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THE Palestinian-Israeli conflict dominates the Western world’s headlines if not every day, certainly every week partly because this conflict has geopolitical implications for the entire Middle East region and is a neuralgic point in the region, as Freda Ghitis would say. This media dominance also results from the fact that the U.S. and its allies have vested interests in gaining hegemonic control over the Middle East. This hegemony over the Middle East refers not only to energy resources as oil and gas, but more importantly, to the Middle East’s hard- line distorted religious orthodoxy threatening international security.
Realisation of these vested interests becomes even more complex each day, as Western powers contend not only with the countries having these energy resources and those promoting an ideology supporting terrorism, but with the entire Middle East region for geopolitical reasons.
And so, the U.S. and its allies in their quest for hegemonic control of the Middle East face three equally interrelated challenges: one, the power play by Iran, Turkey, and Israel to control the Middle East region; two, the Arab Spring’s replacement of the old guards subservient to Western powers; and three, the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Today’s Perspectives addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, where any developments, negative or positive, will have implications for the other two challenges that Western powers face in the Middle East. The Palestinian-Israeli issue is an historic conflict over land that both Israel and Palestine proclaim as theirs. In olden times, Judea was the chosen land for Jews. Subsequently, the Romans took control of Judea and gave it a new name called ‘Palestine’. The Arabs next moved into Palestine and took control away from the Romans.
Later, the Zionist Movement appeared and handed over Palestine to the Israelis. Then the League of Nations, following the Balfour Declaration in 1917, presented Palestine to Great Britain, with the mandate to create a Jewish State. Huge migrations of Jews into Palestine followed.
Unsurprisingly at that time, the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini mobilised Arab resentment and riots against the Jewish people blamed for taking away Arab land, resulting in Britain’s cessation of Jewish immigration into Palestine.
However, following the Holocaust in World War II where 6 million Jews were exterminated by Nazis, international pressures induced Britain to restore Jewish immigration into Palestine. Then in 1947, the UN partitioned Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State. Predictably, Arabs rejected the partition and did not recognise Israel when it proclaimed itself as a State in 1948. Several wars erupted between Arabs and Jews in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. These wars resulted in a huge loss of lands to Arabs in Palestine.
The bottom line is that both Israelis and Arabs have lived side by side in Palestine for about a thousand years. But now, there is some Israeli occupation of Palestinian Arab lands handed over to them by the United Nations in 1947. The Israeli occupation of Arab lands happens largely through housing settlements, and as settlements increase, Israeli occupation increases. Palestinians want their lands restored to the pre-1967 war status.
And more recently with the UN upgrading of Palestine’s status, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to build 3,000 housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This announcement from the Prime Minister’s office came at a time when President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas was planning to visit Gaza to achieve unity between the Fatah and Hamas Palestinian parties.
Apparently, the Israeli Prime Minister’s promise to continue with settlements in Palestine might have been intended to hurt any unity talks between the Palestinian parties because Fatah recognises Israel as an independent State, while Hamas does not, and further, that the Israeli Prime Minister will not have peace talks with a Palestine delegation that includes Hamas. In Netanyahu’s eyes, a divided Palestine is good for Israel’s security. Interestingly, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal wants unity between Hamas and Fatah.
Palestine’s new UN upgraded status implies that peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians may now be irrelevant, as not much was achieved since they commenced in the 1990s. In fact, Barry Rubin (2012) argues in MERIA that the idea of a winning peace process is now inapplicable.
Nonetheless, the peace process can continue, so long as Israel and the U.S. include Gaza, especially as the Israel-Gaza war has again placed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the world’s centre stage. And the unity talks between Fatah and Hamas, Palestine’s new UN upgraded status, and Netanyahu’s promise to build more housing units on Arab lands, will strengthen Palestine’s hands in any forthcoming peace process.
