What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting?
Israel
is the world's only Jewish state located just east of the Mediterranean Sea.
Palestinians the Arab population that hails from the land Israel now controls,
refer to the territory as Palestine and want to establish a state by that name
on all or part of the same land. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over who
gets what land and how it’s controlled. Though both Jews and Arab Muslims date
their claims to the land back a couple thousand years.
The
current political conflict began in the early 20th century. Jews fleeing
persecution in Europe wanted to establish a national homeland in what was then
an Arab and Muslim majority territory in the British Empire. The Arabs
resisted, seeing the land as rightfully theirs. An early United Nations plan to
give each group part of the land failed and Israel and the surrounding Arab
nations fought several wars over the territory. Today's lines largely reflect
the outcomes of two of these wars, one waged in 1948 and another in 1967.The
1967 war is particularly important for today's conflict, as it left Israel in
control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Since
1967, Israel has returned Sinai to Egypt. Today, the West Bank is nominally
controlled by the Palestinian Authority and is under Israeli occupation. They
made communities in the West Bank that effectively deny the land to
Palestinians, Israeli troops and enforce Israeli security restrictions on
Palestinian movement. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist fundamentalist
party and is under Israeli blockade but not ground troop occupation. The two
Palestinian groups may have reconciled on April 23rd,
2007 creating one shared Palestinian government for the first time. The peace
negotiations fell apart, In July and August 2014, the conflict escalated to a
full-on war between Israel and Hamas. The primary approach to solving the
conflict today is so-called "two-state solution" that would establish
Palestine as an independent state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, leaving
the rest of the land to Israel. The alternative to a two-state solution is a
"one-state solution," wherein all of the land becomes either one big
Israel or one big Palestine.
What is Gaza?
Gaza is a densely
populated strip of land that is mostly surrounded by Israel and peopled almost
exclusively by Palestinians. Israel used to have a military presence, but
withdrew unilaterally in 2005. It's currently under Israeli blockade. The
rocket fire that hit Israel from there since its pullback has strengthened
Israeli hawks' political position.
Gaza is governed by
the Islamist group Hamas which formed in 1987 as a militant
"resistance" group against Israel and won political power in a 2006
U.S.-based election. Hamas takeover of Gaza prompted an Israeli blockade of the
flow of commercial goods into Gaza on the grounds that Hamas could use those
goods to make weapon to be used against Israel. Israel has eased the blockade
over time, but the cut-off of basic supplies like fuel still does significant
humanitarian harm by cutting off access to electricity, food, and medicine.
Israel has launched a number of military operations in Gaza, most recently a
2008 air strike campaign that culminated in a ground invasion and a series of
air strikes again in 2012.
What is Hamas?
Hamas is a
Palestinian Islamist political organization and militant group that has waged
war on Israel since its 1987 founding, most through suicide bombings and rocket
attacks. It seeks to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. It also governs
Gaza independently of the Palestinian Authority. Though Hamas does not
recognize Israel's legitimacy, in 2011 it committed to a Palestinian state in
Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas led the charge in using suicide bombings against
Israel in the 1990s and 2000s, though in recent years it has shifted to rockets
and mortars as its weapons of choice. In 2006, Hamas won a slight majority of
the seats in the Palestinian Authority legislative elections. But Hamas refused
to accept previous deals that the PA had made with Israel, leading it to de
facto secede from the PA and to govern Gaza independently from the West
Bank-based PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). Unity talks between Hamas
and the PLO have broken down repeatedly. However, this may have changed on
April 23rd, when Hamas and the PA agreed to a form a shared government within
five weeks and hold elections in six months.
Why are the US and Israel so friendly?
That's a hugely
controversial question. Though American support for Israel really is massive,
including billions of dollars in aid and reliable diplomatic backing experts
disagree sharply on why. Some possibilities include deep support for Israel
among the American public. The countries were not nearly so close in Israel's
first decades. President Eisenhower was particularly hostile to Israel during
the 1956 Suez War, which Israel, the U.K. and France fought against Egypt. As
the Cold War dragged on, the US came to view Israel as a key buffer against
Soviet influence in the Middle East and supported it accordingly. The
American-Israeli alliance didn't really cement until around 1973, when American
aid helped save Israel from a surprise Arab invasion. Since
How do the current
Israeli and Palestinian governments approach the conflict?
Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't really trust the Israeli government, which is
currently led by a right-wing coalition. Settlement expansion is one of the
main reasons; settlement construction has reached a seven year high under
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Abbas sees rapid
expansion today as strong evidence that Israel is attempting to make a
Palestinian state impossible. While Netanyahu did freeze settlement expansion
everywhere but Jerusalem for 10 months starting in November 2009, Palestinians
wanted a total freeze, and so only sat down to talk in the 9th month (the talks
went nowhere).Netanyahu was a long-time critic of a peace deal with the
Palestinians convictions. He's the first leader of Likud, Israel's major
right-wing party, to endorse a two state solution while in power - which he did
under heavy American pressure in 2009. Previously, Israel had been concerned
Fatah and couldn't implement any peace agreement in Gaza. If the April 23rd
agreement to form a national government and hold new elections actually sticks,
that problem will disappear. Israel does not trust Hamas, which it sees as
dedicated to Israel's destruction, so the Israeli leadership is doubtfully that
any government including Hamas would ever really commit to a real peace deal
with Israel. So Israel has suspended peace talks, and won't reopen them with
any Palestinian government backed by Hamas. Netanyahu also wants the Palestinian
government to recognize Israel not merely politically, as it already does, but
as "the nation-state of the Jewish people." This is a relatively
unusual position for an Israeli government to take and Abbas is refusing to
consider it.
Why did Israel and Hamas go to war in July 2014?
The on-going
violence between Israel and Gaza-based militant groups including Hamas, which
has killed 1,777 Palestinians and 68 Israelis, was sparked by the June 10
murder of three young Israeli students. Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shard, and Naftali
Frenkel disappeared while in the West Bank, where they were studying at a
yeshiva. Israel conducted a massive manhunt in the Palestinian territory,
reporting they were kidnaped by members of Hamas. The boys were found dead on
June 30th, apparently executed. Subsequent reporting suggests that Israel
already knew they were dead when the search began and used the manhunt as a
cover for arresting a large number of Hamas operatives as a response to the
killings. Israel also responded to the deaths with a limited bombing campaign
in Gaza against Hamas targets there, beginning the night of the boys were
found. Palestinian militant groups (not Hamas) in Gaza fired rockets into
Israel. Then, on July 2, a 16-year-old Palestinian named Muhammad Abu Khdeir
was found dead near his Jerusalem home, apparently burned to death. Police
arrested six Israelis for Khdeir's murder, telling reporters that the killing
has been "nationalistic." In simpler terms, that it was a revenge killing
by Jewish extremists for the murders of the three.
