Arab–Israeli conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a long-running conflict in the Middle East mostly hinging the status of Israel and its relations with Arab peoples and nations.

Though the term is often used synonymously with Middle East conflict, the region has been host to many other disputes and wars not directly involving Israel.

History

The Arab-Israeli conflict is generally held to date back to the beginning of the 20th Century, although some authorities trace its root back to biblical times (see Abraham).

The conflict became a major international issue after the Ottoman Empire in 1917 lost power in the Middle East, and in various forms it goes on until this very day. The Arab-Israeli conflict was the source of at least five wars and a large number of "minor conflicts" and intifadas (Palestinian uprisings). The former are:

1948 Arab-Israeli War. Began after the declaration of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948, because of the Arab unacceptance of the United Nations Partition Plan of November 1947 (in which Israel was formed out of part of Palestine).
1956 Suez War. Began as a joint Israeli-British-French operation to stop terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians and recapture the Suez Canal. Ended in a truce in which Israel reached its objective, but the Suez Canal was left in Egyptian (rather than British) hands.
Six-Day War, 1967. Began as a preemptive strike by Israel against Egypt following the Egyptian closure of the Tyran straits, deportation of U.N. peacekeepers from the Sinai. Israeli strikes were followed a ground invasion into Egyptian territory leading to the capture of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. In spite of Israel's request to Jordan to desist from attacking it during war the nearing war, both Jordan and Syria began to shell Israeli civilian targets. As a response, Israel captured the West Bank on June the 7th, and on June the 9th - the Golan Heights.
Yom Kippur War, 1973. Began as a simultaneous coordinated attack of Egypt and Syria in Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively. Although the initial attack was very heavy, Israel was not defeated, and after several days of fighting it was able to recover all the lands lost in the attack and to defeat the invading armies. The war resulted in a ceasefire at the same borders where it began.
Lebanon War, 1982. Began when Israel attacked Lebanon in an attempt to remove the Palestinian Fatah terrorists led by Yasser Arafat from South Lebanon. Although initially the attack succeeded and Arafat was exiled to Tunisia, Israel became entangled with various local Muslim militias (particularly the Hizballah). By 1985, Israel retreated from all Lebanese territory but a narrow stretch of land called the Israeli Security Zone. In 2000, Israeli forces left that as well; however, the Hizballah still periodically launch attacks and keep Israeli prisoners as hostages, some of whom are civilians.

Reasons for the conflict

The opinions stated here are only some of the many existing in this region; they strive represent majority viewpoints.

Israeli views

There isn't any single Israeli view; rather, there are many different Israeli views, which differ widely in their content.

Israelis name various reasons for aggression toward Israel. One of the primary reasons cited is Anti-Semitism.

Another reason is that Islamic law requires that Muslims forever retain control over all land that was ever in Muslim control. Since the British mandate of Palestine once was primarily Muslim, the majority of Islamic clerics believe that it is unlawful and unacceptable for a portion of it to be in the hands of non-Muslims. A related reason for continued Arab hostility towards Israel is that Islamic law forbids Jews or Christians from being considered equal to Muslims. According to Islam, Jews must accept the status of dhimmis (second class citizens) if they want to live with Muslims. Islamic law allows Muslims to go to war against Jews or Christians in Arab lands who refuse to accept this status. Moreover, this status was upheld numerous times by Islamis scholars and implemented by Islamic rulers. Muslims declare, however, that this image is created falsely by passages are taken out of context. (See Talk page).

Israelis generally admit that, while they are cast in the role of the attacked rather than the aggressors, the conflict is not entirely one-sided: when nations declare war against Israel, Israel by definition is then at war with them. Israelis point out that they have always prefered peace to war: for example, immediately after the Six-Day war, Israel offered all the occupied territories to the Arab nations in exchange for mere recognition of Israel's existence, an offer to which all Arab nations refused.

Israel claims that they demonstrated flexibility and understanding, as they managed to bring about the initiation of the peace process, agreed to painful concessions, and were able to partially implement them. As opposed to this, most Israelis see the predominant Palestinian views of the peace process that do not recognize Israel's right to exist, which indicate, in their opinion, that the only real long-term Arab goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state.

A majority of Israelis sees Zionism as merely the desire of Jewish people to live as a free people in the land of Israel. Zionism does not prohibit Arabs, Druze, Bedouin and other non-Jews from living in Israel as well. People of all races, colors and ethnic backgrounds have always been welcome in Israel; therefore, by definition, Zionism is not racism as it does not imply any superiority of Jews over any other nationality or ethnicity.

Jews hold that Zionism is not colonialism, since it does not wish to enslave any other peoples or lands, nor to exploit them. Zionism is limited solely to allowing Jewish people to have a state in one small area. To the objection that the Palestinians were being exploited simply by the Israelis living on what used to be their land, Israelis reply that the Palestinians were, up until recently, on a path to their own independence from Israel, a path from which, as most Israelis now feel, the Palestinians diverted by starting a war against them.

At stake is the very existence of the state of Israel. Israelis regard many of the Arab criticisms against the state of Israel as threats to the state's existence, and point out that against the multitude and power of the Arab states, there is only one Jewish state, which, as they feel, should behave vigilantly.

When dealing with the question of the right of millions Palestinians to return to their historic homes, most Israelis feel that the introduction of such an enormous number of people into the limited geographical resources of Palestine would create a demographic shock that would bring about the destruction of the State of Israel. They believe furthermore that this destruction is too high a price to pay to find a solution to the Palestinian refugees, and in addition to creating millions of Jewish refugees, it would not necessarily even solve the problems of the Palestinians. Israel is however willing to discuss alternative solutions, such as granting right of return to a limited number of people on a humanitarian basis (such as the unification of families) and compensating the rest.

Israelis point out that there were a huge number of Jewish refugees from Arab nations that were forced from their homes between 1947 to 1967, totalling around 850,000. The reason that all these Jews and their descendents are not in refugee camps is that the State of Israel abosrbed 600,000 of them; other nations absored the rest. In contrast, Palestinian Arab refugees were confined by other Arabs in refugee camps for many decades, artificially creating a refugee crisis as a way to creat an army to one day fight against Israel.

Israelis generally do not view the building of house and stores in Israeli settlements as an act of war. They believe that disputes about land do not justify terorrism and mass-murder, but rather need to have politically negotiated settlements. Liberal Israelis oppose settlements, realizing that they thwart peace efforts. Furthermore, some Israelis fear the consequences if they decide, or are eventually forced to, dismantle settlements. Some settlers may resist by force, creating a risk even of civil war. When Israel withdrew from settlements in the Sinai in the early 1980s, clashes between the Israeli Defence Forces and settlers occured. Those settlers amounted to but a tiny fraction of the settler population in the West Bank.

Although there is room for improvement, Israelis believe they treat their minorities in a just way. They are given freedom of religion, culture and political organization. They are not forced into the Israeli military, so that they will never have to fight their peoples. And, Israelis point out, no Arab state gives similar freedom to Jews.

Palestinan views

There isn't any single Palestinian view; rather, there are many different Palestinian views, which differ widely in their content.

Most Palestinians feel that the Jewish state of Israel was established under conditions that were deeply unfair to them. While they do not oppose a Jewish state as such, they feel that it is should not be established at the expense of another people. After World War II, the world created a state for the Jewish people in Palestine, without much concern for the existing population.

Many Arabs deny that Israel can be justified on historical grounds alone. They claim that events that happened thousands of years ago and religious myths do not justify evicting the Palestinians from their homeland.

Today most Palestinians realize that an equitable arrangement for all involved parties requires dialogue with both the Israeli side and the international community. The PLO has accepted the right of Israel to exist within the borders prevailing prior to the Six-Day war. This has been repeated on numerous occassions, both in English and Arabic.

Arabs maintain that there is nothing wrong with Jewish immigration into Palestine, in itself, any more than there is with Jewish immigration into any other part of the world. But most of the Jews arriving in Palestine did so with the intention of taking it over and establishing a Jewish majority state. Most Arabs maintain that Israel's settlement policy is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitutes a crime against international law. On their view, Israel, because of its expansion of settlements, has the lion's share of responsibility for the failure of the peace process.

Most Palestinian leaders reject terrorism as a solution. They hold that terrorist killings of Israeli civilians are both counterproductive, and more importantly, wrong. They believe the Israeli government is not automatically responisble for the crimes of individual Israelis. The same standard should be applied to the Palestinian authority. Palestinians further feel that the world should also react against the silent violence of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the daily humiliation this leads to for the Palestinian population.

Many Arabs regard the creation of a separate state of Palestine alongside the presently existing state of Israel, although not an ideal solution, as at least an improvement on the existing situation. While many Arab leaders would not wish to admit it publicly, it is believed by many that they think this a stepping stone towards the ideal solution and the best hope of achieving that ideal solution at present. (The latter sentence needs to be rewritten from a well-informed nonpartisan point of view.) Such leaders would believe that, once a separate Palestinian state is established and strong, then the Palestinians would have a secure base from which to seek the elimination of Israel as a state.

Some Arabs go much farther than this, and among extremists Anti-Semitic propaganda is rampant. In the following some of those opinions are reviewed.

According to many Arab publications, Zionism is worse than German Naziism. Many Arabs believe Israel practices a form of apartheid against the Palestinian people, worse than that practiced by South Africa, and that Zionism is a form of racist colonialism. They argue that this is no less racist than a majority white, black, or Georgian state. Israelis reply that this is hypocritical, since Arabs have created nearly twenty Arab states, and in most of them Jews for forbidden to have the same rights as Arabs.

Some Arab schools and universities teach that Jews never lived in the land of Israel, and that all archaeological proof to the contrary is part of an international Western anti-Arab conspiracy. In this view, no Jews ever lived in Israel, and the Bible's claims are deliberate fictions, and the ancient Jews actually came from Yemen. While Western scholars and moderate Arabs consider such claims to be conspiracy theories, this view is now well accepted among some Palestinians, Lebanese and Saudia Arabians.

Many Arabs believe that the only long term solution to the Middle East problem is the elimination of the state of Israel. Jews currently living in Palestine might be allowed to remain there unmolested as free and equal citizens of a state of Palestine (in the secular Arab view) or would be forced to live as dhimmis (second class citizens) along with Druze and Christians, in the Islamist Arab view. All descendents of Palestinian refugees (including alleged terrorists) would be allowed to return, on this view. All anti-Palestinian laws, or laws perceived as anti-Palestinian, should be abolished, while further Jewish immigration would be controlled solely by an Arab government.

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