What's the Israel-Palestinian conflict about?

The fighting between Israel and Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on Saturday, is the latest in seven decades of war and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that has drawn in outside powers and destabilized the wider Middle East.

ORIGINS OF THE CONFLICT

Israeli demands for security in a region it have long considered hostile are pitted against Palestinian aspirations for their own state in this conflict.

On May 14, 1948, Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the modern State of Israel, providing a refuge for Jews who were escaping persecution and looking for a national home on land they claimed had deep ties to for generations.

Israeli creation is mourned by Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe, that prevented them from achieving their aspirations of becoming a state and led to their dispossession.

Following the war, about 700,000 Palestinians—roughly half of the Arab population of Palestine under British rule—were forced to flee their homes and ended up in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, and Syria.

Israel, a close ally of the United States, disputes the claim that it forced Palestinians from their homes, pointing out that five Arab states attacked it the day after it was established. In 1949, armistice agreements put an end to hostilities, but there was never a formal peace.

Approximately twenty percent of Israel's population are Arab Israelis, who are Palestinians who chose to remain in the country during the war.

MAJOR WARS HAVE BEEN FOUGHT SINCE THEN

Israel started the Six-Day War in 1967 by attacking Egypt and Syria as a preemptive move. Since then, Israel has taken control of Syria's Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Arab East Jerusalem, which it had taken from Jordan.

The Yom Kippur War started in 1973 when Israel's positions along the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights were attacked by Egypt and Syria. In three weeks, Israel forced both armies to retreat.

Following a 10-week siege, thousands of Yasser Arafat-led Palestinian fighters were evacuated by sea when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. When two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah militants in 2006, Israel retaliated, sparking another war in Lebanon.

Israel left Gaza in 2005 after capturing it from Egypt in 1967. However, Gaza experienced significant flare-ups in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021, involving rocket fire from the Palestinian side and Israeli air raids. Occasionally, there were also cross-border incursions by either side.

In addition to wars, there have been two Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas, from 1987 to 1993 and from 2000 to 2005. Waves of Hamas suicide bombings targeting Israelis occurred during the second.

ATTEMPTS TO MAKE PEACE

After thirty years of hostility, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979. Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the Oslo Accords, which established limited Palestinian autonomy, in 1993. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994.

President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Yasser Arafat were unable to come to a final peace agreement at the 2000 Camp David summit.

An Arab plan from 2002 offered Israel normal relations with all Arab nations in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state, a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees, and a complete withdrawal from the territories it had seized in the Middle East War of 1967.

Since the failed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in Washington in 2014, peace efforts have been on hold.

After that, Palestinians stopped doing business with the Trump administration because it rejected decades of American policy by endorsing the two-state solution, a peace plan that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on land that Israel had captured in 1967.

WHERE DO PEACE EFFORTS STAND NOW?

The goal of US President Joe Biden's administration has been to negotiate a "grand bargain" in the Middle East that would normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the country that is in charge of protecting Islam's two holiest sites.

The most recent war poses diplomatic challenges for Riyadh and other Arab nations that have peace agreements with Israel, such as those in the Gulf region adjacent to Saudi Arabia.

MAIN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN ISSUES

The main points of contention are refugees, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem's status, and a two-state solution.

The two-state solution is a plan that would see Israel and the Palestinians share the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the form of a state. A group dedicated to destroying Israel, Hamas rejects the idea of a two-state solution. According to Israel, in order for a Palestinian state to pose no threat to it, it must be demilitarized.

Settlements: Jewish settlements constructed on territory that Israel seized in 1967 are illegal in the majority of nations. Israel disputes this, pointing to biblical and historical connections to the region. One of the most divisive topics between Israel, the Palestinians, and the international community is their ongoing expansion.

Jerusalem: The Palestinians desire for their state's capital to be East Jerusalem, which contains places of worship for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Jerusalem, according to Israel, should continue to be its "indivisible and eternal" capital. International recognition of Israel's claim to the eastern portion of Jerusalem is lacking. In 2018, Trump relocated the American embassy to Jerusalem after recognizing it as Israel's capital, though he did not clarify how much of the disputed city fell under Israeli sovereignty.

5.6 million Palestinians are currently living as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Gaza. They are primarily the descendants of those who fled in 1948. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry estimates that about half of all registered refugees are still stateless, with many of them living in overcrowded camps.

For years, Palestinians have insisted that millions of their descendants as well as refugees should be permitted to return. Israel asserts that any Palestinian refugee resettlement must take place outside of its boundaries.

Conclusion

To conclude, A long-standing conflict characterized by conflicting national aspirations, land disputes, and historical grievances is that between Israel and the Palestinians. It began in the early 1900s and became more intense in 1948 with the founding of the State of Israel. The region has had a turbulent history marked aby major wars and conflicts, such as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Six-Day War, and the ongoing conflicts in Gaza. The conflict is still unresolved after multiple attempts at peace, which makes it a major and persistent source of tension in the Middle East.