflict being waged between it and the Hamas organization that controls the Gaza Strip. Our conclusion is based, in part, on the affidavit of the Respondents indicating that the relevant Palestinian officials stated that they can reduce the load in the event limitations are placed on the power lines, and that they had used this capability in the past."
On 20 June 2010, Israel's Security Cabinet approved a new system governing the blockade that would allow practically all non-military or dual-use items to enter the Gaza Strip. According to a cabinet statement, Israel would "expand the transfer of construction materials designated for projects that have been approved by the Palestinian Authority, including schools, health institutions, water, sanitation and more – as well as (projects) that are under international supervision." Despite the easing of the land blockade, Israel will continue to inspect all goods bound for Gaza by sea at the port of Ashdod.
Prior to a Gaza visit, scheduled for April 2013, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan explained to Turkish newspaper Hürriyet that the fulfilment of three conditions by Israel was necessary for friendly relations to resume between Turkey and Israel: an apology for the May 2010 Gaza flotilla raid (Prime Minister Netanyahu had delivered an apology to Erdogan by telephone on 22 March 2013), the awarding of compensation to the families affected by the raid, and the lifting of the Gaza blockade by Israel. The Turkish prime minister also explained in the Hürriyet interview, in relation to the April 2013 Gaza visit, "We will monitor the situation to see if the promises are kept or not." At the same time, Netanyahu affirmed that Israel would only consider exploring the removal of the Gaza blockade if peace ("quiet") is achieved in the area.
On 9 October 2023, Israel declared war on Hamas and tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
Agricultural rights
Since the beginning of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the conflict has been about land. When Israel became a state after the war in 1948, 77% of Palestine's land was used for the creation on the state. The majority of those living in Palestine at the time became refugees in other countries and this first land crisis became the root of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[] Because the root of the conflict is with land, the disputes between Israel and Palestine are well-manifested in the agriculture of Palestine.
In Palestine, agriculture is a mainstay in the economy. The production of agricultural goods supports the population's sustenance needs and fuels Palestine's export economy. According to the Council for European Palestinian Relations, the agricultural sector formally employs 13.4% of the population and informally employs 90% of the population. Over the past 10 years[], unemployment rates in Palestine have increased and the agricultural sector became the most impoverished sector in Palestine. Unemployment rates peaked in 2008 when they reached 41% in Gaza.
Palestinian agriculture suffers from numerous problems including Israeli military and civilian attacks on farms and farmers, blockades to exportation of produce and importation of necessary inputs, widespread confiscation of land for nature reserves as well as military and settler use, confiscation and destruction of wells, and physical barriers within the West Bank.
Israel's West Bank barrier
With the construction of the separation barrier, the Israeli state promised free movement across regions. However, border closures, curfews, and checkpoints has significantly restricted Palestinian movement. In 2012, there were 99 fixed check points and 310 flying checkpoints.[] The border restrictions impacted the imports and exports in Palestine and weakened the industrial and agricultural sectors because of the constant Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza. In order for the Palestinian economy to be prosperous, the restrictions on Palestinian land must be removed. According to The Guardian and a report for World Bank, the Palestinian economy lost $3.4bn (%35 of the annual GDP) to Israeli restrictions in the West Bank alone.
Economic disputes and boycotts
In Gaza, the agricultural market suffers from economic boycotts and border closures and restrictions placed by Israel. The PA's Minister of Agriculture estimates that around US$1.2 billion were lost in September 2006 because of these security measures. There has also been an economic embargo initiated by the west on Hamas-led Palestine, which has decreased the amount of imports and exports from Palestine.[] This embargo was brought on by Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel's right to statehood.[] As a result, the PA's 160,000 employees have not received their salaries in over one year.
Actions toward stabilizing the conflict
In response to a weakening trend in Palestinian violence and growing economic and (security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority), the Israeli military removed over 120 check points in 2010 and planned on disengaging from major Palestinian population areas. According to the IDF, terrorist activity in the West Bank decreased by 97% compared to violence in 2002.
PA–Israel efforts in the West Bank have "significantly increased investor confidence", and the Palestinian economy grew 6.8% in 2009.
Since the Second Intifada, Israel has banned Jewish Israelis from entering Palestinian cities. However, Israeli Arabs are allowed to enter West Bank cities on weekends.
The Palestinian Authority has petitioned the Israeli military to allow Jewish tourists to visit West Bank cities as "part of an effort" to improve the Palestinian economy. Israeli general (Avi Mizrahi) spoke with Palestinian security officers while touring malls and soccer fields in the West Bank. Mizrahi gave permission to allow Israeli tour guides into Bethlehem, a move intended to "contribute to the Palestinian and Israeli economies."
Mutual recognition
Between Israel and the PLO
Beginning in 1993 with the (Oslo peace process), Israel recognizes "the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people", though Israel does not recognize the State of Palestine. In return, it was agreed that Palestinians would promote peaceful co-existence, renounce violence and promote recognition of Israel among their own people.
Palestinian government
Palestinian security apparatus
Starting in 2006, the United States began training, equipping, and funding the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which had been cooperating with Israel at unprecedented levels in the West Bank to quell supporters of Hamas. The US government has spent over $500 million building and training the Palestinian National Security Forces and Presidential Guard. The IDF maintains that the US-trained forces will soon be capable of "overrunning small IDF outposts and isolated Israeli communities" in the event of a conflict.
