Israel-Palestine

Introduction
In the absence of peace, there is conflict. This might lead to war between countries if conflict is not handled carefully. Today it is almost a norm to see countries engaging others in war. Today the greatest problem facing many nations is international relation. Countries have failed to live like decent neighbors. There is disunity among many nations. War between nations is caused by mistrust and tension. Nations purchase arms to stock their armory. Major inventions are made daily in out on nuclear power and how to develop sophiscated weapons. This tries to explain the fact that countries are always in mistrust of each other. It also explains that there is constant tension between countries that one day they may engage in war. War is not acceptable. The consequences are dire and the outcome may last for ages. When nations are at war, there is always mortality and destruction of properties. At times, nation sign peace treaties. This is agreement to maintain a harmonious environment. This appears good on a piece of paper, but healing takes a lot of time. This explains the fact why war between countries may never end.
The origin of the conflict
Israel and Palestine are neighbors. A mention of the two nations brings a memory. The two have never been at peace. There has been constant fighting between the two sides up to date. The conflict is dated way back when the Middle East was still dominated by the British under the colonial rule. Middle East is known for various reasons. The countries are the leading oil producers. This has made America and other states to look for an ally in the region. This is to ensure that they can use the ally to get access of the commodity. Middle East is also known for its vast religions. There has always been conflict between countries which is religion instigated. The three religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It is fascinating to note that all claim to have roots there or originated there. Majority of Israelites are Jewish. The Jews have a lousy memory of the Second World War. They suffered horrendously during that war. Historically all of Israel belonged to the Palestine nation. From 1920 to 1947, Palestine was a British colony. During that time, Palestine colony was made of all the Israel’s occupied territories like Gaza strip, West Bank and other territories. Biblically the Jews believed that that land was rightfully theirs. This was characterized by immigration by the Jews from many corners of the continent to their promised land. This increased tension in Palestine. The height of the tension was in November 1947. At this time, the UN general assembly recommended the partitioning of Palestine into Arabs and Jewish state. This was later to lead to the formation of the state of Israel on May 1948. This was followed by rejection of Israel state by all Arabs states. The Arab states which by then included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt attacked Israel. It is surprising that their armies were defeated by the Israelites army. This has led to constant fighting as Israel continues to take more land from the Palestine and Palestine offer resistance.
The phases of war
The conflict between Israel and Palestine falls into three main categories. We have 1800 to World War 2; these are the conflicts that happened in ancient times. We have the post world war 2 to 2000; these are the conflicts that happened after the world war two up to the year 2000. The other category is from year 2000 to present.
Post World War 2 to 2000
A considerable emphasis is on the two stages since the first stage Israel was not a sovereign state. Israel as a nation came into existence in may 1948.
This was amid a lot of hostility from the Arabs who lived in Palestine by then. The Arabs from the neighboring countries felt that Israel was never supposed to be. This is the root cause of all the problems between Israel and Palestine as well as her neighbors. A major conflict between the two nations is dated way back in 1978. When Israel was partitioned as a state, many Palestinians were taken as refugees in southern Lebanon. As times progressed there was an uprising in Lebanon as the Palestinian opposed Israel rule, In 1978 Palestine attacked Hezbollah. Israel felt invaded and led an offensive attack o Lebanon. Israel attacked Lebanon and went as far as capturing Beirut. The prime target was to bomb Yasser Arafat locations. During this invasion, Israel declared southern Lebanon as a security zone. During these attacks, there were deaths on both sides. The greatest casualties were the children. Israel came to withdraw its security forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000. Another serious crisis came to be in 1980s. This was the intifada. A group of young Palestinians confronted Israeli troops with sling shots and stones. The outcome was not acceptable and many of the youth were shot dead. To lay an offensive attack, the Palestinians used suicide bombers to kill the Israeli troops. Many innocent civilians were killed from both sides.
In 1993 the Oslo peace accord was made. In this accord Israel accepted to recognize the Palestinian liberal organisation (PLO). They were also to give the PLO limited autonomy. The conditions were that PLO were to end a Palestinian claims on Israel territory. The accord was met with different reaction across the world. It was seen as a one sided accord which favored only the Israelites. The accord gave Israel the control of land, water, roads and other resources. This accord was seen as only benefiting the Israelites and not the Palestine people. This was followed closely by withdraw of Israel troops from the Gaza strip and Jericho in 1994. Initially Israel has occupied this place for 27 years.
After Israeli withdraws the Palestine police took charge and replaced the Israelites troops. 1995 saw the killing of Israelis Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yitzhak Rabin had earlier tried to engage the two nations into the peace process. This was critically condemned Jewish extremists. This was termed as betrayal and what followed was his assassination conducted by a Jewish extremist. April 1996, Israel force attacked Lebanon. This was followed by a series of aerial attacks and bombing which lasted for 17 days. During this period, Israeli also attacked a UN camp where some Palestinian civilians had gone to seek refuge. Report indicated that close to 800 Palestinian civilians who were in that camps were killed. This did not make UN happy and, they condemned the attack and claimed that it was intentional. 1998 saw a peace accord the Wye river memorandum. Here, Israel was supposed to withdraw some of its troops from West Bank. The memorandum did not last long. In 1999, Israel suspended the memorandum citing disagreement on the way it was being implemented.
