以巴的百年之爭News Keywords
6 keywords to understand the feud between Israel and Palestine, their century-old strife, and the role played of the international community
刊出日期 2024.07.02
6 Keywords of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
#The Promised Land (2000 B.C.)
The conflict between Israel and Palestine officially began with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and has since ignited the land conflict that has lasted for nearly a century.
To whom does this land belong? Zionism adopted the idea of God’s Promised Land, as described in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, which dates back to around 2000 B.C.In Genesis, it is believed that God gave the Promised Land to the Prophet Abraham─an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. His legitimate son, Isaac, is the ancestor of the Israelites, and his illegitimate son Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arabs. Based on the religious belief, the two ethnic groups can be said to have the same origin.
The boundary of God’s Promised Land was not clearly established and fell roughly within the borders of present-day Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. This religious story later became the basis of the zionists’ narrative for their restoration in Palestine, whose interpretation remains controversial up to this day.
The Jews were persecuted by the Roman Empire around 70 A.D., and became an ethnicity without a country. They dispersed around the world for thousands of years. It was not until after World War II that the State of Israel was established in Palestine, leading to more than a half-century of conflict between Jews and Palestinians.
Today’s international scholars who study the Israeli-Palestinian strife generally believe that, for the world to understand the centuries of continuous conflict between Israel and Palestine, one should transcend the framework of party, race, and religion, and instead, the focus should center on the impact and violation to human rights and humanity these bloody incidents caused.
#Balfour Declaration (1917)
The earliest hope for nationhood among the Jews, scattered worldwide for thousands of years, emerged in 1917 with the British Empire’s Balfour Declaration.
The declaration consists of only three short sentences, yet it remains a pivotal document for the future establishment of the State of Israel. The content of the declaration supports the zionists in establishing their own “National Home”, with provisions ensuring the rights of existing local ethnic groups are not violated.
At that time, Palestine was still a territory of the Ottoman Empire. Jews constituted a minority, comprising only about 6%, with the remaining 94% being Palestinians. The land came under the trusteeship of the British Empire after World War I.
This document gave the zionists of that time great hope for statehood. Zionism is a nationalist movement that originated in Europe in the 19th century. At that time, there was a strong anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe, and Jews were discriminated against and persecuted. Therefore, this movement hoped that the Jews could return to the Promised Land given by God in the Old Testament and establish a nation following the Balfour Declaration. Waves of Jewish migration back to Palestine became the foundations for the future establishment of the State of Israel.
#The United Nations Resolution 181 (1947)
After World War II, some major European and American countries sympathized with the Jews, who not only had been exiled for years, but also had 6 million of their people massacred in the Holocaust. This, in turn, paved the way for the birth of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947.
This resolution, also known as the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, aimed to establish a Jewish state – Israel, and an Arab state – Palestine in Palestine.
As a result, Israel was officially established as a state on May 14, 1948. However, this resolution caused extreme dissatisfaction among Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries. The 750,000 Palestinians, who originally lived in what is now the State of Israel, became refugees overnight. They questioned why Jews, who they believed had left the area thousands of years ago, would return and compete with them for their homeland. Thus, the day after the founding of the State of Israel, May 15, was designated as Nakba Day (Memory of the Catastrophe).
The establishment of the State of Israel also sparked the first Israeli-Arab War. The military coalition forces of the Arab States, including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, attacked Israel, initiating a conflict that would last for more than 50 years.
#Six-Day War (1967)
After the establishment of the State of Israel, conflicts between Israel and Arab countries have never ceased. Palestine originally hoped for the support of Arab countries to regain their homeland. However, after five major wars, not only did Palestine fail to regain its lost territory, but also saw Israel expand its control and occupation far beyond what was originally stated in the original United Nations resolution.
The five major wars were the 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the 1982 Lebanon War. During the Six-Day War, Israel occupied and maintained control of East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Gaza, which were originally assigned to the Palestinians, driving more Palestinians into exile.
Later, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 in 1967, demanding Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. However, Israel did not withdraw from Gaza until 2005. Despite its withdrawal from Gaza, Israel erected barriers along the Gaza-Israel border, implemented strict surveillance, and even controlled the supply of electricity, water, food, and other material resources. Israel also imposed a blockade on the coastline, borders, and airspace, turning the Gaza Strip into the “world’s largest open-air prison.”
In addition to the military occupation of Palestinian territories, Israel also made use its settlement policy extensively allowing Israelis to move into areas originally inhabited by Palestinians through settlement, aiming to gradually change the demographic structure. The expansion of land occupation and settlement policy has exacerbated animosity between Israel and Palestine. Every one or two years, there are large-scale conflicts between the two sides, and the pre-Six-Day War border has become the baseline for Palestinians willing to negotiate peace.
#Hamas (1987)
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Palestine became increasingly fragmented and tightly controlled, which became the major reason contributing to the rise of Hamas, the militant organization that launched attacks this year (2023).