Views on dialogue versus violence
Societal attitudes in both Israel and Palestine are a source of concern to those promoting dispute resolution.
According to a June 2022 poll carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research that asked Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, "which of the following means is the most effective means of ending the Israeli occupation and building an independent state", 50% supported "armed struggle", 22% favored negotiations until an agreement could be reached, and 21% supported non-violent popular resistance. 59% of respondents cite the armed attack inside Israel carried out by Palestinians unaffiliated with known armed groups as contributing to ending the occupation; 37% disagree. Residents of the Gaza Strip, youth, students, low-income workers, public sector employees, and Hamas supporters are more likely to believe that armed attacks contribute to the national interest. An unconditional resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations is opposed by 69% of Palestinians and supported by 22%. A return to dialogue with the new US administration under Joe Biden is opposed by 65% of Palestinians, while 29% are in favor.
Fatalities
This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: more deaths due to the war beginning in 2023. (February 2024) |
Studies provide aggregated casualty data for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 13,000 Israelis and Palestinians were killed in the conflict between 1948-97. Other estimates give 14,500 killed between 1948-2009. Palestinian fatalities during the 1982 Lebanon War were 2,000 PLO combatants killed in armed conflict with Israel.
According to B'tselem, during the first intifada from 1987 until 2000, 1,551 Palestinians and 421 Israelis lost their lives. According to the database of the UNOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - occupied Palestinian territory (OCHAoPt), 6,407 Palestinians and 308 Israelis were killed in the conflict from 2008 to September 2023, before the Israel–Hamas war.
| Belligerent | Combatant | Civilian | Male | Female | Children | Children male | Children female |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palestinian | 41% | 59% | 94% | 6% | 20% | 87% | 13% |
| Israeli | 31% | 69% | 69% | 31% | 12% | Not available | Not available |
| Year | Deaths | Injuries | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palestinians | Israelis | Palestinians | Israelis | |
| 2008 | 464 (87) | 31 (4) | ||
| 2007 | 396 (43) | 13 (0) | 1,843 (265) | 322 (3) |
| 2006 | 678 (127) | 25 (2) | 3,194 (470) | 377 (7) |
| 2005 | 216 (52) | 48 (6) | 1,260 (129) | 484 (4) |
| Total | 1,754 (309) | 117 (12) | 6,297 (864) | 1,183 (14) |
Figures include both Israeli civilians and security forces casualties in West Bank, Gaza and Israel. All numbers refer to casualties of direct conflict between Israelis and Palestinians including in IDF military operations, artillery shelling, search and arrest campaigns, barrier demonstrations, targeted killings, settler violence etc. The figures do not include events indirectly related to the conflict such as casualties from unexploded ordnance, etc., or events when the circumstances remain unclear or are in dispute. The figures include all reported casualties of all ages and both genders.
Criticism of casualty statistics
As reported by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, since 29 September 2000 a total of 7,454 Palestinian and Israeli individuals were killed due to the conflict. According to the report, 1,317 of the 6,371 Palestinians were minors, and at least 2,996 did not participate in fighting at the time of death. Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis, including 741 civilians, of whom 124 were minors.
The Israeli-based (International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism) criticized the methodology of Israeli and Palestinian rights groups, including B'Tselem, and questioned their accuracy in classifying civilian/combatant ratios.
Landmines and unexploded ordnance
A comprehensive collection mechanism to gather land mine and (explosive remnants of war) (ERW) casualty data does not exist for the Palestinian territories. In 2009, the (United Nations Mine Action Centre) reported that more than 2,500 mine and explosive remnants of war casualties occurred between 1967 and 1998, at least 794 casualties (127 killed, 654 injured and 13 unknown) occurred between 1999 and 2008 and that 12 people had been killed and 27 injured since the Gaza War. The UN Mine Action Centre identified the main risks as coming from "ERW left behind by Israeli aerial and artillery weapon systems, or from militant caches targeted by the Israeli forces." There are at least 15 confirmed minefields in the West Bank on the border with Jordan. The (Palestinian National Security Forces) do not have maps or records of the minefields.
See also
- Palestinian genocide accusation
- Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- Outline of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
- (Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict)
- (Israeli–Palestinian conflict in video games)
- 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis
- Allon Plan, post-1967 peace plan
- Children in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- (Allegations of war crimes against Israel)
- Gaza–Israel conflict
- History of the State of Palestine
- (International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict)
- (Israel–Palestine relations)
- (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)
- Israeli–Lebanese conflict
- (Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron)
- (List of Middle East peace proposals)
- List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
- (OneVoice Movement)
- Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel
- Pan-Arabism
- Peace Now
- (Seeds of Peace)
Notes
- Three factors made Israel's territorial offer less forthcoming than it initially appeared. First, the 91 percent land offer was based on the Israeli definition of the West Bank, but this differs by approximately 5 percentage points from the Palestinian definition. Palestinians use a total area of 5,854 square kilometers. Israel, however, omits the area known as No Man's Land (50 km2 near Latrun), post-1967 East Jerusalem (71 km2), and the territorial waters of the Dead Sea (195 km2), which reduces the total to 5,538 km2
References
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UNRWA put the figure at 413000
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Currently, freedom of movement and access for Palestinians within the West Bank is the exception rather than the norm contrary to the commitments undertaken in a number of Agreements between GOI and the PA. In particular, both the Oslo Accords and the Road Map were based on the principle that normal Palestinian economic and social life would be unimpeded by restrictions
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- Rashid Khalidi (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Henry Holt and Company. p. 44. ISBN .
