The Beginning of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

The beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian fighting Sebastien Steigmeier ESL071 Professor Waldrop April 23, 2011 Everybody saw it on television, in the stark nakedspaper or maybe heard it on the radio, the last carbon held many different conflicts in Gaza Strip. Basically, tidy sum realise that Israel and Palestine ar fighting for that overprotect, each genius pretending that they deserve it. A survey, do on CBU students, shows that most of them dont know anything about the conflict. The solo ones who k unfermented a low bit about it were sure that Israel wanted the land to build a Judaic state after(prenominal) the tragedy of the arna struggle II.I asked a few students some forelands before doing my survey to get a basic idea of their knowledge. Then I realized that I would probably have to ask different questions considering their lack of knowledge on the topic. Out of the nine students taking cartridge holder to answer my questions, six had no idea what to answer and ii said that Israel wanted the land as compensation after the Holocaust. Lets take a timbre at the history, and consider facts that will help us understanding what are the reasons why Zionists (its important not to confuse Zionists and Jews) and Palestinian Arabs are fighting.Emerging a long time ago, this idea of having a land to express Judaic people unitedly came out in 1897. From August 29 to August 31 of that year, occurred in Basel, Switzerland (I swear I didnt know that) the start Zionist Congress, held by the man sweet Zionist Organization. Theodor Herzl who was named as the frontmost President and who withal was the author of Der Judenstaat (the Jewish State) was the initiator of that congress. The Zionist Congress travelled through many different European cities, and was held each two old age from 1897 to 1946, except during the two World Wars.As an answer to the question why do Zionists want to take that land? most people answer that they want a land beca use they want to build a Jewish State to stay together in calm after the Holocaust. History proves them wrong by show that Zionists are punctuateing to eliminate that land for more(prenominal) than a century, and the Holocaust happened altogether seventy years ago. Even though Arabs were killed by Zionists attacks during the 1940s, in 1947, the joined Nations resolved to irrupt the land and to give half of it to the Jews.We can say that the seven millions of Jews who were killed during the World War II didnt die for nothing, as compassion do the United Nations allow them to steal half of a country. Sure, what happened during the Holocaust was terrible, yet I dont think that Zionists should use it to claim their land. thither is no land on earth that belongs to a religious group. A lot of religious groups are gathered together in the equivalent area which is fine, but no religious group tries to call for an separate country for a religion.What would you think if all the atheist Mexicans come together and say We are going to take the Southern California and muddle it a Atheist State It makes no sense. But the United Nations resolute to suit with the Zionists and gave them a part of the Arab Palestinian grease. This was called the partition plan and was voted by the United Nations General convocation on November 29, 1947. Palestinian Arabs felt profaned of course, and the day after, on November 30th they reacted violently. It led to what experts call The Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.The Civil War lasted until may 14, 1948 with the Jewish victory. On that day, Israel declared its independence. The British army, who was supposed to maintain order in Palestine, was preparing its withdrawal and didnt in truth have a finger in the pie. great(p)-Britains mandate over the Palestinian territory was expiring on may 15 Israel declared its independence on May 14 because May 15 was Shabbat, as the story says. The day after, other important strugg le started, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War also known as the War of independence or the War of Liberation.With Israel declaring its independence, the Arab neighbors of the State of Israel started to invade on May 15, showing their disagreement with the decisions that were made by the United Nations. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War happened in tether phases, each phase being separated by some armistice agreement. As the Soviet Union, Iran and the United States recognized Israel as a throw in State, the League of Arab States sent a permitter to the United Nations Secretary General, to tickle pink its idea of building what they called the United State of Palestine instead of dissever the country in a Jewish and Arab two states country.That letter, also known as the Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Folke Bernadotte, contained what was at that time a great idea, and maybe a good opportunity to try to solve the conundrum. Basically, they wanted to establish a single and democratically rule state. This cablegram contained ten points that were asked to be presented in front of the General assemblage and the Security Council.Each point was reminding facts and history, to explain how that territory belonged to Arabs, but also points that showed how Arabs were shit to share it in a democratic way with the Jews living in the same area. The Israelis said that the plan was not even considerable because Jews were a majority in the areas that were given to the Jewish