Israel and Palestine POSC 470 Term Paper

Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the history of the over the sacred space of Jeraselum. The region of Israel and Palestine is home to one of the most contentious religious conflicts in the world today. In the aftermath of World War I., Erupean colonialism came to a region that had previously been controlled and fought over by the Jews, Romans, Christians, Muslims, and Ottomans. A newly formed League of Nations( a precursor to the United Nations) recognized British control of the land, calling the terrortitorial mandate Palestine. At that point, the vast majority of people living in the land were Muslim Palestinians. The goal of the British government was to meet Zionist goals and to create, in Palestine, a national homeland for the Jewish people (who had already begun to migrate to the area). The British exp0licitly assured the world that the religious and civil rigths of exisitng non Jewsih peoples in Palestine would be protected. THe British policy did not produce a peaceful result, however. Civl disturbances erupted almost immediatley, and by 1947-1948, Jews and Palestinians engaged in open warfare. In the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, many more Jews moved to the region. Shortly after the war, the British mandate ended, and the newly formed United Nations voted to partition Palestine creating independent Israeli and Palestinian states. From the drawing of the first map, the partitioning plan was set for failure. Palestinians and Israelis were to live in noncontigous states. Surroudning Arab states reacted violently against the new Jewish state. Israel survived through numerous wars in which Palestinians lost their lands, farms, and villages. As a consequence of war and the consolidaition of the Israeli state, Palestinians migrated or fled to refugee camps in neighboring Arab states. In the 1967 Arab-Isralie War, Israel gained control of the Palestinian lands in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The international commnuity calls these lands Occupied Territories. The Jewish presence in Gaza has always been small. But over the last three decades, the Israelis built Jewish housing settlements throughout the West Bank and have expanded the city of Jerasleum eastward into the West Bank(razing Palestininian houses along the way) to gain more control of territory. The Israeli govenrement severely restricts new building by Palestinians, even on lands in the Palestinian zones of the West Bank. Events in the early and mid 1990s began to change this religious poltical mosaic as self-government was awarded to Gaza and to small areas inside the West Bank. Palestrinian Arabs were empowered to run their own affairs within these zones. Stability and satisfactory coexistence could lead to further adjustments, some thought and eventually a full fledged Palestinian state. In 1995, the parties hammered out a peace accord that would have createda substantial Palestinian state. In 2000, Palestine rejected the peace terms and the Oslo framework, which many saw as the best chance for peace in the region. In Septmeber 2005, the Israeli govenrment shifted its policy toward the Gaza Strip. Israel evcauated the settlements that had been built there, burned down the buildings that remained, and then granted autonomy to Gaza. The Palestinians living inthe Gaza Strip rejoiced, visiting the beaches that were previously open only to Israeli settlers and traveling across the border into Egypt to purchase goods. Within days, the border with Israel was closed, making it impossible for many Palestinians to travel to their palces of work in Israel. The border with Egypt was closed as well. Although Palestinians now have greater freedom within the Gaza Strip, they are economically isolated and the standard of living has dropped. The Israeli govenrment tighltly controls the flow of Palestinians and goods into and out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Gaza is surrounded by fences, and in some places a wall, with land mines in certain areas and dust road to show footprints. Most controversially, however, the Israelis have set about constructing a security fence in the West Bank, which does not follow the 1947 West Bank border but dips into the West Bank to include some of the larger Israeli Settlements on Israel's side of the fence. This may greatly complicate any future territorial settlement, and some Israelis are opposed to it. But many others argue that Palestinians continue to fight the war agaisnt the Israelis, with terrorism. Palestinian attacks agasint Israelis threaten the everyday lives of the Israeli people; no bus, coffee shop, restaurant, or sidewalk is safe from the threat of terrorist attack. Similarly, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, the Israeli military hunts the suspects, shedding blood in Palestinian neighborhoods. The situation in Israel and Palestine today does not reflect a simple interfaith boundary. The tiny region has a multittude of interfaiht boundaries especially in the West Bank. The settlements in the West Bank have prodcued many miles of interfaith boundaries within a small political territory. The Economist recently summed up the prospects for peace in the region, saying that despite some signs that violence by both sides is abating, "there is not a flicker of hope, in the short run, that even a turce is in the offering." At the same time that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, the govenrment was erecting a new security fence in the West Bank and was building new Israeli housing in the West Bank. In 2005, The Economist explained that an Israeli human rigths group, B'Tselem, believes the new security fence will "still separate many Palestinians( from their farmland and cut deep into the West Bank around the main Israeli settlements, in effect joining them to Israel proper while nearly divising any future Palestinian state into enclaves. The conflictover the small territory of the Holy Land is amplified by the sentiment of both Israelis and Palestinians that they have a historic( in the minds of some, even a divine) right to the land; by the violence inflicted on each other by both sides; and by, the belief and emotional conviction by both parties that the territory belongs to them." Islamic fundametalists and extremists who have resorted to violence in pursuit of their cause( thereby becoming extremists) are relatively small in number. Yet one of the critical contemporary issues is the extent to which they can or will attract widespread support throughtout the Islamic world. The potential for such support is greatest among those who feel that they are the losers in the contemporary global economic order and who feel their cultures and traditions are fundamentally threatened. By extension, a key to avoiding the division of the world into mutually antagonistic religious realms is to promote an atmosphere in which such feelings do not become widespread. This, in turn, suggests the importance of non-Islamic cultures conveying an understanding of the gap between manistream and fundamentalist Islam, and supporting the economic and political efforts of genuinely democratic forces in Islamic countries.