What do you think of this essay on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I believe that the Israelis and Palestinians will always have conflict and never understand that peace can be achieved through understanding and not violence. Due to their human geography like religion, culture, and territories that they think are holy. My view of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict mostly comes from their religion differences such as being Jewish and being Muslim and the ownership of territories that each religion thinks that they have been promised, also each religion wanting to have ownership of holy sites that are on this land. These holy sites have substantial meaning in both religions which causes conflict of territories. In this essay I will be focusing on the human geography like religion, territories, and culture. I also will be discussing different ways I have found that might possibly stop this conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The next few paragraphs will be confined to the territory aspect of this conflict. The original ownership and control over Jerusalem are hard to determine due to the presence of holy sites for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. During the 1948 war, about 750,000 Palestinians and 856,000 Jews fled or were expelled from the Eretz Yisrael, a British mandate area, that had become Israel or were forced to give up their property. After the war, some Palestinians who lived in refuge camps that were located in West Bank, tried to return but were declared infiltrators and deported. A year later in 1949, Israel offered to allow some members of families who had been separated during the war to return home. West Bank is divided into areas A, B, and C. Area A has Palestinian government and control. Area B has Palestinian government and Israeli control. Area C has Israeli government and control.
Israel had full control over the Gaza Strip after the 1967 but had withdrawn from it in 2005. You may ask why Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Israel put blockages around Gaza’s borders as a security measure to protect Israelis from rocket’s fired by Hamas and to prevent essential items such as food, medicine and building equipment from entering Gaza. “There are four border crossings through the barrier. All goods bound for Gaza through Israel must pass through one of these crossings and undergo security inspection before being permitted into Gaza.” (Wikipedia par. 6) Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided that this was the best way for Israel to remove itself from the conflict. “Mr. Sharon endorsed a view Israel's left-wing has argued for years: Being in some parts of the Occupied Territories was more of a security liability than an asset” (csmonitor par.3)
Israel had also taken control over the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank from Jordan. In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula. Since the Six-Day War of 1967, the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel, whereas the eastern third remains under the control of Syria. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the Khartoum Resolution at the 1967 Arab League summit. On 25 March 2019, then- President of the United States proclaimed the recognition by the United States of Golan Heights as part of the State of Israel, making the United States the first country to recognize Israeli rather than Syrian control over the Golan Heights.
“Israel conquered the West Bank during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Soon afterwards, Israeli civilians began moving to the region, initially to areas like Kfar Etzion that had been home to Jewish communities before Israel’s founding in 1948.” (Waxman par. 4) West Bank is still under Israeli control. Each of the different areas of West Bank have a different amount of the territory and population that they take up. Area A has 18% of territory and 55% of population, Area B has 20% of territory, 41% of population and area C has 62% of territory, and 5.8% of the population. Some Israelis support annexing area C only, while others support annexing the whole area West Bank. Israelis say they have many reasons for wanting to annex West Bank. A few reasons are claims based on the notion of historic rights to this as a homeland as affirmed in the Balfour Declaration, internal and external security grounds, and the deep symbolic value for Jews of the area occupied. The Israelis and Palestinians are not able to see that violence over territory differences have done nothing but cause this conflict to last longer than it must and caused thousands of men, women, and children to be hurt or killed. Also due to this places like schools, homes and holy sites are being destroyed.
i will post the next part