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- Benny Morris (1999). Righteous Victims. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN .
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- Eran, Oded. "Arab-Israel Peacemaking." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002, p. 121.
- Chris Rice 6 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine, quoted in Munayer Salim J, Loden Lisa, Through My Enemy's Eyes: Envisioning Reconciliation in Israel–Palestine, quote: "The Palestinian-Israeli divide may be the most intractable conflict of our time."
- Virginia Page Fortna 31 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Peace Time: Cease-fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace, page 67, "Britain's contradictory promises to Arabs and Jews during World War I sowed the seeds of what would become the international community's most intractable conflict later in the century."
- Falk, Avner (17 February 2005). Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Terrace Books. ISBN .
- Grinberg, Lev Luis (10 September 2009). Politics and Violence in Israel/Palestine: Democracy Versus Military Rule. Routledge. ISBN .
- Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Peace: How the Arab–Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005
- Kurtzer, Daniel; Lasensky, Scott; Organization (2008). Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. United States Institute of Peace Press. p. 79. ISBN .
- Dr. William Cubbison (2018). "Two States for Two People? A Long Decline in Support". (The Israel Democracy Institute). from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
- Lazaroff, Tovah (4 August 2021). "With only 40% support, Israelis still think 2 states best option - poll". The Jerusalem Post. from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
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- Sufian, Sandy (1 January 2008). "Anatomy of the 1936–39 Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Cartoons of Mandatory Palestine". Journal of Palestine Studies. 37 (2). University of California Press: 23–42. doi:10.1525/jps.2008.37.2.23. eISSN 1533-8614. ISSN 0377-919X. JSTOR 10.1525/jps.2008.37.2.23. S2CID 154107901. from the original on 20 June 2022. Retrieved 14 January 2008.
- Nur Masalha (2012). The Palestine Nakba. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN .
- Ilan Pappe (2004). "The Arrival of Zionism". A History of Modern Palestine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
- Benny Morris (2004). The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
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- Avi Shlaim (2001). "PROLOGUE: THE ZIONIST FOUNDATIONS". The Iron Wall. W.W. Norton. ISBN .
- Rashid Khalidi (2020). "Introduction". The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN .
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- Sela 2002, p. 361, "al-Husseini, Hajj (Muhammad) Amin"
He [Husseini] incited and headed anti-Jewish riots in April 1920. ... He promoted the Muslim character of Jerusalem and ... injected a religious character into the struggle against Zionism. This was the backdrop to his agitation concerning Jewish rights at the Western (Wailing) Wall that led to the bloody riots of August 1929...[H]e was the chief organizer of the riots of 1936 and the rebellion from 1937, as well as of the mounting internal terror against Arab opponents.
- Sela 2002, pp. 58–121, "Arab-Israel Conflict"
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- Rashid Khalidi (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN .
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- Baum, Noa. "Historical Time Line for Israel/Palestine." 19 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine UMass Amherst. 5 April 2005. 14 March 2013.
- Morris 2008, pp. 63–64, "The Zionists and their supporters rejoiced; the Arab delegations walked out of the plenum after declaring the resolution invalid. The Arabs failed to understand why the international community was awarding the Jews any part of Palestine. Further, as one Palestinian historian later put it, they could not fathom why 37 percent of the population had been given 55 percent of the land (of which they owned only 7 percent). Moreover, the Jews had been given the best agricultural lands (the Coastal Plain and Jezreel and Jordan Valleys) while the Arabs had received the 'bare and hilly' parts, as one Palestinian politician, 'Awni 'Abd al-Hadi, told a Zionist agent.162 More generally, 'the Palestinians failed to see why they should be made to pay for the Holocaust. . . . [And] they failed to see why it was not fair for the Jews to be a minority in a unitary Palestinian state, while it was fair for almost half of the Palestinian population—the indigenous majority on its own ancestral soil—to be converted overnight into a minority under alien rule.'"
- Morris 2008, p. 101, "... mainstream Zionist leaders, from the first, began to think of expanding the Jewish state beyond the 29 November partition resolution borders."
- Morris 2008, p. 79.
- Louwerse, Colter (16 April 2024). Stern-Weiner, Jamie (ed.). Deluge. OR Books. ISBN .
During the June 1967 Arab-Israel War, Israel came into military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. (Israel also occupied the Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba.) Already by the mid-1970s, the international community converged on a framework for resolving the festering conflict. This framework comprised two elements rooted in fundamental principles of international law. The first called for Israel's full withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories in exchange for Palestinian-Arab recognition of Israel. The second called for establishing an independent State of Palestine on the Palestinian territories from which Israel would withdraw, i.e., the West Bank and Gaza, as well as a "just resolution" of the Palestinian refugee question.10 Land for peace and Palestinian self-determination secured through a two-state settlement: these principles for a reasonable if imperfect resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict were eventually endorsed by an overwhelming consensus at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in the political organs of the United Nations (UN), and of respected human rights organizations.11
- Noura Erakat. Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Stanford University Press, 2019. ISBN .
