Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a part of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict, is an ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a simple two-sided conflict with all Israelis (or even all Israeli Jews) sharing one point of view and all Palestinians another. In both communities, some individuals and groups advocate total territorial removal of the other community, some advocate a two-state solution, and some advocate a binational solution of a single secular state encompassing present-day Israel, the Gaza strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Since the Oslo Accords, the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been officially committed to an eventual two-state solution. The main unresolved issues between these two bodies are:

• The status and future of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem which comprise the areas for the proposed State of Palestine.
• Israeli security.
• Palestinian security.
• The nature of a future Palestinian state.
• The fate of the Palestinian refugees.
• The settlement policies of Israel, and the ultimate fate of settlements.
• Sovereignty over Jerusalem's holy sites, including the Temple Mount and Western (Wailing) Wall complex.

The refugee issue arose as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The issue of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem arose as a result of the Six-Day War in 1967.

There has been both literal prolonged violent conflict, with various levels of intensity and the underlying conflict of ideas, goals and principles. On both sides, there have at various times been parties who differ in the degree to which they advocate or use the violent tactics, active non-violence, etc. There are people who sympathize with the goals of one or the other side, without necessarily embracing the tactics that have been used on behalf of those goals; further, there are those who embrace at least some of the goals of both sides. And to refer to "both" sides is, itself, a simplification: Fatah and Hamas are far from agreement over goals for the Palestinians; the same could be said for the various Israeli political parties, even if discussion is limited to the Jewish Israeli parties.

Those qualifications mean that any rapid summary of the nature of the conflict is bound to be very partial. That said, those who advocate violent Palestinian resistance generally justify that as legitimate resistance to an illegitimate Israeli military occupation of Palestine supported by military and diplomatic assistance from the U.S. Many tend to view the armed Palestinian resistance within the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a right granted by the Geneva conventions and the United Nations Charter, and some extend this view to justify attacks, frequently against civilians, within Israel proper.

PLO	Fatah	Hamas	PIJ
The emblems of major Palestinian organizations include a map of present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Significant populations of Palestinians and Israelis alike do claim a right to the entire region).

Conversely, those sympathetic to Israeli military action and other Israeli measures against the Palestinians tend to view these actions as legitimate Israeli self-defense against a campaign of terrorism perpetrated by Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and others, and supported by other states in the region and by the majority of the Palestinians, at least those Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens. Many tend to believe that the control of part or all of the territory is necessary for the security of Israel. This sharp contrast of views on the legitimacy of the actions of each party to the conflict has been a key obstacle to resolution.

One current peace proposal is the Road map for peace presented by the Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States on September 17, 2002. Israel has also accepted the road map but with 14 "reservations". Israel is currently implementing a controversial disengagement plan proposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. According to plans submitted to the United States, Israel has stated that it will remove its entire "permanent ... civilian and military presence" in the Gaza Strip, (namely 21 Jewish settlements there, and four in the West Bank), but will "supervise and guard the external envelope on land, will maintain exclusive control in the air space of Gaza, and will continue to conduct military activities in the sea space of the Gaza Strip." The Israeli government argues that "as a result, there will be no basis for the claim that the Gaza Strip is occupied territory", while others argue that, should the disengagement happen, the only effect would be that Israel "would be permitted to complete the wall [that is, the Israeli West Bank Barrier] and to maintain the situation in the West Bank as is" [1] [2].

With the unilateral disengagement plan, the Israeli government's stated intent is to allow Palestinians to create a homeland with minimal Israeli interference while extricating Israel from a situation it believes to be too costly and strategically unsound to maintain over the long run. Many Israelis, including a significant portion of Sharon's own Likud Party are worried that the lack of Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip will lead to an increase in Rocket launching activity towards Israeli towns around Gaza. A specific concern is that Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or the PFLP may emerge from the power vacuum of a post-disengagement Gaza as the political powers in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank to become part of a (preferably contiguous) future state. Gaza has been forcibly evacuated of all Jewish settlers due to the withdrawal ordered by Ariel Sharon, however the future of the West Bank, comprising a large chunk of land in Israel, historical Judaea, is yet to be determined. Israel currently plans on expanding existing large West Bank settlement blocs, and maintains the current impasse in the peace process —negotiations toward a permanent peace treaty featuring a two-state solution— cannot be restarted until the Palestinian government dismantles terrorist groups.

History

See History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for an account of events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beginning in the 1880s and continuing to present day.

Ethnicity

• Arab -- Jew -- Palestinian

Religion

• Islam -- Judaism -- Christianity

Geography

• Palestine (Land of Israel)
• Geography of Israel
• West Bank (Judea and Samaria)
• Gaza Strip

Places

• Jerusalem -- Ma'alot -- Hebron -- Bethlehem -- Church of the Nativity -- Gaza City -- Jenin -- Jericho

History

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline

Until 1949

• Balfour Declaration 1917
• 1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate
• British Mandate of Palestine
• 1947 UN Partition Plan
• Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948
• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• 1949 Armistice Agreements
• Palestinian exodus

1949-1967

• 1956 Suez War
• 1967 Six Day War
• Khartoum Resolution
• Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt
• Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan

1967-1993

• 1970 War of Attrition
• 1973 Yom Kippur War
• 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel
• 1982 Lebanon War
• 1990/1 Gulf War
• 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel
• first Intifada

1993-present

• al-Aqsa Intifada
• Camp David 2000 Summit between Palestinians and Israel
• Road map for peace
• Violence against Israelis
• Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
• Jabalia Offensive in the fall of 2004

Ideology and ideas

• Zionism
• Pan-Arabism
• Jewish state
• Proposals for a Palestinian state

Media coverage

• New Historians
• Promises, an Oscar-nominated documentary
• Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Charles Enderlin
• Muhammed al-Dura

Elements of the conflict

• Partial list of Palestinian terrorist acts
• Palestinian refugees
• Israeli settlements
• Israeli West Bank barrier
• Child suicide bomber
• Al-Aqsa Intifada
• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Peace Process in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Organizations and armed forces

• Israel Defense Forces
• Anti-Israel Movements
• Fatah
• Hamas
• Hezbollah
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
• Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
• Palestinian Authority
• Palestine Liberation Organization
• Palestinian Islamic Jihad

People

Israeli

• David Ben-Gurion -- Menachem Begin -- Shimon Peres -- Yitzhak Rabin -- Ariel Sharon -- Chaim Weizmann

Palestinian

• Mahmoud Abbas -- Hanan Ashrawi -- Yasser Arafat -- Marwan Barghouti -- Haj Amin Al-Husseini -- Dalal Mughrabi -- Nabil Shaath -- Ahmed Shukairy -- Sheikh Ahmed Yassin -- Ahmed Qurei -- Muhammed al-Dura

Others

• King Hussein -- Anwar Sadat -- Colin Powell -- Anthony Zinni

Related conflicts

• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Middle East conflicts

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