Israel Palestine Conflict In depth case study

Understanding the Narrations

The Israeli narration emphasizes their long-time historic attachment to the land, the legitimacy granted by the UN partition plan in 1947, the hostility and constant threat of terrorism coming from their neighbors, and the rejection of Israel's peace offers. Underlying it all is the ever-present trauma of the holocaust. They leave out their own role. They rationalize and sugarcoat the cruelties of the occupation since 1967. They further aggravate the situation by taking advantage of the historic western attitude of both condescending to and mostly disregarding the local Palestinian population.

“New unjustified and incomprehensible escalation in Israeli building permits in East Jerusalem, West Bank undermines international efforts to resume peace process and negotiations." ------- Cairo, Egypt

"How in just 100 years Zionism has gone from the ideal of seeking a permanent refuge for Jews, to the rationalization of the Israeli army’s continued occupation of “powerless Palestinians.” -----Milton Viorst (an offensive Zionist). "The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal"

" [I] would reiterate that West Bank settlements are not the main cause of the conflict, but rather the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state... We will continue to live by the sword.” -----Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

The Palestinian story focuses on victimhood, their suffering and dispossession and their deep sense of injustice at being punished because of Europe’s treatment of Jews. They leave out the history of initiating wars, their violence, their faulty leadership and their constant refusal to take opportunities for accommodation. The Arabs rejected the offer of the return of 100,000 refugees in Resolution 194, because they viewed it as a recognition of Israel’s right to exist. From their point of view there was no sharing and no compromise—Jews had no place in Palestine. The refugees and many of their descendants have remained in camps all these years, living a dislocated life, surviving on UN assistance, virtually ignored by the Arab governments.

"Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Seas to the Jordan River.... The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it. ” — Yasser Arafat, 1970

"“These groups use media outlets to glorify terrorism and openly call for violence against Jews, including instructing viewers on how to carry out stabbings.” But it also fingered some “members of Fatah,” the party of Abbas, for having “publicly supported attacks and their perpetrators, as well as encouraged violent confrontation.”" ---- Quartet Report of United Nations

Related concepts

  • Sovereignty
  • The roots of the dispute of territorial right should be traced back to settler colonialism. It combines military occupation with a settler colonial component that included taking over land, space, territory and landscape, by displacing and uprooting indigenous populations and replacing them with another population. In other words, there is no end to this colonialism. Its remnants characterise ethnic cleansing, the elimination of native people. The most significant discussion up to date remains to be Israel's military rule and illegal settlements on Palestinian-owned lands in various parts of the occupied Palestinian territories.
  • Palestine is the only active, remaining act of Settler Colonialism and therefore it is representing the struggle of indigenous people and native people all around the world.

THE PEACE-MAKING PHASE

Political cartoons on the Peace Process

The discussion of Peace Process would refer to the years following the Oslo Accords (1993-1995) in this context, which essentially opened a new chapter in the blood-drenched history.

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