The 1973 War demonstrated that Arabs could work together when needed and that Israel was not as invincible as it had believed. The war left its scars on Israel, which suffered over 2,500 dead, US$4 billion in direct monetary losses, and deflated confidence. Although the Arabs technically lost the war, they won psychologically and diplomatically as the world once again focused on the ongoing conflict.156 In 1973, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338, affirming the land-for-peace framework enshrined in Resolution 242 and setting into motion what was to become known as the Middle East peace process. Palestinian control of the PLO and the rise of guerilla warfare, together with the shift ushered in by the 1973 War, would lay the groundwork for the PLO's political agenda and aggressive legal strategy throughout the decade that followed.
- Jerome Slater (2020). Mythologies Without End. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
The disastrous defeat of the Arab states in the 1973 war also played a major role in convincing Arafat of the need for a compromise peace settlement.19 Arafat's decision to start peace negotiations with Israel led to the June 1974 PLO agreement to adopt a new strategy that called for a struggle for "every part of Palestine that is liberated" (emphasis added). Anziska writes that this constituted "an acceptance of a political solution on a limited piece of territory,"20 the first step, however vague, that opened the door for a Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution...19.In a recent major work, historian Seth Anziska writes that the 1973 war "launched a new phase in the PLO's struggle, oriented toward partition and the acknowledgment of Israel's presence. In the aftermath of the October War, the PLO sought a place within the comprehensive diplomatic negotiations, which required political compromise and the eventual embrace of a state on far less territory than historic Palestine" (Anziska, Preventing Palestine, Kindle 25). Similarly, Bird writes: "By mid-1974 the PLO was rapidly moving away from a strategy of armed struggle and morphing into a political movement seeking international legitimacy" based on a two-state solution (Bird, The Good Spy, Kindle location 2560–75). For similar assessments of the importance of the 1974 PLO program, see Hart, Arafat, 10–11; Weinberger, "The Palestinian National Security Debate"; Nofal, "Yasir Arafat: A Mixed Legacy"; Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Kindle 483–84; and Elgindy, Blind Spot, Kindle 88.
- Benny Morris (1999). Righteous Victims. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN .
On the other hand, the war had given Israel a stinging slap in the face. The 1948, 1956, and 1967 wars had conditioned them to stunning victories over the Arabs and to Arab military (and political) incompetence; 1973 proved to be something else altogether. Many Israelis were now persuaded that the territories could not be held indefinitely by force and that continued occupation would necessarily lead to further bouts of painful warfare. At last, and for the first time since June 1967, most people were willing to contemplate giving up large chunks of land for peace.
- Ilan Pappe (2022). A History of Modern Palestine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
- Rashid Khalidi. Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Beacon Press, 2013. ISBN .
In addition to their central provision, for a peace treaty between the two countries, the Camp David Accords, agreed upon by Israel and Egypt under the aegis of the United States in 1978, called for negotiations for the establishment of a "Self-Governing Authority" (SGA) for the Arab population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem was to be excluded from its provisions. The accords stipulated "full autonomy for the inhabitants," but crucially, this did not apply to the land, which was to remain under full Israeli control. A bilateral peace treaty based on these accords was signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979, and Israel thereafter began a withdrawal of its forces from the occupied Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, which was completed in the spring of 1982. However, the modalities of the Palestinian-autonomy accords were a continuing source of dispute between the three signatories to the Camp David Accords, as well as with the Palestinians and other Arabs, and in the end they were never implemented.
- Avi Shlaim (2015). The Iron Wall. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN .
The Camp David Accords were signed in an impressive ceremony in the White House on 17 September 1978. The two accords were entitled "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt." The former stated in its preamble, "The agreed basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israel and its neighbours is UN Security Council Resolution 242 in all its parts." The framework dealt with the West Bank and Gaza and envisaged nothing less than "the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects." Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the representatives of the Palestinian people were to participate in the negotiations, which were to proceed in three stages. In the first, the ground rules would be laid for electing a "self-governing authority" for the territories, and the powers of this authority would be defined. In the second stage, once the self-governing authority had been established, a transitional period would begin. Israel's military government and its civilian administration would be withdrawn; Israel's armed forces would also be withdrawn and the remaining forces redeployed into specified security locations. In the third stage, not later than the third year after the beginning of the transitional period, negotiations would take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza. These negotiations had to recognize "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements."
- Benny Morris (1999). Righteous Victims. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN .
The aim of "Operation Litani" was to kill as many guerrillas as possible and to destroy the military infrastructure—camps, munitions dumps, artillery pieces. A secondary aim was to expand, and create continuity between, the existing Christian-held enclaves on the Lebanese side of the border. By March 21, the IDF had taken all of the area south of the Litani (except for Tyre and its environs).
- Baruch Kimmerling (2003). Politicide. Verso.
The collaboration was solidified and made public during Begin's first term. Begin was impressed by the pleas and the aristocratic manner of the Maronite leaders and several times declared "Israel will not allow genocide [of the Maronites] in Lebanon." In March 1978, Israeli forces temporarily occupied southern Lebanon,, in an attempt to neutralize Palestinian guerilla groups and enlarge the territory controlled by Major Haddad, in an undertaking called Operation Litani (the river that more or less marked the boundary of the Israeli influence).
- Rashid Khalidi (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN .
Nevertheless, after all this and despite an Israeli incursion in 1978—the Litani Operation—which left a swath of south Lebanon under the control of its proxy, the South Lebanese Army, the PLO was still standing. Indeed, it remained the strongest force in large parts of Lebanon, those that were not in the hands of foreign armies or their proxies, including West Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, the Shouf Mountains, and much of the south. It would take one more military campaign to dislodge the PLO, and in 1982, American Secretary of State General Alexander Haig agreed to Ariel Sharon's plans for Israel to finish off the organization and with it Palestinian nationalism.
- William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunt, William L. Cleveland, Martin Bunt... (2010). A History of the Modern Middle East. ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited. ISBN .
This was that belt the Israeli government wished to destroy. Its first concerted effort to do so occurred in 1978, when 25,000 Israeli troops invaded Lebanon as far north as the Litani River. The operation failed to dislodge the PLO from its strongholds, although it did cause large-scale demographic disruptions in southern Lebanon as thousands of villagers, mainly Shi'as, fled their homelands for the area of Beirut. Pressure from the United States and the UN eventually compelled Israel to withdraw its troops.
{{}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list () - Albert Habib Hourani, Albert Hourani (2002). A history of the Arab peoples. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN .
In 1982 the situation acquired a more dangerous dimension. The nationalist government in Israel, having secured its southern frontier by the peace treaty with Egypt, now tried to impose its own solution of the problem of the Palestinians. This involved an attempt to destroy both the military and the political power of the PLO in Lebanon, to install a friendly regime there, and then, freed from effective Palestinian resistance, to pursue its policy of settlement and annexation of occupied Palestine. With some degree of acquiescence from the USA, Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982. The invasion culminated in a long siege of the western part of Beirut, mainly inhabited by Muslims and dominated by the PLO. The siege ended with an agreement, negotiated through the US government, by which the PLO would evacuate west Beirut, with guarantees for the safety of Palestinian civilians given by the Lebanese and US governments. At the same time, a presidential election resulted in the military head of the Kata'ib, Bashir Jumayyil, becoming president; he was assassinated soon afterwards and his brother Amin was then elected. The assassination was taken by Israel as an opportunity to occupy west Beirut, and this allowed the Kata'ib to carry out a massacre of Palestinians on a large scale in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
- Shlomo Ben-Ami, Shlomo Ben-Ami Former Foreign Minister of Israel (2006). Scars of War, Wounds of Peace. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN .
Destroying the PLO's infrastructure in Lebanon as wellas dismantling the last remaining Palestinian springboard in an Arabcountry for the military struggle against Israel, was the immediate oper-ational objective of the war. But the architects of the invasion had farwider ambitions. They believed that the defeat of the Palestinians inLebanon would trigger a mass exodus of Palestinians to the East Bankof the River Jordan, which in turn would bring about the collapse of theHashemite dynasty and the Palestinisation of the kingdom in a way thatwould allow Israel a free hand to assert her rule in Judaea and Samaria.Israel also believed that her victory in Lebanon would create a newpolitical order in that country with an undisputed Christian hegemony.
- Avi Shlaim (2001). The Iron Wall. W.W. Norton. ISBN .
The real driving force behind Israel's invasion of Lebanon, however, was Ariel Sharon, whose aims were much more ambitious and far-reaching. From his first day at the Defense Ministry, Sharon started planning the invasion of Lebanon. He developed what came to be known as the "big plan" for using Israel's military power to establish political hegemony in the Middle East. The first aim of Sharon's plan was to destroy the PLO's military infrastructure in Lebanon and to undermine it as a political organization. The second aim was to establish a new political order in Lebanon by helping Israel's Maronite friends, headed by Bashir Gemayel, to form a government that would proceed to sign a peace treaty with Israel. For this to be possible, it was necessary, third, to expel the Syrian forces from Lebanon or at least to weaken seriously the Syrian presence there. In Sharon's big plan, the war in Lebanon was intended to transform the situation not only in Lebanon but in the whole Middle East. The destruction of the PLO would break the backbone of Palestinian nationalism and facilitate the absorption of the West Bank into Greater Israel. The resulting influx of Palestinians from Lebanon and the West Bank into Jordan would eventually sweep away the Hashemite monarchy and transform the East Bank into a Palestinian state. Sharon reasoned that Jordan's conversion into a Palestinian state would end international pressures on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. Begin was not privy to all aspects of Sharon's ambitious geopolitical scenario, but the two men were united by their desire to act against the PLO in Lebanon.15
- Benny Morris (1999). Righteous Victims. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN .
On September 1 an IDF helicopter flew Gemayel to Nahariya, in northern Israel, where he met Begin, who had just been informed of the "Reagan Plan," the new American initiative for Israeli withdrawal from most of the occupied territories in exchange for Arab recognition and peace. By invading Lebanon, Begin had hoped to neutralize Palestinian nationalism and facilitate Israeli annexation, at least de facto, of the West Bank. But the invasion had brought home to the Americans the plight of the Palestinians and the imperative of resolving their problem, with Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank among the necessary preconditions. The Reagan initiative ruled out a final settlement that would involve either Israeli annexation of the territories or full-fledged Palestinian statehood.252
- Noam Chomsky (1999). Fateful Triangle. Pluto Press. ISBN .
