Israe-Palestina conflict

Short description of conflict:

Short description of conflict:

Because of Zionism, many Jews emigrated to Palestine In the 19^th century, which was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs, Jews and Christians lived together in Palestine in peace. In 1939 30% of the Palestinians were Jewish. After WWl the British ruled over Palestine but soon decided to hand the issues of Palestine over to the UN, who gave the Jews and Arabs both half of Palestine, but the land was divided in a strange way so the Arab-Israeli war broke out.

The Israeli won the war and Israel gave itself more land than the UN did. Many Palestinians fled to other Arab countries. In 1967 the six days war took place in which several Arab states fought against the Israeli. The Israeli won and gained control over a lot of Arab land.

The UN wanted the Israeli to give up parts of the conquered land which they didn’t. Because of this the Palestinians were angry and started to eg boycot, the Israeli reacted violently and because of that action-response system the conflict keeps escalating.

A number of historical events with regards to the conflict

1. Because of discrimination against Jews, many Jews decided in the 19^th century to no longer accept that they had to spread out and live all over the world and wanted the discrimination to come to an end: they wanted their own state. This movement is called Zionism. Many Jews returned to Palestine, the land they believe God wants them to live in.
2. The UN wanted peace and therefore asked Israel to give some of the conquered land back to the Palestinians, but Israel didn’t. The Palestinians were angry and in 1987 they decided to launch their first ‘intifada’. They started doing things like boycotting Israeli products, but then the Israeli army decided to fight back and kill thousands of Palestinians.
3. In 1987 Hamas was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi andMahmoud Zahar. It was an organisation against the Israeli which mostly gained support by its social welfare projects in Gaza. Hamas decided to organise suicide bombings on Israel for the first time in 1993. In 2005 Hamas came to power and it has been launching racket attacks into Israel. Israel has  responded with a lot of violence and thousands of Palestinians have died. 

- Refer to the Holocaust

Jews have never had their own state, they have always lived all over the world. They also refuge to drop their faith and they hold on strictly to their manners. This is one of the reasons why many people didn’t want to have Jews live in their country. From the fifth century on, Jews have been discriminated, persecuted and killed. Often because of their belief, wealth and divergent behaviour. The propaganda against the Jews has had a huge effect on many people. Adolf Hitler was one of them. He hated the Jews and decided he was going to rule over Germany (and later over most of Europe) and kill every single one of them. During WWll at least 6 million Jews were killed.

 - At least 3 arguments for the Palestinian side

1.  One of the tactics of the Jews to take over land is to bribe the Palestinians: Jews will give Palestinians a lot of money, in return they give up their piece of land and give it to the Jews. This is a very smart thing to do, because Jews are in general much wealthier than Palestinians and so far, the Jews have succeeded in taking over a lot of territory because of  this method. But I don’t think this is fair, the Jews misuse their wealth. The conflict is also very unfair, because the Jews are already much wealthier and get even more money from for example the US. The Palestinians have no chance when it comes to fighting, they can only throw with stones while the Jews have a lot of (nuclear) weapons.

2. The Palestinians lived in Israel first. Many Palestinians would have been okay with Jews that came to live in their country. But unfortunately the Jewish crossed the line by taking over the land where the Palestinians had always lived. The Palestinians don’t tolerate the Jews who are trying to chase them away from their homeland.

3.  The Palestinians were promised to get their own state  by the British but still haven’t had their own state. They have fought for their own state but Israel refused to give them back some land, if Israel had given the Palestinians back some land there would have been less hate and more peace. Now the Palestinians basically have to live under military occupation.

- At least 3 arguments for the Israeli side

1. The Jews have been chased away and discriminated for ages and have never had their own state. They deserve their own state and they need to have a safe home because a lot of people are still a threat to the Jews.

2. The Palestinians are very violent and there have been many suicide bombers who even killed little Jewish girls.

3. It is very important for them because of their religion. The Jews really feel like Palestine is their holy land and they truly believe that God wants them to live there.

- A well developed, own opinion using arguments

I think that the Israeli should have given the Palestinians parts of their land back after the six days war took place. They had conquered much more territory than only Palestine and they didn’t need a territory as large as that. At that point, the Israeli were a 100% in control of the situation: if they had chosen to give back some land, there would have been peace. But they decided to not give back a single bit and from there on the situation escalated. Whenever the Palestinians attempt to fight back, the Israeli fight back even harder. In this way, the situation will never turn around. One of the two has to decide to stop fighting.