Phase two 2000 to present
The year 2000 saw the pursuit of the Wye river memorandum. Unfortunately, the memorandum failed due to Palestinian protesting. The protest was about continued Israel settlement in the region. The year 2000 also saw former Israel military commander Ariel Sharon go to the temple mount and claim it was Israelis’ eternal place. This sparked protest since it was felt like an invasion on the Palestinian land. In all this time that there were these invasions Palestine felt they had no land of their own. And what was earlier agreed on 1947 was being abused by the Israelites. The continued invasion made Israel to continuously settle on the land which they had previously agreed on to be Palestine’s. Another problem was those Arabs who were not of Israel origin and were on the Israel side were denied many rights.
The Arabs of Palestine origin were denied the right to vote; they were subjected to this discrimination, yet they were supposed to remit their taxes in full. For close to three decades now, the people of Palestine have lived under military occupation. There were bitter sentiments from the Palestinian people emanating from the hostile ways that they were treated by the Israelis. The Palestinians always blamed their government and the Palestinian national authority for failing to address their interests. The outcome of these invasions was received with bitter sentiments from the Arab communities. They felt that Palestine was not treated well by the Israelites. These invasions had a deleterious outcome as Palestinians continued being poor. The war can be attributed to the rising cases of terrorism from the Arab community. They claimed theirs was a holy war they were trying to liberate themselves from oppression from Israelites and countries from Europe.
In the year 2002, Israel took another direction in the name of securing its boundaries. They started constructing a large defensive security wall in the west bank. This was supposed to prevent terrorist invasion on the Israel Cities and settlements. It is fascinating since from the look of things the fence was serving the purpose. There was criticism from the Palestine people about the wall. They termed it as a way of discriminating against them. Israel on the same year started resettlement programme and started resettling her citizens on the controversial lands. In the year 2003, there were rampant suicide attacks on Israel side. This made Israel star tthe campaign against Hamas. This was an organization that was blamed to be behind the rampant suicide bombings. In this year, the Israelites troops refused to negotiate with President Arafat. Arafat fronted Palestinian Prime Minister Mahamoud Abbas. This is the time when a road map to peace was imminent. There was an agreement of a cease fire from the two sides which they agreed on. Palestinian soldiers agreed on the cease fire. Israel was adamant and continued to murder Palestinian militant leaders. During this period, there was a relative calm and everything seemed to be okay. Unfortunately, this calm did not last long. It was later followed by targeted assassination from Israel as well as suicide bombing from Palestine. Mahamoud Abbas resigned from his post. This was as a result of frustration. Ahmed Qurei took over. In 2004 Ariel Sharon by then the prime minster announced a withdrawal of its troops from the Gaza strip. He also maintained that Israel was to have large control over the west bank. This was met with continued suicide bombing. The Israelites this time managed to assassinate Hamas spiritual leader sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Shortly they also managed to kill Abdel Aziz al Rantissi. At this time, the wall at the west bank continued to be constructed. This was amid protests from the international community as well as the international criminal court which termed it as illegal. Israel is not a member of the international criminal court so, it continued to construct. November 2004 saw the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat resulting from a mysterious blood disorder. The death of Arafat was mourned by Palestinians. Later Abbas assumed the role of the leader of PLO. The year 2005 saw Abbas being elected the as Palestinian authority president. During this time, Abbas worked tremendously hard to persuade the Hamas and Islamic jihad to stop attacks on Israel. Ariel Sharon on his part managed to withdraw some of its troops from Gaza strip. This was met with mixed reaction though, by September, he managed to withdraw all the troops from Gaza strip. This was a crucial step towards peace and reconciliation. For the first time in a longtime, it was imagined that a peace deal was about to be struck. 2005 also saw the resignation of Ariel Sharon from the right wing likud party. This was partly because he was losing popularity from that side. This was because he agreed to withdraw troops from the Gaza strip. He later managed to form a more centrist party, kadima.
The party gained popularity and this was closely followed by former Prime Minister Shimon Perez leaving his labor party aligned to the left wing. He joined the kadima party. Sharon was seen as distancing himself from the policy of a larger Israel party. His driving force was peaceful negotiation between Israel and Palestine.