was that "Operation Peace for Galilee"—the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982—was undertaken to protect the civilian population from Palestinian gunners, and that "the rocket and shelling attacks on Israel's northern border" were ended by the operation, though "If rockets again rain down on Israel's northern border after all that has been expended on Lebanon, the Israeli public will be outraged.19 This cannot be correct, given the history which is not challenged (even if unreported, for the most part). When it came to be recognized that the rockets still "rain down," the story was modified: "Israel's two military forays into Lebanon [1978, 1982] were military disasters that failed to provide long-term security for Israel's northern border."20 Security had indeed been at risk, as a result of Israel's unprovoked attacks from 1981, and to a large extent before. The phrase "military disaster" does not refer to the killing of some 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians in 1982, overwhelmingly civilians, the destruction of much of southern Lebanon and the capital city of Beirut, or the terrible atrocities carried out by Israeli troops through the mid-1980s; rather, to Israel's failure to impose the "new order" it had proclaimed for Lebanon and its inability to maintain its occupation in full because of the casualties caused by unanticipated resistance ("terror"), forcing it back to its "security zone." The actual reasons for the 1982 invasion have never been concealed in Israel, though they are rated "X" here.21 A few weeks after the invasion began, Israel's leading academic specialist on the Palestinians, Yehoshua Porath, pointed out that the decision to invade "flowed from the very fact that the cease-fire had been observed" by the PLO, a "veritable catastrophe" for the Israeli government because it endangered the policy of evading a political settlement. The PLO was gaining respectability thanks to its preference for negotiations over terror. The Israeli government's hope, therefore, was to compel "the stricken PLO" to "return to its earlier terrorism," thus "undercutting the danger" of negotiations. As Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir later stated, Israel went to war because there was "a terrible danger... Not so much a military one as a political one." The invasion was intended to "undermine the position of the moderates within [the PLO] ranks" and thus to block "the PLO 'peace offensive"' and "to halt [the PLO's] rise to political respectability" (strategic analyst Avner Yaniv); it should be called "the war to safeguard the occupation of the West Bank," having been motivated by Begin's "fear of the momentum of the peace process," according to Israeli Arabist and former head of military intelligence General Yehoshaphat Harkabi. U.S. backing for Israel's aggression, including the vetoing of Security Council efforts to stop the slaughter, was presumably based on the same reasoning. After its failure to impose the intended "New Order" in Lebanon in 1982, Israel attempted to hold on to as much of Lebanon as possible, though it was forced to withdraw to its "security zone" as resistance caused too many Israeli casualties. Meanwhile Israel conducted violent terror operations, notably the "iron fist" operations of 1985 under the direction of Prime Minister Shimon Peres. These went on through the 1980s.2
- John B. Quigley (2005). The Case for Palestine. Duke University Press. ISBN .
As a result, the PLO did not attack Israel from mid-I98r to mid-I982.16 But in June 1982 Israel again invaded Lebanon, and it used aerial bombardment to destroy entire camps of Palestine Arab refugees.17 By these meanS Israel killed 20,000 persons, mostly civilians,18 and while it occu-pied southern Lebanon it incarcerated 15,000 persons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The IDF continued north to Beirut, where it forced the PLO out of Lebanon. Israel claimed self-defense for its invasion, but the lack of PLO attacks into Israel during the previous year made that claim dubi-ous. By invading Lebanon, Israel evidently sought to destroy the exten-sive Palestinian military and administrative infrastructure in Leba-non19 and, by removing the PLO, to convince the Arabs of the Gaza Strip and West Bank that they would get nO help from the PLO.20 In the United States Harold Saunders, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, said that Israel aimed,
- Jerome Slater (2020). Mythologies Without End. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
For just that reason, though, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon worried that the growing PLO moderation would increase the pressure on Israel to accept the creation of a Palestinian state. To prevent that, in 1982 they seized upon a pretext to again invade Lebanon and attack the PLO, this time on a far larger scale than in previous conflicts. The attacks resulted in tens of thousands of Lebanese civilian casualties; however, the PLO forces in southern Lebanon, still led by Arafat, who escaped Israeli efforts to kill him, were soon reconstituted.
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- Shaul Mishal, Avraham Sela (2000). The Palestinian Hamas. Columbia University Press. ISBN .
- Yehuda Lukacs, ed., The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A documentary record, 1967–1990 (Cambridge: 1992), pp. 477–79.
- Chomsky, Noam (1999). Fateful Triangle. Pluto Press. pp. Chapter 10. ISBN .
- Avner Yaniv (1987). Dilemmas of Security. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
- Ilan Pappe (2022). A History of Modern Palestine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
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- Rashid Khalidi (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN .
- Slater 2020, Chapter 14 "On the contrary, in August 1996 the PLO honored its commitment to revoke its original charter, which had denied the legitimacy of Israel and called for the armed liberation of all of Palestine. As well, by 1996 the PA and its police forces had become increasingly successful in their efforts to end the terrorism of Hamas and other Islamic extremists, even cooperating with the Israeli forces. As a result, there were now far fewer terrorist attacks than in the preceding few years.."
- Watson 2020, pp. 211–236: "The Palestinian side has repeatedly run afoul of its obligation to refrain from incitement and hostile propaganda."
- Watson 2020, pp. 211–236: "the Palestinian record of compliance with these obligations is at best mixed...the PA’s record on security cooperation has been mixed... The PA has a mixed record on fighting terror group"
- Shlaim, Avi (2001). The Iron Wall. . pp. Chapter 12. ISBN .
- Christison, Kathleen (2000). Perceptions of Palestine. University of California Press. p. 290. ISBN .
