By Aviral Bhardwaj
(Guest Writer)
I would like to warn you before you get deep into this read. I will admit that there are a lot of legal doctrines and citations from multiple international treaties. I have tried my best to explain most of the terms in this article, but I would like to apologise in advance for any complications or any terms that I haven’t explained completely.
The Conflict
Palestine and Israel are ‘countries’ to the common eye but to be defined as a country is actually quite a complicated process. For a territory to be recognised as a country it has to be recognised by the other countries in the international forum as a ‘country’. That sounds quite easy but it, in reality, is an exceptionally hard goal to achieve. I cannot place a flag on my terrace and claim my house to be a sovereign territory- there are legal processes that come under the ‘Doctrine of Recognition’. The theory that is applicable in this case is the Theory of Acceptance. In this theory, a ‘state’ that declares itself to be a ‘state’ has to be accepted as a ‘state’ from various ‘pre-accepted states’ that already exist in the international forum. The fundamental problem with the Israel-Palestine conflict is that there is no clear consensus on the recognition by the countries in the international forum and especially among themselves.
The conflicts between these two parties is mainly territorial and has been a point of contention for over a hundred years now.
The piece of land that is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west and Jordan on the East has been a war zone on multiple occasions. Israel and Palestine both claim the land and as history suggests, there has been no conclusive solution. The Israeli government that is led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestine Liberation Organization that is led by Mahmoud Abbas have been in constant negotiations on a solution that is mediated by the International Community is unlikely to reach a decisive conclusion with the last 70 years of history as an example and a testimony to my argument.
There is another set of guidelines for the formation of a country which is known as the Montevideo Convention on Statehood of 1933 which has four basic guidelines that dictate the basis and the necessities to form a country that can be recognised by the International Community. The Montevideo Convention on Statehood of 1933 is Jus Cogens but is not binding in nature. Jus Cogens in very basic terms states that these norms are something that have to be followed by a country however it cannot be enforced by a court of law on the country.
The 4 conditions under the Montevideo Convention are-
Permanent Population
Defined Territory
Permanent Government
Capacity to Enter into foreign relations with other countries
For a territory to be considered a country or a state it has to qualify every one of the four conditions. If we take this and apply it to the situation at hand, both the countries do not satisfy all the four conditions, however, an exception has to be made given the rough past and the ongoing conflict.
History
World War I and World War II
The conflict of the land started from the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915, this was an agreement between the Arab leaders and the British that gave the Arab the land and the sovereignty after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As history has it, the relations between Arabs and the Ottoman leaders has been violent as was seen in the Arab Revolt. This was when the Arabs called the Sharifian Army that was led by the Hussein of Arabia along with the Hashemites, who were backed by the British forces that were based out of Egypt and were known as the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. This offensive was successful in terminating the presence of the Ottoman Military from Hejaz and Transjordan.
The above-mentioned map shows the demarcation of territory that was given by the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France to mandate territories in the Middle East and most importantly end the Arab Revolt. This agreement was passed on the 10th of June 1916.
With the end of the Arab Revolt giving mandate control to a considerable amount of land to the British, came the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration was a letter that was written by Lord Arthur Balfour addressed to Walter Rothschild and the Jewish Community that allotted them a ‘national home’ in Palestine with the support of the British Government.
The setting up of the British home in Palestine was important because of the rise in the antisemitic uprisings in the whole of Europe.
The situation and the conflict that existed between Israel and the Arabic countries surrounding the region were resolved using the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement where the terms and the reality of the Balfour Declaration was accepted by the King of Iraq.
One of the most important developments in the story of Palestine and Israel is the migration of the Jews from Europe back to their ‘national home’ back in Israel to escape the antisemitic movements that were propagated by the Nazis. It seemed absolutely necessary to escape this prosecution and hence there was a large influx in the movement of Jews from the entirety of Europe to Israel. Retaliating to this influx of Jews from Europe there was a fatwa(A fatwa is a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority) that spoke about a holy war by the Arabs against the British. The baffling facts remained that the deal between Amin al-Husayni and Adolf Hitler promised the elimination of Jews from the national home of Palestine, what this could lead to possible genocide which would lead to the violation to several laws under the Geneva Convention.
