The Palestine issue has been in news recently. The news regarding the dead bodies and injuries etc. are on every major news channel. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is of both military and political type in nature.
We’ll try to explore in the lines below what is happening in Palestine?
Background
The current Palestinian issue is not a new one and it originally started in 19th Century with the beginning of Zionist Movement. The purpose of this movement was to create a separate homeland for Jews in the territory that is now the bone of contention between Palestine and Israel. In the beginning of this movement, rich Jews bought the lands from Palestinians. The Palestinians were not forced to sell their lands. They sold it through their free will. The purchase of lands was tactically designed so that a whole region might be owned by Jews, to be declared as a sovereign state for the Jews.
The Zionist movement gained momentum with the Balfour Declaration by the British Government, which stated that they would extend their support for the establishment of a state for Jews in Palestine. Some critics say that there was a technical short-coming in the declaration that it did not say that declaration was valid only for Arab Jews. Hence, the followers of Judaism for different parts of the world started migrating towards the region (since they hold this land in high respect).
United Nation’s plan
The conflict kept going on for decades. Until in 1947, United Nations (which was still a newly formed organization) adopted a plan for partition of the then Palestine. The plan was to divide the region into two : A Jewish state and an Arab one.
This plan was neither accepted nor welcome by Arab leadership. They rejected it outrightly. The adoption of the plan eventually led to Arab-Israel war. Israel, although newly established at that time, emerged victorious on the back of strong economic and diplomatic support. It is said that approximately 7,00,000 people were displaced due to this war.
Arab-Israel wars of 1967 and 1973
The matter between Israel and Arabs did not finish off in 1948 and the conflict kept going. This prolonged tension resulted in two more wars between Arabs and Israel In 1967 and 1973.
During the Arab-Israel war of 1967 Israel got the hold of the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip. This was criticized by the United Nations as well as the international community. Israel shrugged off all the criticism and kept establishing the settlements to legitimize its expansion.
The Second Arab-Israel war was fought between Israel and a coalition of Syrian and Egyptian armies. The war had a religious sentiment attached to it as it started on Youm e Kippur which was coincidentally falling in the month of Ramadan, a month considered too sacred by the Muslims. Initially the Arab coalition caught the Israelis well, however during later stages Israel too made a comeback and retaliated furiously.
The war continued for only 19 days, after which a ceasefire was declared. The end result of this war was more like a stalemate. Neither of the parties were in a position to declare the victory. However, some analysts believe that this was eventually Israel’s victory because it was still a newly established state and it demonstrated to the world that it was not that invincible as the Arabs considered it.
What is happening in Palestine : The situation as of today
In the light of what we discussed above, the issue is still unresolved. The problem persists about not only the future of occupied territories and that of Jerusalem, but the return of the forcefully displaced Palestinians.
The recent events for which Palestine is in news began with the start of Jewish holidays of Sukkot. A few days after the start of the holidays for the same, Jewish settlers stormed the compound of Al Aqsa Mosque. This hurt the sentiments of Muslims all around the world and Hammas, a freedom fighter organization of Palestine issued a warning to Israelis. Following that warning, they launched a barrage of rockets on Israel on 7th October.
The situation has been hot and tense since then. Israel has bombed refugee camps and settlements as well as the Children’s hospitals indiscriminately. Palestine has suffered more than 10,000 casualties as a result of Israeli strikes. Israel on the other hand has lost some 300 soldiers of Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
Despite the concerns of the global community about the loss of lives in this recent conflict, the casualties have only increased with every day passing by.