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for and the main organization of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas was founded initially as a religious group in 1987, but over time it gradually developed into a militant organization. It believes that Israel should not exist and the entire territory should belong to Palestine. Hamashas been confronting Israel with military actions, terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and other forms of attacks for many years. This contrasts sharply with factions who hoped to negotiate peace with Israel.
For Palestine, internal affairs present another Gordian knot, difficult to untangle aside from territorial disputes. Within the structure of Palestinian self-government, the only internationally recognized regime with current legitimacy is the Fatah regime, which has de facto control over the West Bank of the Jordan River. However, they are known to have issues with corruption. Hamas is the other faction that actually controls the Gaza Strip. However, Hamas is regarded as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and the European Union due to its use of violent tactics. Therefore, Hamas is still not recognized internationally despite gaining power in the 2006 election and having a large popular base.
Hamas, which enjoys public support, refuses to negotiate peace with Israel. In contrast, the Fatah regime, willing to negotiate and recognized internationally, does not have sufficient public support. The question of who is qualified to solve national problems has thus become an intractable internal conflict within Palestine.
#Saudi-Israeli Rapprochement (2023)
Experts have two analyses on why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ongoing on for years, is now facing the most violent attack in 50 years.
In recent years, Israel has established normal relations with Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, with active facilitation from the United States. The “Abraham Accords” signed in 2020 are significant because Abraham is a common origin in both Judaism and Islam, symbolizing reconciliation.
In 2023, Israel began to further establish normal relations with Saudi Arabia. The early Saudi rapprochements suggest that more countries may recognize Israel, especially since Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam. This development could encourage other countries to follow suit, complicating the recovery of Palestinian land and raising Hamas’s sense of crisis.
In addition, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, also known as the October War. The Yom Kippur War was an important battle for Arab countries to attempt to reclaim the territories occupied by Israel. The attack was launched on October 6, 1973. Hence, Hamas’s decision to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 carries symbolic meaning.
Why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so challenging to resolve?
In fact, there have been brief opportunities to reach peace after years of conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Years of accumulated pressure prompted the Palestinians to launch the First Intifada in 1987. The word “intifada” means “shake off” in Arabic, symbolizing their hope to shake off Israeli oppression. The movement often began with nonviolent mass protests but frequently escalated into violent clashes.
The First Intifada lasted for several years until multinational-supported attempts to initiate peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The end of the conflict led to the Oslo I Accord in 1993. Israel promised to gradually transfer the administrative jurisdiction of the West Bank and Gaza to the newly established Palestinian autonomous government and withdraw from these areas. The agreement also stipulates that the Palestine Liberation Organization, also known as PLO, must recognize Israel as a country and coexist peacefully.
The Oslo I Accord, which originally intended as a step-by-step approach to partitioning the two countries over a period of 5 years, has not been realized. In addition to Hamas’s rejection of Israel as a state, obstacles such as border issues, the handling of refugees, settlement, and the status of Jerusalem persist.
Later, the peace process was set back due to Sharon’s visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 2000, Israeli right-wing politician Ariel Sharon brought police forces to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site in East Jerusalem. This was seen as a provocative act and even triggered a second intifada. Peace negotiations nearly collapsed, leading to a cycle of violence and revenge.
Moreover, one-third of the world’s crude oil is produced in the Middle East. Israel and Palestine do not produce oil, but if a conflict between them triggers a regional war, it will affect the transportation of oil from the Middle East to the Strait of Hormuz, an important external waterway in the Middle East. Therefore, various countries have considered mediating the conflict for many years because whether it’s an Israeli-Arab, Israeli-Palestinian, or Israeli-Hamas conflict, it will affect the price of oil and natural gas, which in turn impacts the global economy. Meanwhile, the conflict in the Middle East has stirred up existing ethnic tensions in European countries from time to time, resulting in a tense social atmosphere.
Since the beginning of the strife, countless lives have been lost on both sides, especially in the latest outbreak. Whether it's Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket launches or Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes, both parties have violated the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, known as ICC, by failing to avoid the civilian population. The ICC was established in 2002 in accordance with the Rome Statute and specializes in judging those who commit crimes of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity. However, given the complex situation where Israel is not a member of the Statute and Palestine is only a political entity rather than a country, the intervention of various international laws is limited. Although the United States recognizes Israel’s rights to self-defense, it can only urge Israel to abide by the laws of war, prioritize rescuing hostages, and transport supplies instead of resorting to retaliatory attacks. To ease conflicts and bring the Middle East towards peace, it is believed internationally that negotiating between the two sides is still the most critical step.
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核稿
《少年報導者》總監。從沒有手機和電腦的時代開始當記者。記者是挖礦人、是點燈人、是魔術師──要挖掘世界的不堪，為喪志的人點燈，將悲傷的事幻化成美麗的彩虹⋯⋯常常會失敗，但不能放棄去做到。
審閱
台大翻譯碩士學位學程副教授。帶著逐漸老花、散光加重的視力，學期間努力批改翻譯作業和碩士論文，寒暑假稍微得閒的時光則用來做做研究、寫寫論文。享受得天下英才而教之、看著學生們在專業領域逐漸發光發熱的成就感。