Post-World War II
With the end of the second world war, there was the formation of the United Nations and within the first two years of the operation of the United Nations, there was the formation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine which was mentioned in the Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly in accordance to article 10 of the United Nations charter that allows the formation of bodies that are recommendatory in nature.
The image that is mentioned above shows a green striped patch that is marked which was the proposed area where Palestine would exist and the rest of the area within the blue borders would be the territory of Israel. This was a part of the bipartisan plan that was recommended under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1818 in the year 1947 before the Arab-Israeli war of 1947. Under the given resolution there was the Mention of an International City of Jerusalem under Chapter 13 of the United Nations Charter. Chapter 13 of the United Nations charter talks about a ‘Trusteeship Council’ and under this chapter the Articles 87 talk about the management of such administered sites under the Trusteeship Council. However, the recommendations under Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly were not accepted by either party. The Two-State solution was simply unacceptable. The Corpus Separatum for Jerusalem or the international city of Jerusalem which is not a part of either Palestine or Israel is seen as the city that is surrounded within the red borders on the map that is given below.
The map that is mentioned represents the actual split of the two parties. The blue patches show the actual space that was received by the Palestine Colonization Association(PICA) and the rest of the territory that is within the red borders shows the territories that were obtained by the Jewish National Fund.
So when all of these negotiations existed, the party of Israel in the Middle East was under the control of the British Mandate and was set to expire on the 15th of May 1948. A day before the expiration of the British Mandate, Ben Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish State called the Eretz-Israel which came to be known as the State of Israel. He based off the announcement and the Declaration of Independence as their inherent right which was strengthened by the Resolution of the United Nations, along with the affiliation to the United Nations, Israel also promised the safeguard of all the Holy Places and to stay faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.
Clearly unhappy with the Declaration of Independence by the Israelis, the Arabs would declare war on Israel.
The four countries of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Transjordan led an intervention in the area that was earlier deemed to be the British Mandate which was then followed by the units that were led by the country of Lebanon. The Arab League is an organization that consists of the Arabic countries that was formed in the year 1948. So to justify the intervention of its members, in a cablegram to the Secretary General of the United Nations, The Arab League cited reasons being ‘to restore law and check further bloodshed’. The war was won by the Israeli forces when they annexed territories further than the original stipulated land into the borders of the proposed Palestinian Arab State. However, the war ended with an Armistice Agreement. An armistice agreement is an agreement where the various parties that are at war mutually decide to maintain a ceasefire and temporarily stop the war.
This map represents the distribution of territories and the split according to the 1949 Armistice Agreements which were also known as the 1949 Green Line Borders. According to the Green Line Agreements of 1949, the territories of the West Bank would be under the control of Transjordan and the Gaza Strip which is the narrow strip of land on the West would become a part of Egypt. There was a very important factor of the Corpus Separatum- Jerusalem. The city was the bone of contention and was claimed by the followers of both Islam and Christianity. East Jerusalem, the one bordering the West Bank went to the control of Transjordan and West Jerusalem was under the control of Israel.
Events leading to the Six-Day War and the Six-Day war
From the year of 1950 to the year 1967, there was constant violence in the region, for obvious reasons. The causes of this were firstly, the terms of the Armistice were not strong enough and were not a comprehensive issue. Secondly, the number of displaced Palestinian Arabs in the neighbouring countries were around 900,000 and a lot of them were desperate to return back to their home land from where they were forced to flee. Thirdly, sponsored attacks. There were units in Israel called the ‘Fedayeen’. The Palestinian Fedayeen was a guerrilla group that would be called as ‘Freedom Fighters’ if you supported Palestine and terrorists if you believed in ‘Israel’.