- Cleveland, William L.; Bunt, Martin (2010). A History of the Modern Middle East. ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited. ISBN .
- Slater 2020[]
- Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2007). Scars of War, Wounds of Peace. Oxford University Press. p. 241. ISBN .
- Finkelstein, Norman G. (2018). Gaza. University of California Press. pp. Chapter 2. ISBN .
- (Kimmerling, Baruch) (2003). Politicide. Verso Books. pp. The Road to Sharonism. ISBN .
- Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2022). Prophets Without Honor. Oxford University Press. pp. e-book section 38. ISBN .
Camp David failed because of the two sides' conflicting interpretations of the terms of reference of the peace process. The Israelis came to the negotiations with the conviction inherent in the letter of the Oslo Accords that this was an open-ended process where no preconceived solutions existed and where every one of the core issues would be open to negotiation so that a reasonable point of equilibrium between the needs of the parties could be found. The Palestinians saw the negotiations as a step in a journey where they would get their rights as if this were a clear-cut process of decolonization based on "international legitimacy" and "all UN relevant resolutions."
- Finkelstein 2007, pp. 352.
- Finkelstein 2007, pp. 352 "In a letter to President Clinton, who presided over the proceedings, Palestinian representatives stated that their aim was implementation of U.N. Resolution 242 and that "[w]e are willing to accept adjustments of the border between the two countries, on condition that they be equivalent in value and importance." Repeatedly the Palestinian negotiators asked: "Will you accept the June 4border [as the basis of discussion]? Will you accept the principle of the exchange of territories?" The Israeli position was that "[w]e can’t accept the demand for a return to the borders of June 1967as a pre-condition for the negotiation," while Clinton "literally yells," in response to the Palestinian view that "international legitimacy means Israeli retreat to the border of June 4,1967," that "[t]his isn’t the Security Council here. This isn't the U.N. General Assembly.""
- Pressman 2003, pp. 16–17.
- Karsh, Efraim (2003). Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest. New York: Grove Press. p. 168.
Arafat rejected the proposal
- Morris, Benny. "Camp David and After: An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak)". New York Review of Books. ISSN 0028-7504. from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
- Pressman 2003, pp. 7, 15–19.
- Malley, Robert; Agha, Hussein (9 August 2001). "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors". New York Review of Books. 48 (13). from the original on 6 September 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
- Shlomo Ben-Ami (2022). Prophets Without Honor. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
I myself am on record as having said, "If I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected what was offered at the Camp David Summit." This book stands by this assertion.
- Pressman, Jeremy (Fall 2003). (PDF). International Security. 28 (2): 6. doi:10.1162/016228803322761955. S2CID 57564925. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
- Slater 2020:[] "After Camp David, a new mythology emerged perpetrated by Barak and his foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, with the support of Dennis Ross, Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright, and to a considerable extent Clinton himself. The mythology holds that at Camp David, Barak made a generous and unprecedented offer to the Palestinians, only to be met by a shocking if not perverse rejection by Arafat who then ordered a violent uprising at just the moment when the chances for peace had never been greater. For example, shortly after the conclusion of Camp David, Ben-Ami gave a long interview with Haaretz, claiming that Arafat did not go to Camp David to reach a compromise settlement but rather treated the negotiations as "a huge camouflage net behind which he sought to undermine the very idea of two states for two nations. . . . Camp David collapsed over the fact that [the Palestinians] refused to get in the game. They refused to make a counterproposal . . . and didn’t succeed in conveying . . . that at some point the demands would have an end."49 The implied premise of Barak and Ben-Ami was that Arafat thought the Palestinians held all the cards, so that if he held out long enough, he would eventually reach his goal: the destruction of Israel in stages and the takeover of all of historic Palestine. This view became widely accepted in US and Israeli public opinion... This and other Camp David mythologies have been rejected, both at the time and in retrospect, by nearly all scholars and knowledgeable journalists and by most Israeli and US officials who participated in the negotiations. In particular, they were challenged in interviews and memoirs by the leading Israeli negotiators, among them Ron Pundak, Yossi Beilin, Oden Era, Shaul Arieli, Yossi Ginosser, Moshe Amirav, and General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, chief of staff of the IDF in 1995–1998. As well, the mythologies were strongly—and subsequently, publicly—rejected by Israel’s leading military intelligence officials, including Ami Ayalon, the 2000 head of Shin Bet, and Matti Steinberg, his chief advisor—and by Amos Malka, head of the IDF’s military intelligence bureau, and his second in command, Ephraim Lavie."
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- Gilead Sher, The Israeli–Palestinian Peace Negotiations, 1999–2001: Within Reach, Taylor & Francis, 2006 p. 19.
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- Jesper Svartvik, Jakob Wirén (eds.), Religious Stereotyping and Interreligious Relations, Palgrave Macmillan 2013, pp. 12, 222–224.
- (Tanya Reinhart), Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, Seven Stories Press, 2011 p. 107.
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The Israelis came to the negotiations with the conviction inherent in the letter of the Oslo Accords that this was an open-ended process where no preconceived solutions existed and where every one of the core issues would be open to negotiation so that a reasonable point of equilibrium between the needs of the parties could be found. The Palestinians saw the negotiations as a step in a journey where they would get their rights as if this were a clear-cut process of decolonization based on 'international legitimacy' and 'all UN relevant resolutions.'