State. At that time, China back up the Arabs, while the United States, Iran and the Soviet Union considered that the Arabs were entering the Israeli territory illegally.Egypt, who was on the Arabs side of course enter the conflict by onslaught Tel-Aviv in response to previous provocation. The whole all around Arab serviceman followed, and Israel was attacked almost simultaneously by Lebanese, Iraqi, Egyptian and Syrian troops. But as Israel was a freshly new realised state, Jews from all around the realism were joining, making the average number of immigrant reaching 10,300 by month That was truly helpful to Israel who could increase its host forces amazingly.By the day of the declaration of Independence, the Israeli specialism was just above 29,000. At the end of the year, on December 30, the host forces counted more than 108,000 soldiers. Israel increased in number, but also found shipway to get some more soldiery equipment such as planes, weapons and arm vehicles. The war was on twain(prenominal) sides were bombing and fighting each other. The conflict lasted for a little bit more than three weeks. The United Nations called for a truce on May 29, but both sides kept on fighting till June 11.That truce lasted for 28 days and was ending the first phase of the 1948 war. The ceasefire was overviewed by military officers from different countries, such as France, Belgium, United States or Sweden, all picked by the United Nations. This ceasefire had no other mark than just getting ready to fight once more for both sides. The Arabs apply it to reinforce their positions with new and fresh soldiers while the Israeli were buying new weapons from Czechoslovakia, and sending new soldiers on the field too.There were around 30,000 Israeli soldiers when the truce was announced and a little bit more than 65,000 when the truce ended. shut away during the truce, Folke Bernadotte was trying to find a way to settle the land politically. He was facing what he described as his obstacles the Arab worlds continued rejection of the existence of a Jewish state, whatever its borders Israels new philosophy, based on its increasing military strength, of ignoring the partition boundaries and subjection what additional territory it could and the emerging Palestinian Arab refugee problem (Morris, Benny. 948 A History of the First Arab-Israeli War) Bernadotte also presented his idea of a new plan of pa rtition as following, that a union be established between the two sovereign states of Israel and Jordan (which now included the West Bank) that the Negev, or part of it, be included in the Arab state and that Western Galilee, or part of it, be included in Israel that the whole of capital of Israel be part of the Arab state, with the Jewish areas enjoying municipal autonomy and that Lydda Airport and Haifa be part with portspresumably free of Israeli or Arab sovereignty (same source).Israel didnt agree with that plan because they wanted Jerusalem, but they agreed to lengthen the truce for one more month. The Arabs rejected both the plan and the truce and on July 8 Egypt bombed Negba, which was an Israeli position. (Alfred A. Knopf. A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. New York. 1976. p. 330. ) This attack on the Israeli territory launched the second phase of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The second phase lasted further ten days but it was sufficient for the Israel i soldiers to perform a lot of operations, with the most famous one, Operation Danny.It had for goal to secure two of the most important cities (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv) and also the roads linking both those cities. The Jewish military forces launched a few other operations during those ten days subdue more territory and more dominance. The United Nations succeeded in calling another truce on July 18, which led to an almost two months break. Bernadotte again proposed a new partition plan on September 16 with a fair distribution of the territories and the internationalization of Jerusalem.A militant Zionist group, Lehi, was scared that the Jewish Government would accept the plan so they assassinated Bernadotte in Jerusalem the day after. What Lehi didnt know is that meanwhile they were planning their operation both the Arab and Israeli Government already rejected the plan and were preparing to fight again the neighboring month. This was the end of the second truce. On October 15, t he war started again, and both sides were conquering and losing some territories, and clue cities.The British army, who said that they were agreeing with the United Nations when it was time to make decisions finally realized that Israeli positions were going maybe a little bit too far in Egypt as they were approaching the Suez Canal, which was controlled by neat Britain and pretty useful. On November 20, the Israeli gun for hire down a photo-taking-plane sent by the British. The day after, quartette British routine reconnaissance mission planes were also shot down by the Israeli, killing one of the four pilots and taking the three other ones as hostages.The rest of the squadron realizing that the four planes were not coming back went to look for them and also was attacked by the Israeli. Maybe that if Great Britain had decided earlier to counterbalancely care about what was happening in Gaza Strip before it messed with their personal profits, they wouldnt have lost those pilots . battalion dont care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until they might flake out something. The British army was supposed to maintain order over the Palestinian territory before the war started. As said earlier, they were preparing their withdrawal and they let the Jews attack the Arabs while they still were there.It didnt matter to them because they were leaving. But years later, when they realized that Israeli Forces were about to take control on the Suez Canal, they tacit that if they wanted to keep it they would have to do something (or maybe should have make something by the past). The Jews were not only firing the planes but also finding the planes on the ground after shooting them, removing the usable pieces and then hot the rest to make sure that it would be useless. Tired of being shot down by the Israeli, who were saying that they could not difference them from the Arabs (really? , the British mixed their planes wings to be more recognizable. The Jews started to understand that they were in a unsafe position and that fighting in Egypt was maybe a stupid idea, so they retired from Egypt and stopped fighting. At the end of the year 1948, the United Nations General Assembly voted for the Resolution 194 which said that refugees wishing to return to their domicils and live in rest with their neighbors should be permitted to do so and that compensation should be paid for the proportion of those choosing not to return. (Efraim Karsh, The Palestinians and The castigate of Return Commentary Magazine, May 2001. ) In the beginning of 1949, Israel started sign armistices with Egypt first, and with Lebanon, Jordan and Syria later. But this wasnt fair. According to Leon Carl Brown when the war ended in 1949, Israel was in control of about one-third more territory (some 2,500 real miles) than it had been allocated by the United Nations partition plan (Leon Carl Brown (2004).Diplomacy in the middle(a) East the international relations of regiona l and outside powers. I. B. Tauris. pp. 126) letting the Arabs with only Gaza Strip and the West Bank under control. After having its territory secured, Israel evicted the Arabs that were rest on the new Jewish State. More than 700,000 Arabs were forced to leave their home and were told that they would never be allowed to come back in Israel or in any neighboring Arab country but Transjordan. Those Arabs were known as the Palestinian Refugees. Arab-Israel Conflict. The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York Continuum, 2002. pp. 58-121. ) The conflict never really stopped, and by the Jordanian border there were always some kind of operations launched by both sides. In 1955, Israel killed 37 Egyptian soldiers in Gaza on a raid. After this attack, Egypt started to build a more serious army, by training the volunteers remaining in Gaza and making them Fedayeen (those who sacrifice) forces.Years later, in 1967, Israel attacked the Egyptian force s in Gaza Strip and the Jordanian forces in the West Bank, annexing both the lands and taking control over Jerusalem. This conflict is known as the Six-Day War. To summarise quickly as if receiving half of a land was not enough, Israel started a conflict with the real owners, after having more than what they should have got, they fight again because they want it entirely. What else could they do to mock the Arabs a little bit more? They named the freshly acquired Jerusalem as the Capital city of the Jewish state.When you last aware of what happened since 1897, it is hard not to feel compassion for the Palestinian Arabs who were stolen and killed because Zionists decided that they deserved a land. Of course the Arabs were not white as shock after the conflict began and they also killed some of the Israeli forces soldiers. But with the Great Britain just watching instead of acting as they should have done, I feel like the Arabs did the right thing fighting back. Who could say with unity that they should not have fought back and let the Jews steel their land?In my opinion, no one. References A history of Conflict. BBC News http//news. bbc. co. uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/default. stm Benny, Morris. 1948 A History of the First Arab-Israeli War Karsh, Efraim. (2001). The Palestinians and The Right of Return Commentary Magazine. Knopf, Alfred A. (1976). A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. New York. Kurtzer, Daniel. Lasensky, Scott. Negotiating Arab-Israeli peace American leadership in the Middle East, United States Institute of peacefulness (readable on Google books) Palestine Refugees.The UN agency for Palestine Refugees. http//www. unrwa. org/etemplate. php? id=86 Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Middle East Quarterly (2006) http//www. meforum. org/1886/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine Frequently Asked Questions About Israel. Israel Ministry Of Foreign Affairs. (2001) http//www. mfa. gov. il /MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/11/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20About%20Israelrefugee Green, Peter. ISRAEL and the Palestine right of return. (2003) http//wais. stanford. du/Israel/israel_andthepalestinerightofreturn51603. html Arnett, Peter. Palesinian-Israeli Conflict. http//www. azdema. gov/museum/famousbattles/pdf/Palestinian-Israeli%20Conflict-072809. pdf Survey from April 22, 2011 (see next page) Oral communication, April 22nd, 2011, California Baptist University Have you ever heard of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do you know why Israeli and Palestinian are fighting? Do you know since when they are fighting? If you answered the previous questions, who do you think is right?