January 2006 saw what was referred to as paradox democracy. This resulted when Hamas the then thought to be a terrorist group gained power in Palestine. This came with sharp criticism from the nations which have labeled Hamas as a terror group. April 2006 saw Ehud Olmert become the prime minister of Israel this was because the then prime minister Ariel Sharon feel sick. The Israel cabinet declared him unable to carry his task in that capacity. Apart from the border fighting the oil in Middle East is seen as another critical issue fuelling the disagreement. Israel and Palestine are not oil rich. Israel with support from the west has managed to buy leaders from the oil rich countries. This is through providing the leaders with strong military or financial support. Israel has supported the coming into power of those corrupt leaders. At times, the UN Security Council feels that what Israel is doing against the Palestinians some conduct are not warranted. There have been numerous resolutions emanating from the UN Security Council. Some of these resolutions like the UN resolution 242 told Israel to return the land that they captured in 1967. These resolutions were vetoed by the United States. It is true the UN was trying to come with a number of resolutions but, the United States veto powers disallowed them. The US is seen as assisting Israel with military aids. It is believed that in the Middle East Israel has the most advanced military equipments.

2006 saw increased targeted assassination of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders by the Israelites. The Palestinian people are always intensely frustrated. They claim that Israel takes their prime lands, and they are only left with the less usable land. To date no significant peace deal has been made.
Impacts of the war
The impact of any kind of war is disastrous, horrendous and hard to bear with. The war has injured, killed and maimed many people from either sides. This is against the norms and principles of either religion. This is also a denial of the right to live to those individuals. This has led the countries to lose valuable nationalities who would aid in the nation building. This is happening contrary to the religious teachings. The war has heavily affected the economies of both Israel and Palestine. This is culminated by destruction to infrastructure. A look on Israel indicates that its economy is dipping as the conflict increases. This can be attributed to allocation of a lot of funds to war. This has left the economic budget deprived. Also, the concentration time on the economy is little as principal focus is on national security. Sectors like tourism has been badly hit since the tourists are wary of their security. This has resulted to decreased revenue from the tourism sector. A survey indicated during the year 1995 when there were less violence the rate of tourism almost doubled so was the revenue from the sector. This is a clear indication that continued violence affects the country’s revenue collection. Increased invasion has also impacted badly in the international market. This has made the countries neighbors to decline from buying goods made from Israel. This has made Israel to form allies with countries outside the Middle East

On the other hand, the war has impacted badly on the Palestinian side. The greatest blow was on economy. The Palestinians are left without a country though they have control on West Bank. This has led them to be continuously dependent on the economy of Israel. They are not a country of their own hence they are forced to trade with Israel. Palestinians are made to provide cheap labors to the Israelites industries.They are affected negatively by the violence because, as the violence escalates, they are made to leave Israel. This is also characterized by wage drop and increased rate of unemployment.
A summary of possible causes of Israel and Palestinian war
The initial cause of the conflict is the claims by Jews that the land of Israel was eternal, holy and they were given by God. This has made the Jews to see the land that is indicated on the bible to be theirs and is supposed to occupy it. The land contains historical holy cities like Jerusalem, Jericho which they deem as theirs. Conflict arises since the Muslims also consider Jerusalem as their holy land. They say that Mohamed ascended to heaven in Buraq over Jerusalem temple. The conflicts arose since the two cultures wanted to control the city. Zionism was another factor which contributed to this problem. Before the Second World War, there was a belief that people of European culture were superior to those Jews counterparts. Zionism was born out of this since the Jews felt they were not less citizens. This propagated the war since the Jews used it as a way of redeeming themselves. This was also a way of showing they were not any less human beings. Zionism was also a secular organization which advocated for the idea of hallowed land. The UN resolution 181 also aggravated the problem. This is because it allowed the immigration of Jews from Europe. The resolution also allowed the Jews to form their own state in Middle East. The resolution further promoted the partitioning of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. Palestinian ideology of the partitioning also contributed to the conflict. The Palestinian thought that they were superior to Israelis. They thought that they would go and later use force to drive away the Israelites. Unfortunately, this was never to be. To date some of the Palestinians are in refugee camps. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip in 1967 also instigated the war. These territories are not fully under the Israelis rule. It is unfortunate that those Palestinians living there had to contend with Israel’s check points and military provisions. Retaliation is another factor that has continually fuelled the war. When one side attacks the other the one attacked always wage a retaliatory attack. This has led to constant fighting.
Conclusion
Peace and tranquility in Palestine and Israel seems impossible. There has been constant effort to bring the two sides to work together but, this has yielded no fruits. It is the obligation of the upcoming generation to learn to put their differences aside. There is no war that has ever been won. There are bitter outcomes to be dealt with even after many years. The best thing is to avert war and to live harmoniously as one. It is the will of God that human beings to correlate and stay as one. It is therefore the obligation of each one of us to be our neighbor’s keeper. In order to enhance peace and tranquility we have to start from the remarkably sincere society set up, that is the family. When families live together, they encourage counties to live together and nations to live harmoniously. It is fascinating to observe that amid the crisis Israel still needs Palestine to provide labor. This is a clear indication that no nation can survive on its own. The noble thing is to put their differences aside and live harmoniously as one. I believe in a liberalized Israel Palestine it can be done the two can correlate they just need to believe.

Works Cited
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