There have been reports that have proved that a lot of the Fedayeen attacks in the territory of Palestine were funded by Egypt and funded out of the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian Expulsion from the United Nations Emergency Force(UNEF) was attributed to the point of concern that they were funding the ‘terrorist’ organisation ‘Fedayeen’ to cause violence in the region. Seeing the developments around, Israel was very threatened by the activities that were taking place surrounding them. The amassing of troops led to a pre-emptive strike. A pre-emptive strike is an offensive that is led when there is a prediction of a larger, more threatening attack. The pre-emptive strike was known as the six-day war where the Israeli Forces entered the territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Gaza Strip which was under the control of the Egyptians and West Bank was under the control of Transjordan. One of the major take-backs from the intervention was the re-annexation of East Jerusalem.
Israel was formed on the basis of the Balfour Declaration which allowed the formation of a Jewish state however the situation of the refugee crisis had to be addressed. The United Nations Security Council under Resolution 242 addressed the settlement of the refugees under the Palestinian Refugee Crisis and addressed as to the permission and the granting of permanent resident status to those who were already settled in East Jerusalem.
However, among this chaos that lasted for over 17 years led to the formation of an organization that would play a major role in the future of Israel and Palestine. In the year 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) was established which was based off the Palestine Liberation Organization Charter which believed in arm struggle to form a Palestinian State within the borders of the British Mandate before the war of 1948. It is the belief of the PLO to remove the presence of the Zionists from Palestine along with the principles of Right to Return and the Right to Self Determination of the Palestinians. Right to Return in very simple words seeks to provide citizenship to those people who have origins leading back to a certain region based on ancestry. The Right to Self Determination is an important principle that is Jus Cogens. According to the Right to Self Determination people have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and their International Political Status with no interference from the outside.
The Peace Process
In the year 1993, the Palestinian Liberation Organization began secret negotiations in Norway, and in a letter to Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel accepted the Right to Exist of Israel and renounced any form of terrorism. These terms were signed in a Declaration of Principles in Washington D.C by the Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that was seated in Oslo, Norway. The agreement was a major breakthrough and achieved something that existed beyond the Madrid Framework. The Madrid Framework is a set of peace negotiations that were carried out by Israel following the Gulf War of 1991.
The negotiations have taken place between Israel-Palestine, Israel-Jordan, Israel-Syria, Israel-Lebanon, the Madrid Framework in essence and in layman's terms were a set of bilateral talks sponsored by the Government of Spain along with the United States and the former USSR.
This map shows the distribution of land and the ‘two-state’ solution that was agreed to in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. The two parties were obligated to agree to a two-state solution, as the framework required to achieve the one-state solution was impossible. So according to the proposed two-state solution the patches that have been highlighted in green are the ones that belong to Palestine and are settlements for the Palestinian citizens. The green patches in the West Bank are not uniform however the green in the Gaza Strip is uniform.
The later period of the Oslo discussions and the Oslo Accords were chaotic, to say the least. They were filled with violence. From offensives that were initiated by both the sides which saw reactions and a constant wave of imbalance and instability in the region. To the signing of the Hebron Protocol of 1997 which would allow the Israeli government to annex a certain part of the Hebron Region which resulted in the redeployment of troops in the region. The lack of any strides made towards peace rendered no fruit. There were memorandums like the Wye River Memorandum that were basically in place to enforce an interim agreement which was the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which is also known as the Oslo II accord.
The peace summits and the instrument of documentation and negotiations failed yet again at Camp David in the year 2000 when Palestine disagreed with the clauses and the terms of the ‘Final Status Agreement’ that was put together by Israel along with the United States. Yasser Arafat the Palestinian leader accepted none of the clauses of the agreement and had no counter-offer.
Situation after the failure of the Peace Processes
After the failure of Camp David, there was a period of intensified violence in the region. This marked the period of ‘Aqsa Initifida’ which was considered to be a war of liberation. The Israelis carried out selective assassinations against certain members of Hamas, initially, this was against the active militants but they received global attention when they had murdered Sheikh Ahmad Yassin who was a leader of Hamas.