- Norman G. Finkelstein (2018). Gaza. University of California Press. ISBN .
"I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told her Palestinian interlocutors during a critical round of the peace process in 2007, "but I am against law—international law in particular."
- Colter Louwerse. "3". Deluge. OR Books. ISBN .
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- William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunt, William L. Cleveland, Martin Bunt... (2010). A History of the Modern Middle East. ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited. ISBN .
{{}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list () - Scheindlin (November 2017). "The shrinking Two-State Constituency". Moment of Truth. OR Books. ISBN .
- Shlomo Ben-Ami (2022). Prophets Without Honor. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
But the abject submission of the Palestinians and the ever deepening system of occupation and discrimination in the territories are Israel's sole and exclusive responsibility. As brilliantly explained by Michael Sfard, this is a system built on three pillars: the gun, the settlements, and the law that formalizes the network of colonization.1 Under the mantle of security claims, the Jewish state has created in the Palestinian territories one of the most efficient occupation regimes in history, which is, moreover, also cost-effective, for it is the international community's donor money to the Palestinian Authority that saves the occupier the burden of having to directly administer the territories. This leaves Israel free to cater to its insatiable security needs with draconic measures, such as limiting the Palestinians' freedom of movement, erecting walls that separate communities, dotting roads with checkpoints where innocent people are manhandled, activating sophisticated intelligence mechanisms that control the lives of an ever growing number of suspects, conducting surprise searches of private houses in the middle of the night, and carrying out arbitrary administrative detentions. If this were not enough, vigilantes among the settlers, some known as "the Youth of the Hills," constantly harass Palestinian communities, destroy orchard trees, and arbitrarily apply a "price tag" of punishments to innocent civilians for whatever terrorist attack might have been perpetrated by a Palestinian squad. Underlying this very serious problem of the unpardonable depravity of settlers' extremism is the even more serious problem that has to do with the involvement of the entire Israeli body politic in maintaining and continuously expanding a regime of dominance in the territories. For too long, the peace process has served as a curtain behind which the policy of practical annexation has flourished.
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- Michael Scott-Baumann. The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and ... - Michael Scott-Baumann. The Experiment, LLC, 2023. ISBN .
The Israeli government proceeded to annex East Jerusalem. This act violated international law, and the United Nations General Assembly condemned it... Furthermore, Israel confiscated a large swath of land to the east of the city that would, in time, form a barrier of Israeli settlements surrounding the city, thus cutting off the Palestinian population of Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterland.2
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In general, Israeli policy towards holy places can be considered a success with regard to its primary goal: facilitating Israel's acceptance into the international community of nations. However, the repeated failure of the Muslim Affairs Department to fulfill its mandate of protecting the Muslim holy places in Israel has been a largely forgotten chapter in Israeli history that deserves reexamination
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- Sela 2002, pp. 724–29, Efrat, Moshe. "Refugees."
- Peters, Joel; Dajani Daoudi, Mohammed (2011). The Israel–Palestine Conflict Parallel discourses. Routledge. pp. 26, 37. ISBN . from the original on 9 October 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
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- Rashid Khalidi (2024). The Iron Cage The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Simon and Schuster. ISBN .
Outside Palestine, meanwhile, live between 4 and 6 million Palestinians (reliable figures are not available). They exist in situations ranging from the utter misery (since 1982) of those in refugee camps in Lebanon,2 to a wide diversity of conditions, some of them quite comfortable, in various other Arab countries, Europe, and the United States. These Palestinians 'of the diaspora' (al-shatat in Arabic) possess a variety of passports, laissez-passers, and refugee documents, some of which are looked upon with great suspicion by certain states, and some of them face harsh restrictions on their movement in consequence. The largest single group of Palestinians of the diaspora, between 2 and 3 million, carry Jordanian passports, and most of them live in Jordan. What unites the overwhelming majority of these 4 to 6 million people is that they or their parents or grandparents were obliged to leave their homes and became refugees in 1948 or afterward, and that they are barred from living in any part of their ancestral homeland, Palestine.
- Jerome Slater (2020). Mythologies Without End. Oxford University Press. pp. Refugees. Israel agreed that the refugee problem was a regrettable humanitarian issue, Barak stated, and would recognize the right of the Palestinians to return to their own state, but that “no right of return to Israeli territory would prevail.” However, he continued, Israel was prepared to admit several hundred refugees annually for a ten- to fifteen-year period, under a family unification program. In a later interview, Barak made it clear that the “family unification program” was not based on any Palestinian rights: “No Israeli prime minister will accept even one refugee on the basis of the right of return.”. ISBN .
- Michael Scott-Baumann (2023). The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine. The Experiment. ISBN .
- Jerome Slater (2020). Mythologies Without End. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
The Palestinian Position. Since 1948 the official or public position of Arafat, the PLO, Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian Authority has been—and, rhetorically at least, still is—that the Palestinian refugees as well as their descendants have the right to return to their lands, homes, and villages. Arafat reiterated that "demand" at Camp David, though he and other Palestinian leaders repeatedly assured the Americans and the Israelis that their real goal was Israeli acceptance only of the "principle" of refugee return, as distinct from implementing that "right" in practice.
- "Right of return: Palestinian dream?". 18 February 2003. from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
- Flapan, Simha (Summer 1987). "The Palestinian Exodus of 1948". Journal of Palestine Studies. 16 (4): 3–26. doi: