The Israel-Palestine conflict – often referred as the ‘world’s most intractable conflict’, has its root way back in 1880 and not in 1948. It portrayed that the Arab armies from seven countries having invaded the tiny ‘defenceless’ Israel and Palestinians had waged a terror war to wipe out Israel. It was in 1880 when the Zionist movement was launched by Theodore Hertzel- a Jew, with the declared objective of capturing Palestine and building Solomon’s Temple there due to the Jewish emotional appeal for the land.
After the First World War was won, in 1917 Dr Weisman was able to obtain from the British government the Balfour Declaration as a gift to make Palestine the homeland of Jews for their support for the war against Germany. America too supported this establishment on September 21, 1922 by passing the Lodge-Fish resolution. The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations. Since then the Jewish settlement in the land is going on till date, with the persecution and expulsion of the Arabs residing in the land for around past 2000 years.
Arabs revolted against this barbaric act in 1936-39. The British Government, then, in 1947 decided to partition Palestine with a share of 55% to Jews who were migrants and 45% to Arabs who were the inhabitants of the land based on votes which were maneuvered.
While the discussion on Palestine issue was still on in the General Assembly of UN, the Jewish Agency formally declared founding of the Israeli State on May 14, 1948. America and Russia were the first to recognize this declaration. In November 1948, almost 77% of Palestine was under the Jews who had grown so strong under the united power of Capitalist system and Communist System that the help of five neighbouring Arab states to Palestine was in vain. During the civil war of 1969 remaining Palestine, Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis), the entire Sinai Peninsula and Golan heights on Syrian border were also occupied. Israel immediately began constructing Jewish-only settlements in the newly-occupied territories.
The UN has condemned settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in multiple resolutions and votes, declaring them to be illegal under international law but Israel continues to expand existing settlements, as well as annexing more Palestinian land to build new settlements.
To liberate the occupied lands, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed in 1964 under Ahmad Al-Shuqairi. India was the first non-Arab nation to recognize it. Next year, Yasser Arafat and his colleagues started Fateh movement for the same purpose.
But all the peace processes and efforts to end the occupation of lands as well as liberation of occupied lands were shattered by Israel.
In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the declared intention to eliminate the PLO resulting in large-scale massacre in the Sabra and Shatila camps. Later in 1988 the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine.
The Oslo Accord signed by Yasser Arafat with Israel in 1993 to regain at least the remaining 22 per cent of the Palestinian territories which were occupied by Israel in 1969 but the accord collapsed in 2000 without being implemented.
Israel began building its separation wall in the occupied West Bank in June 2002, claiming that it was necessary for security. In 2003 the Quartet of the US, EU, Russia and the UN proposed a Middle East Peace Road Map. It talked of two separate states for Palestinians and Jews but did not resolve longstanding issues like the borders of a Palestinian state or the status of Jerusalem and nothing has still materialised out of it. The Annapolis Conference held to resolve the issue in 2007 also failed.
Israel, with the support of the US and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. In June 2008, there was a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The ceasefire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November 2008.
Since the year 2000, there were around 21 attacks by Israel on Gaza. In 2014 Israel’s Air strike alone 2300 deaths occurred and more than 10,000 injured, while only 66 Israeli soldiers and 5 civilians were killed.
Between July 2016 and June 2017, Israeli authorities authorized construction work on more than 2,000 new housing units for settlers in the West Bank. While settlements expanded in 2017, Israeli authorities destroyed 381 homes and other property, forcibly displacing 588 people as of November 6, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as part of discriminatory practices that reject almost all building permit applications submitted by Palestinians.
In Palestine frustrated and tortured fighters of Hamas, to teach a lesson to the cruel Israelis, launched an attack on 7th October 2023. Now Israeli PM Netanyahu is determined that Hamas is completely destroyed. But the victims are local population specially children. Water, electricity and food has been blocked to the entire population of Gaza and hospitals are bombed.
Now the duty rests with the civilized world to identify the real victim of the war and provide a just, equitable and lasting solution.