The leadership of Israel under Ariel Sharon refused to work with any sort of Peace Summits with Palestine under the aspect of the Oslo Peace Accords and the Taba Summit. However, the Arab countries had initiated a peace process with Israel in the Beirut Summit of 2002. The Beirut Summit of 2002 was a summit of the Arab League where the members of the Arab League agreed to normalize their relations and to end all conflict if the Israeli side agreed to withdraw from Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and West Bank, they were also willing to work under the clauses of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
The Policies in place
Settlement
Israel has always possessed a strong policy to grow its settlement at the detrimental cost of the Palestinian Settlements, this has been criticized by the European Union. The acts are clearly against the beliefs and the ideals of a two-state policy solution.
The ‘settler policy’ of Israel along with the continued settlement construction have been factors that have led to the disruption of negotiation talks. Settler Violence is the violence that is referred to the Jewish acts of violence against the Palestinians and the Israeli Defence Forces(IDF), this is prevalent in the West Bank region. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs the annual rates of these attacks has increased at a rate of four times between the years 2006 and 2014.
Police
There have been reports published by Amnesty International between the year 2011-2013 that established the reckless use of violence by the Israeli Military Police in the West Bank, and what has been staggering is the fact that among these instances of violence only one IDF soldier had been convicted. His punishment for killing an individual trying to enter Israel was a 5-month suspension alongside a 1-year sentence. There are clear motives by the government in the mobilisation of forces to use undiplomatic methods to access control over the entire region.
International Recognition of Palestine
The state of Palestine that is governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization declared its independence on the 15th of November in 1988 in a session in exile in Algiers which is the capital of Algeria, however, here comes the part of the recognition that I had mentioned earlier. There are only 138 member states of the United Nations who have recognized Palestine to be a recognized country alongside two non-member states. There has been progress in its induction to the United Nations off late with it being declared as a non-member state which is more progress that has been made since the existence of the United Nations.
Under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236, the United Nations recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and national independence and sovereignty. The General Assembly has always been favourable of granting a membership status to Palestine however, it has been blocked by the Security Council.
The Verdict
Considering all the evidence and facts that have been presented over the course of the article, I would urge you to think. Think long and think clear. On one side you have a party that lays claim to a land that was marked by its ancestors thousands of years ago. On the other hand, you have a party that claims based on its settlements which were forcefully terminated by agreements made by Britain over a hundred years back.
Palestinian Arabs have been suppressed for far too long, their presence has been reduced in their own land where they were settled before the arrival of the Zionists. Those who once stood there in peace at the fall of the Ottoman Empire had no choice but to accommodate their territory as a ‘National Home’ to the Jews. When you have countries neighbouring who believe in the same ideologies as the people of Palestinian Arabs and are forced to share borders and make space for a country that is of a completely different opinion and belief.
History has been unkind to the people of Palestine which has led to the formation of extremist groups like the Hamas and the Fedayeen. Nationalists who believe in the liberation of their country have been reduced to the status of ‘terrorists’, they face the wrath of the IDF and the police who get away without any consequences for their actions. The reality is bitter and is something that has haunted the citizens of Palestine for years. These are the people whose presence has been reduced to mere patches in the West Bank.
These are the people who are denied access to basic human rights like shelter and healthcare without any support from large capitalist nations like the United States. A country like Palestine is the ideal example for a country that has been left unheard. Any peaceful negotiation fails between these two countries because the mediator is a nation that does not believe and acknowledge the presence of Palestine on the world map. In a supposed peace summit like that of ‘Camp David’ in 2000, it is the country whose voice was hushed when it was offered a deal by the United States, a country that denies the access of Palestine to being heard by blocking its petition to achieve the status of a full Member state of the United Nations General Assembly.
Dear Reader,
I urge you to embrace my perspective and see the situation from my eye, it may be different from yours but that is what makes us different. Please do pay attention to the details and the facts and then develop your side to the story. If you have made till here I am immensely proud of you.
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